Last weekend myself and Palm’s Bren Orton drove down to Broxbourne to the Lee Valley Whitewater Course to help out at the Youth Freestyle event. It was just a little one this time but great fun.
The Youth Freestyle Series actually started the year I was away living in Uganda and I remember that before I left it was noticeable that their were hardly any juniors moving up, then when I came back to the UK a year after the series first season I couldn’t believe the quantity and the quality of the many new freestyle kayakers that had come up. It has now produced some of the most talented Juniors the UK’s ever produced like Bren Orton, James Benn’s, James Weight and Matt Rodgers. Now there are many more new talented juniors coming up and following in their paths. Its really impressive to see, the organisers are doing a fantastic job.
I’ll be helping out coaching, judging and filming at all the events I’m around in the UK for including the Washburn one happening this Saturday!
Below is the video we shot of the Lee Valley event, Edit by Bren, Filming by me & Bren:-
The new whitewater course is incredible, you have two good freestyle spots on the Legacy Course and on the Olympic Course there are 2 or 3 really good spots and many good drops and features for river skills. The course is fast and steep, its really impressive what they’ve managed to create in an artificial environment!
Photos at Lee Valley below taken by:- Doug Blanks
If you’re a young kayaker wanting to get into freestyle, or even just wanting to get into whitewater check out the Youth Freestyle Series and if I’m around don’t hesitate to ask me for advice or help, I’m very happy to help you.
Hi all. We’re back in the UK and work has begun on the film we’re making of this summer’s Norwegian Odyssey.
It’s called Vaniljesaus (Pronounced Vanilla Jesus), and will be released online here on the Palm Blog within the next few weeks. For now here’s a sneak peek….
Get some coaching from top coaching providers including Palm’s Lowri Davies. Whether you want to gain confidence on grade 3/4, perfect your playboating, or simply fancy a guided trip of the scenic lower Tryweryn, these guys will be able to help you out. Sign up when you arrive.
Race in the PALM 8-BALL! This is full contact paddling. Think head-to-head boaterX mixed with Robot Wars. The aim? Get to the bottom of the section first and avoid being taken out by one of many inflatable kayakers in your path…. (Exact time to be confirmed although probably Saturday afternoon)
Leave your car at the takeout and take advantage of free shuttles throughout the weekend. Leaving you with more time on the water! Ace.
Outfit your boat. Do you struggle getting the fit of your Dagger kayak just right? Come see us and we’ll help you pad it out to perfection!
Discover Palm’s 2011 range. We’ll have experts on hand to talk you through the range and our design process.
Bring your bikeand take part in the multisport challenge.
Sounds good! How much is it?
Tickets are £25 and on sale now! Call the centre on 01678 521 083 or pop in to reception to book. Please advise of any dietary requirments at time of booking.
As with last year there will be shuttles from the lower river, camping at Bala Mill on Friday and Saturday night, evening entertainment and meals provided on Friday and Saturday night.
I’m convinced, now show me some shots of last year’s 8-Ball Carnage!
I thought you’d never ask. Here you go.
This all sounds a bit advanced to me, is there anywhere I can go to try paddling for the first time?
Don’t forget, we’re also in the East Midlands this weekend at the Midsummer Great Escape in Belvoir Castle. The perfect opportunity to get on the water for the first time…
In Plattling the site of the 2011 Freestyle Kayak World Champs things are really hotting up, it’s exciting as its now days away from the beginning on nation training and not long till the events prelims kick off!
The levels have risen to almost perfect levels, paddlers from all over the world are flying in with many new boat designs from plastic and carbon and many of the main contenders are honing in their comp rides. Its a pretty fun time to be here. You can feel the anticipation around the camp ground as people come and check out what everyone’s throwing, what boat people are using, what moves are working and what aren’t and of course the downside of all the paddlers coming in….long eddy queues!
For myself I have spent quite a lot of time here already and have a good idea of what my ride will be whatever the level so i’m just choosing the times when the hole is quiet to get on and make sure all my moves are still going how i want and work on some of my harder tricks to see if i can get something extra special to pull out if i need it.
One of the really cool things about this event is how people are really stepping their paddling up to new levels, the Americans generally have been really focusing on linking the moves together as much as possible whereas the Europeans have been focusing on going big and super straight on the big moves and on various trophy moves and the more fluid linked sequences.
The women have also taken a big jump up in their paddling and the top competitiors are throwing many of the high scoring moves in their rides and i expect the top girls scores will place highly in the mens too. Katya’s been getting really good rides lately hitting big Fonix’s, Mc’nasties, loops and Godzilla’s and i think if she keeps her current surge going she stands a great chance.
I mentioned earlier how paddlers are pulling out all stops here to win with many paddlers having spent at least the last half year doing focused training for this event and also about the huge variety of boats been used here, i’ll go into that a bit more;-
We have the Jackson Rockstar and All Stars in both plastic and Carbon being used by the majority of the paddlers, many are saying the perfer the plastic over the carbon addition which is a bit puzzling to me but does seem to be reflected in their paddling. Watch out for Gerd from Spain and of course Ej, Dane, Nick & Emily along with Dustin Urban/ Stephen Wright to go well in this design.
