Summer in France

So....it's been a while since I've last written a blog post. Maybe i'll have to go and back date a few when I get the chance! Sshhh don't tell anyone :)

I'm in France for the summer. And I've been really lucky and have really landed on my feet here. I'm living with a french family, renting a spare room. And they are the nicest people, and the nicest family I've met. And i'm not just saying that in case they read it, as they are French :p

I live with the parents and the Grandad of the family as the kids have all moved out. Although they all come by and visit several times a week. And they are all about my age, slightly younger. I feel like i'm part of the family already...well it has actually been almost 2 months! Time flies. Oh, and they have a cat called Jolie, which is even  better!!

I've also got myself a job working in the cafe at a Wakeboard Cable, TNA (www.tna-arenthon.com) I work 6 days a week, but am usually done by 3 or 4 pm which means i have the whole afternoon/evening to ride!! It's great being able to ride everyday...obviously you can't physically ride EVERYday, but it's nice to have the oportunity. Usually after a couple of days of riding your body starts screaming NO, I'M TIRED, and you hav to have a rest. Wakeboarding definitely takes a much bigger toll on your body day to day than snowboarding. Or maybe i'm just not trying hard enough snowboarding :s

  

Anyway, ridings great. It's awesome to be able to do the two sports I love. And at the same time having a break from the other. You get the same buzz from wakeboarding as from snowboarding, but it's also a change of scenery and a bit different. I think it helps you push yourself in the two sports as it doesn't get boring. After a few months the seasons change and it's time to grab the other board!

I made a little edit last week of some riding. I actually filmed it all in one set! So it was all in about 15 minutes of riding...there was a big group of beginners on at the same time so I didn't want to fall off and queue, so just stayed on until I finally fell in! Those of you who ride cable will understand!

Voila, here is the link to the edit

 http://vimeo.com/100221620

Click HERE

I'm pretty pleased with it as I did the editing and found the music...which I think is the hardest part! Let me know what you think!

So apart from that, not much else. My days are work wakeboard sleep repeat. But i'm loving it and hoping to come back next year.

Plans for the winter at the moment are to go to the States for 3 months and ride. Unfortunately without a visa its pretty impossible to work over there, so saving the pennies to make a fun trip. Hoping to get my hands on Katie Blundell and ride with her this winter!!

I've been lucky to get some cool summer wear from Westbeach and Rocket Dog so I can be fashionable down at the lake :) Thanks a lot guys!

   

That's it That's all! Peace

Whitelines Contender Page

Just got my Whitelines Magazine through the post. Got a full contender page woopee

Lets make a dairy milk snowboard! would be awesome :)

Check out Whitelines online Here.

AND after all this hot weather and blue skies, we somehow got some POW!

Vans Hi Standard

On Saturday, there was a fun comp on up at Mayrhofen Penken Park. They did it last year too, but unfortunately I had work so couldn't go! But this year I made it along....even if I as a little late.

It' quite different from most other competitions, it's based on style so no tricks over a 720! (Not that I ca do a 720!) But for the guys this meant a lot more slower rotations and cool grabs rather than double corks.

It's also not really about a podium finish, it's cash for tricks. So if you stomp a trick or do something nice, you get given $5 vans dollars to hold onto. Then at the end of the day you go cash them in and get 20 euro a pop! I like this format as it means everyone gets a little something, rather than one person walking away with everything.

The jump in the background, and rails.

The day started off on the jump, I got there a bit late so everyone was already in full flow hitting the jump. It had only been built a few days before so I hadn't hit it yet so I was a bit nervous, especially with everyone trying to drop at the same time. Eventually I hit it and did a nice bit indie grab, and got myself some cash! :)

Then we moved onto the rails. We were shredding the 'stairset', or really a slideset. It's cool as it doesn't hurt as much as stairs to fall on, but still makes the features a bit more tricky, and it looks cool for photos! I got a few tricks I was happy with, and even an OK frontboard (which i'm still trying to perfect these days) so I was stoked. And got myself another 20 euros :)

At the end of the day they did some cool prize giveaways, people were dancing, limboing, getting naked, and all sorts to get themselves some goodies. I won a pretty long handstand contest and got myself a backpack :)

So overall a fun day and a really cool different competition format! Definitely wanna do it again sometime! Much better way of getting cash than being a waitress!

