downhill skateboarder – architect – feminist – mountain lover
Happy Canada Day everyone!
…earlier this skatecation, my other me was put to work on one of my favorite roads in the Wild West.
Huge thanks to Alberto PerroPro Alepuz for being an amazing one man show camera man/ producer/ editor & driver!
To co- pilot and mental supporter Patrick Switzer.
And muchisimas thanks to Orangatang Wheels & Loaded Boards !
Happy sqrl in action.
Film: PerroPro
End of March, Pat and I took off to be a part of the 5th Visayan Longboarding Trilogy. Three events in three different locations. A freeride, the Super Mango Skate Clinic hosted by Pat & myself with the help of countless hands & an IDF World Qualifying race at the end.
Patrick and I finally managed to double win an IDF race!
The Philippines were a whole new adventure! Traveling, the food, the people, the nature… literally everything was a new and exciting!
Morning wake up ritual: grab a mango & sit in the ocean to eat it! One gets used to that way to quickly!
Check out the rest of the photos and the full write up on the Loaded site!
Mango mornings!
Finally we won a race together! Photo by Colin Beck
Siquijor Island
For as much as I have an issue with the NorAm attitude. They have California. The place where the sun shines, when Zurich is grey and wet and cold… the place where burgers taste like a real sin.
Photos by @Patrick Switzer
What a year!
My updates here get rare with a remarkable increase of my CO2 foot print… my gipsy feet took me to the Greener Pastures film trip, Japan, to North America twice and all around Europe again.
New people became friends, old friends were visited.
The mountains and the ocean filled my heart with impressions. Never was the mood between the ladies racing so positive and motivating as this year.
Life goes away from the rhythm of the gipsy for a little bit now.
Sleeping on wonderful memories, preparing the next adventure.
Photos by tamara prader & patrick switzer
Novermber in Zurich was as grey as usual. Makes me work more & live less… which technically isn’t a disaster… but when December comes and South Africa is on the travel list: Life tends to be that tiny bit better.
We had everything this year.
To start with the good part… I got two podiums! A second at Hot Heels Africa, last IGSA World Cup race of the season, and I got second as well at High Rising.
We saw spiders, snakes, baboons, chameleons, penguins, camels…
We ate big animals, and generally ate well and a lot, we went geo caching and go carting, hiking and swimming, we drove on the left side of the road and we had the best host we could wish for!
Have a look at the rest of the pictures on my flickr!
In the semi finals of Hot Heels, Felipe Malaga, our friend from Peru had a horrifying crash resulting severe head injury. He is today, 28th of December, still in the hospital in South Africa where he recovers slowly.
Photo by Brittany Fine
Photos by Tamara Prader
When you travel, you often feel like you see the most beautiful things but your heart isn’t big enough to capture it all!
… That’s when you can take out your camera, if you’re lucky, and take a picture. Calvin Russell sings the following lines in „Crossroads“:
I’ve travelled many roads
And not all of them where good
The foolish ones taught more to me
Than the wise ones ever could
It is good to leave the highway every now and then!
The Euro Tour is already over. I can’t believe how fast those four weeks flew by!
I am happy to bring home one podium! My results over all could have been better, I finished with a 5th in Kozakov, a 3rd in Teolo and a 6th quali time in Péyragudes.
Graphic by Tamara Prader
The crew this year was Patrick Switzer, Maxim Garant Rousseau, Alex Tongue, Mauritz Armfelt, Josh Torres, John Barnet, Caio Cezar, Luke Melo, Thiago Lessa, myself and Olivier Séguin- Leduc our photographer and videographer.
After talking to a few travel crews that had issues here and there or even split the group half way through the tour, I felt lucky to have such an incredible team. Little fights were fought quickly and out of the way before they could become a bigger issue. It is not always easy to travel in a group of ten to twelve people basically spending 24/7 for a month. Our trip took us from Paris to Switzerland for some freeriding. Then to Kozakov, CZ for the first race, to Prague, to the most beautiful mountains, the Dolomites, further down south to the race in Teolo and then for a day to Venice. After that to the Pyrénées, south to Barcelona for a week of relaxation and scooter racing through the city and finally back to Switzerland before everybody had to fly home again.