Then their is the new Robson Carbon boat which was designed by Martin Koll mainly for this event and is really strong for Mc’nasties and Fonix’s and looks like it can go very well especially in low water. Many of the German team will use this boat.
And of course the Composite Guigui-Prod Easymix 2008 and the newer 2010 edition. I use the 2008 model and think that its the best design hands down for any hole feature as long as your the right build for it. For the smaller paddlers the 2010 edition looks like a good contendor with a few of the Spainish and french looking good in it.
The Vajda composite boats are also out in force here with Peter Csonka, Bartosz from Poland and Katya all looking good and standing a good chance to do well in them.
Then from Wavesport their is the Project X which is looking like a very hot design but only available in plastic. Look out for Bryan Kirk and Simon Strohemier in these.
Finally their are a few home made and adapted composite boats here such as Joey Hitchens own creation and Seppi Strohmeier’s cut up and adapted Carbon Wavesport CX.
Its going to be really interesting to see which styles and designs come out on top here at Worlds. there has been a huge amount of creativity and development put into freestyle for this one competition and huge step up in skill levels around the World and around the disciplines. I really think the Europeans stand a great chance to take away a lot of the medals at this event!!!
Anyways, here’s a few photos of what’s been going on, check back soon for more on whats going on as the event kicks off!
Wish me and Katya some good luck for the next couple weeks!
With the new range of whitewater gear arriving this spring we were keen to get all the team together and go for a boat.
Gene17′s Valesesia River Festival in Italy seemed like the perfect opportunity. After a long night’s drive on Wednesday night we arrived to the perfect combo of sun, great coffee and absolutely outstanding whitewater! Valsesia is a true whitewater paddlers’ paradise and if you haven’t been yet you’ve got to put it on the list.
We’ll post a full report when we get back but stay tuned for Finn Burrows’ video rundown coming later tonight.
In the meantime, check out these shots from this afternoon’s Egua Freeride Session!
The new 2011 Palm paddle jackets have arrived at your local Palm Equipment dealer! With over 2 years development, team testing and refinement they’re our most technically advanced jackets yet.
The Palm Team have been itching to get their hands on the final production jackets for a while now. And, when the first shipment arrived earlier this month who were we to argue!
Gear for Women
Rosie Cripps introduces the Aqua Jacket
The next day it was off to west Wales to make full use of the spring tides at the awe-inspiring Bitches tidal race. Joining us on the top wave, and sporting brand new Atom jackets, were Palm paddlers Finn Burrows and Nick Horwood. Check out the video below:
Gear for Whitewater
Nick Horwood & Finn Burrows introduce the Atom Jacket
Check back here or our Facebook page over the next few months as we introduce more of the team of paddlers that make up Palm.
Me & Katya are now half way through the Whitewater grand prix event in Canada.
The event comprises of 3 freestyle and 3 creek competitions on huge rapids and waves to determine the overall winner. We’ve now completed the first 3 and have 3 more to go.
Stage 1:- Big Trick Contest – Gladiator Wave
We did expect some big water&waves here in Canada, but the first event held on the Gladiator wave on the Ottawa river showed it can be even bigger. Here in Canada people enjoy huge tricky waves in the middle of the rapid, it also must have a huge hole behind for extra excitement.
You paddle out and down through the top half of the rapid then onto the wave do your best to hold on and throw a move then paddle as hards as you can to avoid the ledge hole. Most paddlers took quite a few attempts at the wave before they mustered up the courage to catch it and with such a big, surgy wave to surf getting a move was never easy. I managed to get a big Air screw as my best move that placed me 11th. Ben Marr (1st), Dane Jackson (2nd) & Rush Sturges (3rd) had the best moves of the day for sure.
Girls event was about who manage to surf the wave and longest surf wins. Lou Urwin 1st, Emily Jackson 2nd, Katya took 3rd, was very glad she did surf it at all, as even after one day not every competitor managed.
Stage 2:- Big Water Boatercross – Gauntlet on the Rouge river
Next up we headed to the Rouge river for the big water boatercross, big waves and big water awaited us but it was no where near as intense as Gladiator had been so they decided to do a mass start boatercross to cut the bottom 6 then 4 at a time head to heads to decide the rest.
The mass start was full on with 22 paddlers trying to race together down through the chaos, I had a great start reaching the first main rapid in 2nd position but that all went a bit wrong as i tried to dodge around Casper and ended up in the main hole, i never really made it back up after that so got cut out of the future rounds with the other bottom 6 paddlers. Top 3 was Nick Troutman 1st, Bryan Kirk 2nd and Anton Immler 3rd.
Ladies had not as mass start, it was only four of them, but they made it to the finish with some carnage and one swim. Katya had two runs with a good line, ended up on 2nd position.
