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!
Full Page in the Newspaper!
Last December, I was interviewed for the newspaper of the Grisons, the Südostschweiz. Lucky duck, I got a nice full page article on what I do and what I love.
CA, USA, November
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
The Kegel
Freeriding is for between the races. This year between Kozakov and Peyragudes, I got the chance to film what I love to do, with the favorite guy by my side.
A huge thanks to Orangatang Wheels for giving me the opportunity to be a part of this.
Watch the Orangatang 80mm, 80a Kegel release video.
Funny enough that Mercedes Benz had exactly the same schedule for shooting an ad. Not too surprising was that they wouldn’t want to share the road with us while they blocked traffic… shame… so we got to go with the good old spotting corners.
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.
Photos by tamara prader & patrick switzer
Chixxs Get Together
Oh, oh, it’s been way too exciting this year! … I never even got to update this here. Sometimes, focussing on living makes more sense than letting the world know what you do 😉
More to come about an awesome trip to Japan & cowboys on the West Coast.
I’ll get ready for the first Chixxs Get Together in Zürich now! A longboard workshop on our city spot, initiated by Tanja at Chixxs On Board, a platform for ladies in board sports based in Zürich.
Embrace the sun!
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.
Photos by Tamara Prader
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.
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
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.
Sunshine Coast – Britannia Classic
Before taking off to the Sunshine Coast, we made a visit at Landyachtz where I got myself some rain wheels! Whoop whoop – ready for the Canadian race weather!
Hopping on the ferry from Horseshoe Bay to the Sunshine Coast! I was so excited to skate these races and to get to skate with some of the Canadian ladies.
After what I had heard about the party at the Danger Bay race I was more scared to go there than excited… turned out that even the skaters get a little older and it was no where near as wild as I expected.
The womens division was the biggest one I had skated in. We had 16 ladies at the start-line!
I managed to make it in the finals and had the lead until I got taken out ending up in 4th place.
Ishtar and I didn’t get to skate together at Danger Bay. It turned out we were the only ones racing Jakes Rash. We had a sweet battle down this mellow road with quite some leaning action. And drafting her all the way down, I just had enuogh speed to beat her at the finish line.
After coming back from the Coast, we heded up to Squamish for the Britannia Classic. I was very excited for that one and than very disappointed when I realized that there were only two other ladies registered. May it be this fact or some other reason that I don’t know about yet, I broke my left radius in the first run of the second day. That means if I am lucky, I’ll be able to be back on a board for the Maryhill Festival of Speed.
4th at Danger Bay
1st at Jakes Rash
down at Britannia…
We got ourselves a new Housemate. Peppermint at any time!
Carole, the Team Green ‚manager‘ invited a huge crew over for dinner after Danger Bay. What an incredibly beautiful place the Sunshine Coast is!