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!!!

Between pills and books

Bram cruising around with a car full of drugs and Axel eating some books (exams) for a month now so we could use some distraction. We never finished our story of our trip to the Alps so let us bring back the good memories!

Last thing we said was something about hucking some waterfall in Italy and then going to Switzerland. Well.. we did! And we had a run on the Verzasca, a really beautiful river. Class II with awesome scenery alternated with some nice class V rapids! Also in the same beautiful scenery.

In Switzerland we chilled a lot at Lago Maggiore. And because we missed Belgium so much we decided to do some Belgian style flat water training without any gates in our slalom boat.
After this session we realized we didn't miss Belgium at all and we left to Ivrea!

Ivrea is a really nice place and the water is BIG! Especially when it's flooded. We immediately went on the water in our C2, and after a first descent we felt how powerful the water was. Our second descent we felt it even more... we swam. Yes, after a whole week of class V paddling without any problems we swam in our slalom boat. But although we swam, our visit to Ivrea was still nice. But the pizza and ice-cream did contribute to that.

In Italy we also paddled the Ayasse. A crazy river full of Class X sections. We didn't know the river, nor did we have a guidebook. But we just went for it and did a lot of scouting. And well... It was one epic day! Beautiful river! We found a 5 meter drop, some 4 meter slide/drop thing and lots of rapids!

We also went to the Chiusella, suposed to be another epic river. But again we didn't know the river and at the put in it seemed there was no water. We followed the river for 1km or something at it stayed really low water. Therefor we decided not to run the Chiusella and just hang out at the put in, which was at a super nice and beautiful little village.

Later in Bourg-saint Maurice we met some frenchies. They told us it's normal for the Chiusella to have a low water level. But yeah, we were at Bourg! We did a couple of session on the slalom course. But the best memories are those with our french friends. They took us to Doron de bozel. More a volume river, also new for us. We didn't know what to expect from the river and we also didn't know what to expect of us, our paddling skills in high volume waters. Especially because it was high water and there are some class V sections on the Doron. The first kilometer was pretty epic, huge holes and big waves! And it al worked out pretty fine!

A couple of days later they took us back to Italy to paddle the Dora Baltea. Arriving at Champex (put in) we saw that it was a really high water level. The first section we were going to do would/should be nice, not to hard but real fun. Once on the water everyone felt that their really was a LOT of water. We heard the rocks rolling over the riverbed.

The first half was really big! Super big waves, holes you really didn't want to get trapped in and fast as hell. Second part was a little bit easier, which made it possible to play around a bit and do some freewheels and trowing kick flips!

We were all super fired up after this descent and we decided to paddle the gorge d'Avise section on the Dora Baltea. This part is at low water level Class IV+, at normal water level it's V+. We entered the gorge with flood! This section is without any doubt the biggest river we ever paddled! Everyone was a little stressed because we knew if you were in trouble, you would be on your own. The river did not allow to just make a stop and rescue, nor was it possible to provide security from shore.

Once on the river we all were super focused. Once you've made a chose you were commited to paddle that line and you needed to go for it 100%. It's really hard to describe the power of the water and the greatness of everything on that river. But it was EPIC.

This river was kind off the end of our 3 week stay in the Alps. needless to say it was the perfect way to end it.

And oow, ofcourse we did capture some of the moments on film! To bad, Axel lost his helmet sow we could'nt film from waterview anymore. Not that bad you would say, but for that same reason we couldn't film the Doron nor the Dora Baltea...

But we did capture a lot of other things!! The Pitzbach, Verzasca, Ayasse, AND our first 30 footer!!

Don't forget to watch it in HD, Enjoy!