Prague Freestyle Fest!

     At 20-21  of August we’ve been at Freestyle Fest in Prague. Which was really awesome, great organisted event! But lets start from the begining. After  tidying everything in Sopac, Honza and Me left to train for contest at Tuesday evening. Ondra becouse of job had to join us at Thursday.

Honza, Marcel and Me visited Stepan Vohradsky in Boulder v  Siti – great bar with boulder inside and good atmosphere  which is supporting us Pirates. Ondra and Bubak mafia has joined us and as it was Hankas name-day, we went for party to the Cross Club having great fun together.

Next days were pretty busy as we were doing our best to help Stepan to organise the whole event which made all of us very tired becouse the only break between work were hard trainings in hole which was making everybody really tired after even one run.

     As about the hole.  We had different experiences about the hole, on first two days Honza had been very happy with it  throwing really sick rides  while for me it had worked horrible  allowing to do me around 5 tricks in two days. In next days water been raising and it wasn’t that trashy anymore, but you could go super high what Ondra used to do with his sick air moves. Saturday prelims went pretty fast becouse of really short Eddy and bubbles which were pulsing really hard making some evil flushes. For us – Pirates it went pretty satisfacting throwing all of us to semifinals, Ondra from 7th place, Honza from 4th and I from 1st.

After this there has been Slopestyle European Championships World Premier, which was awesome event! Consisted of four parts in a single run – You were starting at ramp which led you straight to water  giving big speed and nice bounce on the water to throw sick wave moves.  You could see huge Pan Ams from Jan Liska, Helixes from Marcel and massive air screws from Stepan ! Then next stop was at the wave  - you had 20 seconds there to throw all the moves you can! But you had to watch for flush becouse if you get it you are not allowed to come back! Next stop was V-hole with same time rules as wave. It was really fun to try anything there. Last stop was the hole were the competition had been. You could do all moves you wanted in every place and the sum on the end counted. Overall winner was Marcel Bloder!

After this sweet event it was semifinals time. And all 3 Pirates have qualificated for final from top places! Ondra 3rd, Honza 2nd and I defended my 1st place.Following us was Marcel from 4th and Jirka Langer from 5th place.

That was time to relief  and for huge party! With great concert of band,  beatiful fireshow given by Maja and crew, which Honza Havelka and me joined later, followed by big party with DJs. which closed with DJ Baltazar at 5 in the morning!

Next day was really hot but it didn’t prevent public to come for the show! Water level has dropped quite much since previous day making the hole trashy and closed again which gave us beatiful final! All of mens were throwing huge tricks but judges appreciated ones from pirates mostly! The gold went to Honza Spindler, followed by me with silver and Marcel with bronze. Unfortunetly for Ondra he missed it just a bit and came 4th. 5th place has stayed with Jirka.

That was really great event and great time with loads of public and friends! Big thanks from our hands go to Stepan for organising everything!

Next weekend - Lipno Devils extreme race!

 

Photos:

Petr Prause, Jirka Vohradsky, Ondrej Kosatka

Sopac Sumer Fest!

We arrived to Sopac with Honza and Lucie week before event has started. Sopac is place where is located motor playspot made of two tatra engines from boat which are pushing the water in pool through platform making great big hole.

We moved there with „Spindlahouse” – big camper we lived in. We had alot of work becouse Honza was main organisator of this competition and we had alot of work to do to prepare everything. I even participated in repairing of tank – the symbol of sopac which provides great soundsystem for whole party and competitions.
We’ve been having very intensive training sessions once per day becouse of expenses of training there and preparing everything. Thought whole work we did put in had result in the best competition i have ever been at! There were loads of people – not only paddlers which made great atmosphere! You could say party lasted all weekend or even since Wednesday when our friends from Slovakia – Peter, Nina, Capko and Matej came. We’ve had awesome time there!
The competition started on Saturday with mens prelims going first which after i came 3rd behind Honza and Peter on the lead. After this we had awesome World Championships in Slopestyle., after quite good rail ride i had really huge air screw with perfect landing which pushed me to final where i took the risc and wanted to make paddle grind making push up on rail with paddle and back panam on ramp, both didn’t work so the bottle of rum ran near my nose, but it was great fun to compete in it!. In semifinalas which were in afternoon I did alot better throwing some big moves and taking the lead. After semi it was ZET boat contest, with huge prize – new carbon boat from ZET. You had to swim through the pool towards the hole with motors turned on and catch the bottles which were jumping in the foam. The lucky winner was Peter Pepe Prause.

Sunday was – typicaly for Czech – day of the finals. We had different amount of water coming and it got really flashy making it really hard to stick anything. It was really tight game but on the end winner was Peter just a bit after Honza and i took the bronze.

Those were the best competition ever for me, great atmosphere, party and dozens of fun, thanks for organisators, competitors and all other people to came just to watch!

After tidying everything in Sopac I’m going to Prague for Troja Fest!

Heliwelle, Wildalpen, Austria

Heliwelle is most of the time hole working probably whole year. It's located in beatiful city in middle of Alps - Wildalpen, in Austria

134cm at 4-paddlers.com Pegel, is the lowest level i met there and it's still working as quite weak and shallow hole. You can make there all hole moves but at this water you can hit even with cartwheele, and landings. Launching a loop will cost you double rock bonus ;)

It's quite hard to say the best water level there, but at 140-150cm it allows you to do all tricks without hitting the bottom.

232cm was the highest water level i met, and it was small wave. Not giving too much accelerationg and without bouncing possibility but with nice foam pillow and quite poor shoulders, actually only right one was useful, thought I'm pretty sure at higher water - it would be really nice wave.

It is worth to mention that at this water level there is one more down the course there is one more wave which is pretty small also but alot more powerful, giving quite big bounces but no acceleration keeping you in the front where is almost no green to surf becouse of strong pillow. I guess it has to be more water for both of them to be good.

One more thing about high water - locals said that at 250 you can find really good big waves on Salza down from Fachwerk to Palfau.

Here is link video from Wildalpen made by Pirate-production.cz



Wildalpen 2011


Check it out!

Kayak Channel, Tacen, Slovenia

Slalom White-water Stadium Tacen – Slovenia (near the capital Ljubljana)
Length: 150m;
Difficulty level: III/IV

This is really nice kayak channel, starting with nice drop with massive water giving you alot of fun just at beggining.

Generally course has two playspots - one is upper hole which at normal water level is very shallow i even managed to make there phoenix monkey with tripple rock bonus! You can hit at initiation, finish of pirouette and landing, which hurts a bit. It has good eddy on left side and right shoulder pushing you to middle, hole is not orthogonal to the mainflow which makes it a bit rough and hard to set up. At higher water it gets quite flushy.

And the second playspot - which is wave/hole or wave depends on water level. On the maximum water level you can get there really nice wave which is perfect for fun, but unfortunatly it's super hard to use eddies on the sides after you flush.

When the water is normal/over normal then it's a wave/hole which can be sometimes a bit shallow but advantage of it is that you can use both eddies. It's pretty good for playing.

Tacen is surely worthly place to visit, thought the best fun you can get when it's maximum water, and in my opinion normal water is a bit too low so look for higher water and pack your equipment!