Gipsy feet

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.

kody and the dragonfly Kopie

Fuji at night Kopie

Endless Corner Kopie

IMG_2962 Kopie

IMG_2990 Kopie

IMG_3023 Kopie

IMG_3104 Kopie

IMG_3263 Kopie

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Photos by tamara prader & patrick switzer

 

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!

Dalua

Dollares

 

Kelowna DH

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!

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Off to Portland, Oregon

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.

broken limbs at mayhill

wild wild west

Maryhill Hood

Mississippi 4

Keep Portland weird!

… 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.

TaborDH_Poster_800px_Tall

we love spandex

Mini Bikes

missing the buttcone

Spandex makes you win

How can Chris McBride see

Jeff Spicoli

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$.

on the way to Vernon DH 8

Before taking off to Vernon, we made a pit stop at Kevin Reimer’s house. After watching the hummingbirds and observing the squirrel- crazyness, Kevin took me on a tour with his Blue Bird!
Happy to leave the different scales of grey behind us, we took off to the wine country. Home of Mischo Erban and more sunshine: Vernon!

greyscale

blue bird

safety is our business

control panel
All Photos by Tamara Prader

Vernon DH 8 & Summerland

The Vernon DH 8 race, in the driest area of BC started with a very rainy and gray day of practice. The sunday was as sunny as a summerday could be and I got the chance to work on my cast tan again!
Since the event was an IGSA race, things rolled a litle bit slower. Scott Peer and Justen Ortiz battled for an inline title, there was a decent crowd of classic luger and street luger and the ladies had a good crew on the startline too.
I was hoping for Kevin, James, Dillon and Patrick in the finals. Things didn’t work out well for James, he dislocated his shoulder and couldn’t finish the race. One of the local groms made it to the open finals together with Kevin, Zen and Pat.

After the race, we took off to Summerland to ride the Giant! …the closest thing to Swiss freeriding. I cried a little bit, not being able to skate. Being broken isn’t fun.
… but I keep myself busy doing the things that I like but usually don’t find the time to do.

Pat

podium ladies
The Ladies podium: Marisa 1st, Elena 2nd, Anna 3rd

podium open
Open: Kevin 1st, Zen 2nd, Brendan 3rd, Patrick 4th

the Giant

Owl shell

mossy greens

pattern

there goes the balance

walking on air Kopie

What’s a broken skater to do?

… not a question I planned on having to find an answer for! I guess there is always a reason for how things like these come along. At least I had no issues so far with keeping myself busy!

Kevin Reimer is back! A happy winner of the Britannia Classic 2012, one year after he got injured on this track.
Patrick landed in second, Byron Esset in third.

My disappointment about not being able to race was … huge. The first bummer was to realize, that there were only 3 ladies at the Britannia Classic after having a field of 16 at Danger Bay. Quite as disappointing was the level of riding… but I am not to judge this since I was busy taking pictures – not skateboarding.

The organisation of the event was excellent, Lee Cation did a grat job and made the riders happy with good food, two days of freeriding & a good coverage of the event. Way to go Lee!
Kevin is back

Switzer sailing down Britannia

Spencer leaning

Camp fire
Bouldering in Squamish with Audrey & Max
What a magical place!

Bouler - what's a broken skater to do

Pats glove fingers

double slack action

Bouldering with Max and Audrey

hungry chip monk
All Photos by Tamara Prader