A very big thank you to Orangatang the guys I traveled with!
San Be, Photo by Tamara Prader
See my arms?
What to do with so many roads?, Photo by Tamara Prader
Péyragudes before the fog rolled in
Waves on our Gaudi tour
Next weekend, next race. Time for the Kelowna DH!
The nice windy and wide, open road is in a residential area, overlooking two valleys. And again, we found the most scenic spot to park our RV. At the top of the hill, 50 meters from the start- line.
Unfortunately, this race again started rainy and therefore slow. Racers weren’t too eager to roll down a wet track and the organizer’s idea was to get as many runs as possible with skipping qualifying. Since the heats were set, there was not too much pressure on the first day.
This race- course was a decent bit longer than the races before. Runs take a bit more time, shuttles too. Things moved quite slow again on Sunday and unfortunately, half way through the first round of racing, one of the residents decided to be a dangerous and douche- baggy and had to be taken away from the police. This 2 hours intermezzo was very unfortunate but after that, riders were ready to kick ass! A fast track with heavy winds and more than one corner made it more interesting to find spots to take pictures at and watch people skate! The results for the Kelowna DH:
1. Kevin Reimer
2. Andrew Chapmen
3. Dillon Stephens
4. Patrick Switzer
Women:
1. Elena Corrigall
2. Marisa Nunez
3. Amy Brendon
I am very done with not being able to skate!
Stay safe and go play!
On the way here down from Kelowna, we crossed the border in Osoyoos where the Americans took our garden! We had expanded and had a pineapple sage and a thai basil next to the peppermint. Gone.
We slept at a lake and drove through the land of „cowboys and indians“ in the morning. Passed by Maryhill and ended up in front of Jon’s and Billy’s.
… no need to support that. This place would have a hard time trying not to be weird anymore.
One of the highlights of this week was the Mount Tabor race! Enjoy.
Spending a week in Portland, I learned some – more or less – important lessons about the survival in a group of skateboarders.
1 The dynamics of a group of skaters
The easiest way to make a group of skaters move is, to point out a place with cheap beer and food! Success rate: 95%
Coffee can work, sometimes.
Skating will most likely not work. It is too specific and depends on too many factors that you can never guess. The circumstances under which skateboarding happens are not the most obvious ones.
2 Drinking habits
You can’t keep up with the drinking pace of all the different teams! Some might simply have more practice than you do. Goal is, to realize early enough and when you do, stop drinking at their pace. Your liver might be happy about that. And you can avoid many headaches.
3 Spandex makes you win races!
4 Helmet safety
When we were kids, our moms told us to protect our heads. For all the sports we did, we had a different helmet, protecting specific regions of our heads, depending on the activity. Then, downhill skateboarding happened! The aero helmet is a self-made shell with some recycled helmet foam inner shell. It’s not about how protective this helmet is, it is about how cool it looks! It tells how much the rider cares about his style of riding. F* your brain. Who needs it anyways?!
So, get a very aero and expensive outer shell. If it looks ridiculous, the better!
Invest a lot of money in a rad paint job!
Don’t forget to find a fabric with a print that matches your individual style.
Consider that if you can still see because your self- tinted visor doesn’t fog up, you lose a decent amount of style points.
Quite important for this protection plan is not to crash!
5 Injuries
You hurt yourself? In the United States?
First and most important rule: DON’T GO TO A HOSPITAL!
You can buy painkillers. And if you want to rather spend your money on drugs, they most likely do the job too. If you’re not into drugs, go get the painkillers and mix them with alcohol, preferably stronger than beer.
Never get something stitched up! It’s a waste of money. You are a downhill skater so you’d typically carry around superglue.
Sit down, take a deep breathe, and superglue the sh* out of the gaping wound! Don’t forget that superglue tends to spill and superglue things together while you’re waiting for the pain to go away.
6 Strip clubs
Strip clubs in Switzerland are not worth going to because the lowest bill is worth more than 10$.