PBRJ Austria, Kitzsteinhorn

Last week there was another Volcom Peanut Butter Rail Jam on in Austria. I headed over with a few of the girls from mayrhofen for the day, Betty, Eva and Bianca. After all this great weather, the forecast was actually for snow showers and high winds! Did I mention Kitzsteinhorn is a glacier.....so yeh it was pretty windy but the weather held out long enough to do the competition! It just meant the run in was a bit icy!

So, we had a quick practice on the setup. It was actually a really nice setup, the rails were really smooth. A few of the options looked a little more daunting, but once I hit them it was fine. Once we found out the format, it turned out we didn't actually have to hit the side features (which were the gap, closeout to downrail options) so most girls opted for the lefthand downrail, double kink, and right hand downrail. The format was best trick on each counts, and you have to hit all 3 features.

The Setup

In the qualis I didn't feel like i had rode my best, as the 20 minute session seemed to go really fast. So I was happy I had another chance in finals. 5 of us out of the 9 entered went through to finals and that went really well. I got my safety tricks down first hits, so then could work on the more difficult ones. Here's a shot of me on the down rail

Front Lip

Really happy to come away with 1st place. All the girls rode really well, especially as we were all a bit cold before going into finals, but after one hike that soon changed! Happy that my two friends Betty and Lisa joined me on the podium in 2nd and 4th place :)

As always, Volcom put on a great BBQ with sweets, chocolates (yum) and even beers! And then loads of throw out prizes at the end for everyone! Definitely one of the best competitions to go to for a fun day out!!

Heres a link to the edit and their write up on the day VOLCOM

Spring is here!

I always say it, but once again time has flown by!! Maybe this time it is actually a trick, as the weather has suddenly changed and become really warm! It's almost like summer and it's only the beginning of March!

So...February went by with lots and lots of holiday makers, long queues and long shifts at work! Luckily, the holidays are now over, and you can really tell the difference on the mountain! It is no longer like playing chicken on the M25.

Highlight of the month for me was coming second in the Volcom Peanut Butter Rail Jam in Grasgehren, Germany, I've been to a few of these over the last few years, and the are by far the most relaxed and fun competition. It's free entry, free food and drink, and you all hike the features so everybody gets to see what's going in, which means it's a nicer and more supportive atmosphere to a slopestyle competition.

The set up was pretty gnarly! And i must admit, when I got there, I only really wanted to hit one of the features as the others looked pretty uninviting.

There are three features, and your best trick on each counts. I like this format as once you get a solid trick on one feature you move onto the next. Then if you have time left at the end you can try and improve your tricks. I was pretty pleased to get a trick to the end of each feature as they were all pretty long! 

Well done to Charlie Rowland, who came 4th in his category! The level of the guys was insane!! Here's the link to an edit from the comp.

I've been doing quite a few of the smaller comps this year around Austria. I haven't done as well as I'd hoped, as I keep falling on my jumps! And as they are usually a 2 run format, you need to land your spins to get a podium, rather than doing a safety run. I've had a mix of 4th and 5th places. So now I need to try and improve my consistency, especially when it comes to hitting new features. Often, after traveling to the comp you only get 1 or 2 runs to familiarise yourself with the set up before its game time! I managed to get third overall in the Wir Shanzen tour though :) 

I've got a few nice snaps from Penken Park recently. One of our friends Greg Stevens at Forward Lean takes pictures twice a week in the park. Here are a few of the good shots

I've finally been getting over my fear of frontboards too, and have even given it a go on the stagger rail. Not quite made it to the end yet, but getting there!

Ao, next up is the Brits in a few weeks! Better start landing some kickers :)

2014 - What's been going on and a short Edit :)

So it's 2014!! Time goes fast, the season is already wizzing by!!

