canada

Wow!
Finally I found some time to update this little site...
right now i´m sitting somewhere in ottawa in the trunk of my car, using some shops wifi. thank you whoever you are.
the last month has been pretty busy, i think i took like four days off from kayaking within a whole month. now everyone´s gone back to germany and i found some time for myself. while trying to get my hands on my working permit i´ve been camping on some walmart parking lot in ottawa city. now i know what i have to do next and that is to go to the states! right after this update i´ll stuff my boats into my van and go to the rouge and hook up with foerster, then montreal again and then off to boston next week. pretty excited about that, first time i'll see the atlantic from the other side. guess i should take a bath or something.

i don´t want to get in the details too much but here are some pics of my random adventures in eastern canada after the worlds. the event was great, though i didn´t finish too well, sweet to watch everyone tear apart minibus. got no pictures, my cam broke down and i had my rides so early in the morning nobody was awake to shoot pictures. bad luck! thanks a lot to Ansgar Linder, Remi Wegmann, Simon Strohmeier and Stephan "Maus" Haderer for all the other nice shots!
i just can´t remember who shot what and when, so these go without chronological order.

this is how we do it!
my lovely aerostar was absolutely overloaded, it was fun though!
at some times we were six people, all the stuff everybody needed during his stay in canada and seven boats! the weather served us well though, so we could sleep under open skies almost every night.

Lachine!
those rapids are crazy if you don´t know them!
one time i tried to catch a wave above the normal rapids and got stuck in a whirlpool for quite a while, being sucked down sitting in my boat several times. the result was that i missed the usual waves had do a nasty ferry to shore and then walk back up again. it took me an hour!
as the water was to hig we were mostly surfing pyramid wave, which is not too big but steep, green, pretty fast and almost absolutely symmetric. helix. i love the astro!

Upper Petawawa!
these three pics show what this run was all about.
1. ninety kilometers dirt road
2. 1 1/2 hours walking up
3. paddling back down
the day was really worth it, sun, water, some small carnage, playsessions. sweet.
it was actually bigger volume than that pic, this was just some sneaking.

Ottawa!
this will be my home for the next months, though it won´t look anything like this again probably.
moonshine at wilderness. langzeitbelichtung!
and one stoked look on coliseum, main channel with big water.

oh, there were days without sunshine.
rouge river, high water, curler wave just before the take out.
i still hate myself for not having surfed it more often, but we already had one broken paddle and a popped skirt on that river so i was a bit scared.

Gatineau River
we got there with no idea what the run was all about nor where to put in or take out.
we got three words before though: bonnet rouge and isabelle.
it worked out fine, though there was a LOT of flatwater on the run it was pretty funny.
the drop was a small side channel, no pics from the actual run, was nothing spectactular. but it had nice beach at the takeout and the sun was strong enough to enjoy it.
maus and i chilling.
if you ever get there: bonnet rouge and isabelle is all you need to know. oh and perhaps maniwaki...

last but not least: ottawa city.

i´m out, sven

Wow!
Finally I found some time to update this little site...
right now i´m sitting somewhere in ottawa in the trunk of my car, using some shops wifi. thank you whoever you are.
the last month has been pretty busy, i think i took like four days off from kayaking within a whole month. now everyone´s gone back to germany and i found some time for myself. while trying to get my hands on my working permit i´ve been camping on some walmart parking lot in ottawa city. now i know what i have to do next and that is to go to the states! right after this update i´ll stuff my boats into my van and go to the rouge and hook up with foerster, then montreal again and then off to boston next week. pretty excited about that, first time i'll see the atlantic from the other side. guess i should take a bath or something.

i don´t want to get in the details too much but here are some pics of my random adventures in eastern canada. thanks a lot to Ansgar Linder, Remi Wegmann, Simon Strohmeier and Stephan "Maus" Haderer for those nice shots!
i just can´t remember who shot what and when, so these go without chronological order.

Astro 58!

we arrived in montreal on friday, facing temperatures of around 3°C.
thought it would be okay, the snow was melting and it seemed to be getting warmer, but now winter is here! this night it started to snow and no end in sight yet.

good news are that it looks the same on the ottawa. ha!
waterlevels seem to be on the low side for this time of the year.
curious how this will affect the worlds.

and i got my new boat on saturday. shiny limegreen Astro 58! thank you riot!
as i mentioned before: i liked the 54, but it was simply too small for me on a wave.
i haven´t had a ride in my 58 yet, but it looks awesome!
riot has widened the hull a bit, raised the bow rocker and took away some of the stern rocker.
the spin disc is further back, so i guess i´ll be more balanced. they also added some volume, of course. actually, without having had a ride in it yet, it seems as if everything that didn´t work for me in the 54 is fixed in the 58. this won´t take anything away from the 54's possibilities, it's simply not my size though.
you can also find a good comparison by steve fisher here.