Stage 3:- Steep creek time trial – Petite Bostonnais
Third up was a creek race time trial on the Petite Bostonnais 2 runs best 1 counts. On the drive up there was water & flooded out areas everywhere we passed through so it wasn’t a suprise to get there to find way too high flows to paddle safely but luckily for the actual competition day they managed to get the dam to reduce the flow for the event with just enough time to scout and do one practice run before the race.
The run was the hardest creek I’ve ever paddled never mind race. At the top was a double drop waterfall followed by a tricky third drop and then an absolutely massive rocky slide maybe 250m long with a big hole near the bottom.
My practice went well, apart from missing my boof on a top drop, and i really felt there were many opportunities to hurt yourself on a slide, where I felt no control and couldn’t see very much at all except from whitewater. So I wasn’t too sure about running it again in the race with already quite a few swims by some top creekers on their practice run but then i decided to at least do one run and take my chances.
I was fourth to go and on the radio as the paddlers before me set off i heard that all 3 had swam, pretty unnerving for sure but i felt good as I set off I didn’t paddle like a race at all. I took it slow got my boofs and only really started to speed up towards the end, got really good lines down all the drops/ slides but wasn’t super fast on the flats. I was the first to make it down to the finish line and was super fired up! I decided not to go for a second run being happy enough with my first. I finished up 14th in the race with the top 3 being, 1st Even Garcia, 2nd Dane Jackson & 3rd Ben Marr.
In total their were 12 swimmers during the race so I was pretty happy to have made it down fine especially since I’m not really a creeker, you know the section is full on when solid creek paddlers like Tyler Curtis, Joel Kolwalski, Nick Troutman and Aniol Serrasolses end up swimming!
Also we get to surf some waves in between competition stages. We went to the White Dog wave on a Rouge river in another day, it was the best spot here in Canada so far for freestyle as we know it in Europe – with eddy, no hassle to get on, but still big, green and fast
We keep been blown away by the scale of the rivers here, we’ve never seen so much water and rivers in an area!
The organizers keep bringing us to these amazing full on locations and putting us up in nice hotels and cabins, they even feed us sometimes it really is amazing how their pulling off the event with all those helicopters flying around..
I’ve just returned from a last minute, unplanned trip to Ticino + Piemonte. After a frustratingly dry winter season I was desperate for some boating, so last week hopped in a car with Adam Dumolo and drove south on a whim in search of some steep action. Starting in Ticino we had some low water fun on the Verzasca and Ribo rivers, before heading south to the incomparable Valsesia for some freeride practice on the Egua, as well as an adventure into the Sorba’s Sawmill cataract.
In a hole – low water Verzasca…
Here are some images from the trip – Check out the new Atom Jacket in action, it’s the comfiest I’ve ever paddled in, and bombproof too.
The highlight of the trip for me was getting the chance to run the Sorba’s Sawmill Cataract, home of the Devil’s Slide. First run by Shaun Baker back in the 80s, this drop remains one of the big challenges in Val Sesia, and I’ve scouted it a few times over the years, but never at a good level.
With the sun shining, and water levels low, but not too low, we headed into the canyon, which features 3 incredible drops, with the Devil’s slide the final and biggest one.
This is the slide as seen from above, and the angle from which you first inspect it. Looks pretty different once you’re down there…
The second rapid of the canyon is an amazingly fun 6m twisting boof into a small canyon, which then drops over a small (2m?) ledge:
Once here, the options are to either abseil down the rocks and jump in below the slide, or commit to the big one…
The crux of the Devil’s Slide is a super boily, retentive cauldron half way down, which a few people have had severe beatings and long swims in. From above it looks friendly, but once down in the canyon it’s a different story, and landing in this cauldron in control, is a tricky but crucial move.
With only two of us there setting up safety wasn’t easy, but with some nifty ropework Adam was able to cover the pocket for me and snap a couple of pictures too.
The whole thing went super smoothly, and once in the slot it was white out all the way to the halfway cauldron. Definately one of the more intense yet fun rapids I’ve ever run.
From below the thing is pretty spectacular, you’re a long way down in the bottom of a deep canyon.
After a day’s missioning it’s back to Campertogno for some fresh Italian coffee.
We also took the chance for some Freeride practice ahead of the Gene17 Valsesia River Festival in May. This drop is amazing fun, and the competition should be ace!
A video still of a big hammer…
Spring is here, and I’m fired up for the summer’s adventures, so watch this space…
![63342_472775644282_625079282_6662215_1625536_n[1]](http://79.170.40.166/palmequipmenteurope.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/63342_472775644282_625079282_6662215_1625536_n1.jpg)
![61281_472775399282_625079282_6662206_6810398_n[1]](http://79.170.40.166/palmequipmenteurope.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/61281_472775399282_625079282_6662206_6810398_n1.jpg)
![61194_472776649282_625079282_6662246_5320581_n[1]](http://79.170.40.166/palmequipmenteurope.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/61194_472776649282_625079282_6662246_5320581_n1.jpg)
![61799_472776144282_625079282_6662231_5040813_n[1]](http://79.170.40.166/palmequipmenteurope.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/61799_472776144282_625079282_6662231_5040813_n1.jpg)