So far it's been really fun, although we haven't had all that much snow :( It started off so good back in November with lots of snow down in town, and we even managed to ride some urban! But since then the 'Fern' has swept through the mountain a few times warming everything up! (Fern means hairdryer in German! And it refers to a warm wind that comes up from Italy through the valley.)

Now quite a green valley!

Although saying that, we still have had enough snow to have some fun in the park. Not everywhere has managed to get all their features in yet, but there is definitely enough to play around on. Just waiting on a few of the bigger jumps to get finished off with this last snowfall.

We managed to have a really fun pow day last week over at Zillertal Arena (by Zell an Ziller). You have to be careful as there isn't much base, but we found some pockets of decent snow in the trees. On our way home we also found an awesome tree house!!! There are lots of them around the valley, but this one was by far the best. We even hiked back up the piste after spotting it to get to it! There was a really cool cloud inversion too, so the view was amazing.

Best Tree House EVER

                       

Really nice view from up at Zillertal Arena last week

                           

We've also been heading out the valley to some of the other resorts on our Tirol snowcard. We went to Steinplatte the other week for a fun day of mellow jibs. It was crazy though, it was so slushy there as its quite a low resort, it reminded me of being back in Morzine a few years ago. Here' a little edit I made from the days adventures, with my friend Bianca.

 A Day in Steinplatte Edit

Last week we headed over to Pastcherkofel, which is near Innsbruck. We'd heard they have some fun jibs and a fairly long jib run. Although once we got there we discovered it wasn't all in yet (snow) so we hiked a little rail and then had a cruise about. It's a really funny small resort, we went up this superold  gondola to get there in the first place.

                        

And on the way back, ended up hiking through some woods to find the middle station!! haha. Fun times :)

                                  

Goodbye cold cold glaciers!!

Soooo as November came to and end, it was finally time for the lower resorts to open and the end of frostbitten toes and glacier parks!!!

We made a little trip over to Kaunertal though on its last few days of Park. I went with Nathan and two girls also doing a season here, Polly and Bianca. It was a second stop of the Wir Schanzen tour, and we thought we'd make a trip of it and go and stay two nights in a town just down the valley. It was wonderful bluebird on the day, but unfortunately the park stays in the shade for most of the day, so it was extremely cold waiting around for your turn!!

The comp didn't go so well for me, although I think everybody was struggling to actually pull off any nice tricks as everyone had frozen feet and even legs by the time it was time to drop!! The little kids still seemed to have bundles of energy and warmth?! They must have had their Weetabix! The park set up was also really nice, I'm looking forward to going back up there in Spring when its not minus 100!

I think I ended up in 6th, but it was still fun to meet some other girls from around the area.  There are a lot of girls who live down in Innsbruck and travel up to all the different resorts, so it'll be nice to get to know some of them over the season and go shred! There is an epic view of the Dam on the way down from Kaunertal too!!

As there has been lots of early snow in the valley we've also tried to do a bit more urban riding. We went up to a spot just before Hintertux a few weeks ago and set up a jump over a tunnel.

The tunnel

 It seemed pretty big when we got there, but I thought I could manage it. But by the time we built the monster of a kicker, which was a good few meters back from where I had imagined, I decided to leave it up to the boys!! Even they found it quite a challenge.

Building the kicker

Beasty Kicker! Check!

It was pretty exciting to watch and see how something will turn out after making it yourself. Joe did a kinda sketchy straight air, being the guinea pig...he said the kicker was a bit whippy so just went straight back up and backflipped it!!! Crazy boy!! But he absolutely stomped it, it was great!

Joe Webster throwing a huge backflip!

After that we made a pow kicker off a cat track and hit that a few times. That was pretty fun! There wasn't a lot of base yet but it'll be a good spot to go back to once it's snowed a bit more!

Me doing a stalefish into the pow!

Some good weather has set in since all the storms which is nice. Unfortunately I've hurt my shoulder a bit so i'm resting or a few days! Penken park is now open and Kaltenbach set up this year is looking sick!! So hopefully in a few more days that'll be open and i'll be able to go shred! :)

Kaltenbach park is almost ready!!