Entry Short Film of the Year Awards 2014

Some of you may already have noticed that we participate in the Short Film of the Year Awards 2014. So let us explain a few things...

What is this? Well euh it's a competition for the best kayak video of 2014, everybody can send multiple entries. The best six will be chosen to compete in the final based 50% on the judgement of a jury (kayaksession magazine) and 50% on the views of the video.

Why do we need your help!? Because 50% of our result is based on the total amount of views, so we need as many views as possible and that's were you can contribute in our succes!

The video is of our trip during the Springtime in the Pyrenees past april, we tried to show not only kayak but also the things around it. Good times with friends, lovely places and beautiful surroundings, nice weather and ofcourse positive vibrations.

In short check it out and help us a little!

Give thanks....

Link: http://tinyurl.com/k7hcb78

Video:

Springtime in the Pyrenees!

On the first weekend of april we had our selections in C2 for the Europeans, Worlds and World cups. The competition took place in Metz, its was during a french N1 competition. So a strong field of C2s was present including Klauss/Peche (overall winners of the world cup 2013, 4th place Olympics) and Labarelle/Peschier (European champions 2013).

The first day was a very technical course, especially in C2. But we managed to paddle it very well, qualifying for the finals, with our time in te first half of all the C2s. Although we had a good result our time was not good enough to be qualified for the Europeans... Only three of all the participating C2s would be in the time of our selections that day. We still believed that it was possible...we had one chance the next day. With a less difficult course we were optimistic, and started very fast. When al of a sudden we messed it up in the middle of the course, we don't know why...was it the fatigue or the lack of training the month before, maybe bad luck...

So this year we will not be able to compete at the Europeans in Vienna. No worries next year another chance and another year to train harder and better!

Directly after the competition we drove to Mimizan, where we stayed a couple of days for some surfing. The waves were really huge - sometimes up to three meters - meaning a lot of wipeouts and not an easy first time for Bram.

A few days later we drove to the Pyrenees to paddle L'Ouzom and Le gave du Brousset on one day! An epic start of our stay in the mountains.  The next river we paddled was a class IV piece of the rio Ara in Spain. Ending the day in Bergua near the rio Forcos ( paddled it last year) which hadn't enough water in it but still a nice place to spend the night.

Sort - home of whitewater kayak in the Pyrenees - was our next stop. Always nice to drive through a town and see a lot of kayaks on the roofs of cars, kayak-clothes drying outside, ... feeling the 'JAH' vibes.

It had rained non stop over there the last days. We heard that the rio Palomeras had a perfect level and decided to take a look and if ok, paddle it. The first drop was still covered by a glacier but the level was indeed substantial. Full of stoke we ended the day driving up to the Alto Noguera to paddle her the next day. When we woke up the weather was awesome and the waterlevel had risen to a nice high level, which meant an epic day of whitewater once again.

We also paddled the rio Veral (little bit of low flows) and ended our trip with some days of surfing in the Basque country!

Two weeks of sun, whitewater, mountains, ocean and waves.... Living the good life!


Up next:
- First week of july of to the french Alps
- Three weeks of awesomeness in the whitewater capital of Europe... NORWAY!
- September back to Sort

Radio silence

What it's almost April?! And we didn't update this blog since...euh long, a very loooooong time. Our sincere apologies for that, we really do.

The past months flew by very fast, a lot of training combined with a substantial amount of... the word you are expecting is whitewater, but we have to disappoint you. It was school that kept us busy, a lot!
And then 6 weeks ago Bram hurt is shoulder, which he has been recovering from during the last month. Now he's back in the boat but one month of absence is not the ideal preparation as you can imagine, especially with the qualifications just around the corner.

However we are still motivated to compete at the qualification race in Metz within two weeks time. This weekend we even went to Metz for some training (first time back in C2) and we were very pleased with the result.

Training went well so we still believe in a qualification for the european championships in Vienna.
After the competition in Metz we will drive through to Pau for a training-camp and of course some class V awesomeness. During this two weeks we will capture as many footage as possible to release a 'Jah' whitewater video!

We will keep you up to date of our results in Metz and in the meantime you can follow our Facebook page with more news and images....

Ciao!

2013... a year full of experience

2013 was a great year for us! Paddled some fine rivers, saw a lot of beautiful places and met a few interesting people.

As we look back to the past year... paddling the 'Dora Baltea' in Italy with large floods maybe was our highlight of this year, a shame we didn't get any footage, it was INCREDIBLE!
Paddling rio Forcos maybe wasn't such a challenge because of the low flows (due to the late snowmelt) but what a beautiful experience it was. Definitively going back there when the water levels are higher.

For C2 in Goumois (our selection races), we paddled more technical and aggressive than last years race. Even with a high water level we managed to paddle better results.
That we couldn't start at the ICF world ranking race in Ivrea (Italy) was a little bit of a bummer. We were really motivated to compete there, but because of mechanical problems plans got changed.
We are happy to see that we are progressing really fast lately. Last two competitions were really fast and it feels good to see this progression. Keeps us motivated for next year!

This are only a few stories of the past year... too many to mention. We did edit a '2013 Reel' recapitulating our year in 4 minutes! Make sure you watch it here (HD) or just here...

                            

Summarizing 2013 we had an epic year with lot's of whitewater and good progression in C2! Our plans for next year: just going BIGGER and BETTER! Already a few destinations selected where we want to go in 2014, more details will follow...

We will keep you up to date and we wish you a great 2014 with lot's of whitewater!!!