It is official!
Soon available: the new Triple8 Patrick Switzer pro model helmet.
Design by Tamara Prader.
Triple8 P- Swiss helmet
South Africa – Hot Heels 2012
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
Diamond Lights
Last year for Christmas I got two wonderful „Diamond Lights„, diamond shaped light bulbs from Maria. During my travels they were waiting in the attic to finally be mounted!
secret smile on slanted.de
Finding relics of my summer activities. As earlier mentioned, the smile at your sister ladies invited me to be part of the second edition of secret smile, a nicely mixed goodie bag full of surprises. Contributions of artists, graphic designers, singer/ songwriters and authors arranged by Daniela Bily und Kathrin Knapp. My special surprise was the little, colorful a stick on monster tattoo!
Happy, I could contribute a few lines and hope to be part of the next edition od secret smile.
beauty of the moment. about solo sessions
Skating is good for the soul.
A lack of motivation to look for company made me go to Dolder and Rigiblick alone. I haven’t skated on my own in a very, very long time. It felt great!
The things I was working on didn’t work any better only because I was skating by myself but stubbornness made me skate three hours, run to the gondola to catch it again and push harder. It made me swear silently when things didn’t work out and it made my soul happy.
Photo by Olivier Séguin- Leduc
Before I went on my solo mission, I visited the Museum Rietberg with my mom. It has an incredibly beautiful garden and very nice buildings.
The exhibition was called „The beauty of the moment“ and showed Japanese, hand coloured Photos from the 19th century and woodblock prints from the 18th and 19th century. The Japanese culture has such an entirely different understanding of room and proportion and I am fascinated by the reserved and powerful beauty that comes out of it. The high diligence in the details makes me feel humble.
no place like home
After a very nice afternoon skate with my friend at our local spot, I just found this incredible invention.
A GPS shoe by Dominic Wilcox. Not just functional… really nice too! Have a look at the project he called No place like home …which makes it that little extra bit better.
creatures
Quite pointless to post things like these, I admit. There is more important stuff I could write and think about. But in a moment of creative excitement… I was brainstorming a while and then lost track and strarted to clean up my computer. Before we can produce new things it helps sometimes to look at what we already made… in order to know better now.
czech formalism
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!
EuroTang
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
Mary- f*ing- hill
Maryhill! How long was I waiting to skate this hill! …and it turns out, I’ll wait a little longer.
I tried to take a run on the first day of the 5 day event, following Patricks lines down, slower than I ever skated. I figured I wouldn’t be able to go for it with my cast on and decided to sell my ticket.
But it was a five day event… I had to keep myself busy somehow?!
So I started a little „Inlaw“ race during the freerides after the first round of qualifying.
5$ entry fee, the winner takes all!
…and my list of riders was GOLDEN!
James, Budro, Dalua, Switzer… hell yeah.
My afternoon flew by!
There were some unexpected early drop outs and some rather going for a swim not even show ups. But other than that, it seemed to be quite a success. The riders were happy with some race practice and in the finals I had Dustin Hampton, Jose Guzman, Dalua and James Kelly.
The winner who took the 100$ had as well just broken the track- record:
DALUA!
Thanks for participating guys!