what is another big change for me is the riot powerseat.
the powerseat is riot's high performance seat option for their freestyle boats.
it´s quite a bit higher than the unity seat, which is the standard outfitting., thus giving you more leverage on your moves.
there are no movable parts on the powerseat. instead of a backband its back is raised and simply covered with foam, which makes the seat stiff, lightweight and probably more aggressive.

thanks to fabi krummreich here are some shots of the new boat, suppose we were not that busy yesterday. we shot indoor, so the pics might be a bit on the dark side...

as soon as i can i'll post a report about the astro's performance as well.

la scie!

i just got an email from Fabian Krummreich containing those sweet shots of me and the Astro enjoying one awesome wave. thank you!
these are pictures from the same trip and same river as in the last update, but a different wave.

la Scie is another good highwater wave on the doubs in france, running when la malate is too high. it´s big, smooth, fast and fair with a good eddyline access.

we were there the first day of our trip and left to malate when it got too low. unfortunately the best levels were at night, so that we had just a bit too much foam for the wave to be at it´s best.

shortly before the wave greens out it gets super green and steep and we missed that level. nevertheless it was big fun and the hole behind the green shoulder turned out to be a perfect spot for some nice beatdowns as well.

doubs!

i just got an email from simon strohmeier with pictures from la malate. thanks man!


la malate is a small village at the doubs in northern france and inhabits one of the biggest waves in europe. unfortunatel it only runs a few days a year as it needs quite a lot of water.


we hit a perfect level a while ago where it was an awesome green wave next to an enormous hole.
it was scary as hell, i had never dealt with holes of this size. but once you got used to it you could catch some serious amount of air. i´m still stoked when i look at those pictures. enjoy.

the winter is gone...

okay, i have to admit that this site wasn´t so busy in the last months. it was wintertime here in germany, and though it was warmer than average there still was no water.

we did some boating, but it was only on the eiskanal, augsburg or eisbach, munich, nothing worth writing about.
and even now no picture updates, but soon, very soon..



nevertheless we competed in the 10th International Filmfestival in Rosenheim and placed 2nd in the newcomer class with our movie "besessen". i´m still pretty proud of that. maybe our clip will be published on Jens Klatt´s new Painkillerz movie, we´ll see.

i´ve also completed two new sponsorships for 2007.
i liked my robson kit last year, but it was not totally what i wanted. thank you robert for supporting me throughout the last year though!

so from canada on i´ll be with riot kayaks and i´ve already recieved my shiny kober paddle.
thanx to arnd schäftlein and thomas funke for that!
i´ve had arnd´s astro 54 for a while now and really like it, even though i think i´m just a bit too big for it. i´m really looking forward to test the astro 58 and the flair 57 in montréal, this will be so much fun!
from kober i´ve chosen the spirit, which is a rather classic shape. it´s really stiff and the blades are big, sweet paddle with lots of power. and i got a prototype colour - from the outside it´s silver, but as soon as light shines through it turns orange! this is a straight shaft right now, but i´ll get one with a bent shaft soon.
artistic still supports us, they´ve redesigned many products such as drytops, drysuits and pfds for 2007. we´ve had a few prototypes last year and the new material is awesome.

now back to kayaking!
as i said, the winter seems to be gone. i just returned from france where we had five days on some of europes biggest waves, la scie and la malate. actually i was really scared by the sheer power of those monsters. Nevertheless it was some of the best wave riding and biggest air i´ve ever had. i´ll post some pictures as soon as i get them. The ones in this update are just two impressions of our tour, i didn´t take any action shots, that was simon´s job...


later,
sven

kuchl, upper wave

morning view

pic: micha schomann


we´ve been to kuchl, austria last weekend. in the last years there would´ve been snow in this area now, water levels been way too low and you would have thought about anything else than kayaking.
this year we were lucky though.
i hooked up with hannes kaiser to spend the weekend in kuchl. when we got there, the salzach was still too low for the standard waves to be in, so we spent our time on the upper wave, recently referred to as "minus one".
this wave is not too big, it´s got a sweet pile and a nice shoulder on surfer´s left.
but damn is it fun!
the sun was shining, it was even pretty warm that day, many boaters hanging around.

hannes carving

pic: micha schomann

in the afternoon the original kuchl wave, "number one", came it, which is way bigger and can send you quite high if you get it right. but it was getting cold and dark now, so we left after a few runs on that one.

sven

pic: micha schomann

we met with micha schomann, who already was in that area for a whole week with his girlfriend, stayed at their place, visited an austrian church choir (!?), drank some vine and had good fun that evening.

watch my eyes, too tired?

pic: micha schomann

next day, same procedure. "minus one" in perfect sunshine first, then later "number one" without any sun in the valley. micha was keen to shoot pictures that day and all i can say is: it was really worth it. thank you.
watch out for micha, soon he´ll be online with his very own website all around freestyle photography.

back pan am

pic: micha schomann

unfortunately, the sun was too low to shoot pictures of number one. whatever.
all shots in this post are taken on the upper wave. did i say it´s sweet? it is.

i love that shot. sidekick.

pic: micha schomann

blunt

pic: micha schomann

hannes and i in our winter gear

pic: micha schomann