Souvenirs 2014

Usually, I consider it a good year when I don’t find the time to take care of my page. It can be blamed on the well known issue of „I am about to redesign the whole thing“ (but also don’t find the time to do it right, so in the end it doesn’t happen at all but also and even worse, I am not updating my page anymore).
Of the 8 races in 2014 I podiumed 5 times and finished the year on the 3rd place in the IDF ranking.

Off to the Philippines again tomorrow!
More stories to be made!
Happy skating.

Souvenirs 2014-7 Kopie Souvenirs 2014-6 Kopie Souvenirs 2014-4 Kopie Souvenirs 2014-5 Kopie Souvenirs 2014-2 Kopie Souvenirs 2014-3 Kopie Souvenirs 2014-1 Kopie

All Photos by @tamaraprader

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.

Kegel release

Orangatang-Kegel-lowres

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

IMG_3466 Kopie

IMG_3525 Kopie

IMG_8431 Kopie

Photos by tamara prader & patrick switzer

 

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$.

about the joy of passing on things

When I had picked up my new NJK leathers, there was no more room in my suitcase for my old motorcycle suit. I left it at Loaded & Otang with the quote to pass it on to someone who has use for it!
Only two weeks later it had found a new owner in Toronto!
Thanky you Darren for finding Timothy, a talented Toronto grom! I hope to skate with you some time soon, Tim. Grind the suit down to it’s inner liner.

Toronto_Timothy
Photo by Heidi, Tim’s mom

It’s christmas!

This was a crazy and fantastic year for me!

Doing the entire Euro Tour + Norway + Broadway Bomb… and now finally South Africa… there is nothing to complain about.

Super happy to finish the IGSA Worldcup Series 2011 #3 in Women Standup, and #54 in Open Standup!

Merry Christmas & a very happy new year!

… you can find me in the snow

KalkbreiteDrusa

lib