4'th Place at the 2012 Ro Sham Throwdown!!!

July 12'th I took off to Hood River Oregon for a few weeks to participate in the Kiteboard 4 Cancer charity event, the Slider Projects - Ro Sham Throwdown (one of two major park/wakestyle events) as well as explore the area and do some stuff with the Liquid Force crew.

I had been wanting to check this place out ever since I started kiteboarding and was pretty excited to finally roll into "the hood!"  The trip didn't necessarily go the way I planned it but I still managed to get some good results, see some beautiful scenery, ride everyday (except the day after the closing Ro Sham party ha) and do a bunch of mountain biking!

Sooooo, I arrived late and the next day Kiteboarding 4 Cancer was kicking off.  So it was straight to the event site to meet up with our crew.  The LF Team consisted of Brandon Scheid, Colleen Carroll, Dave Grove and myself.  We ended up in 2'nd Overall with a total of 34 laps for the main portion of the event!  The team were happy with that and I'm pretty sure I heard Tonia Farman the organizer of the event say we had raised well over $60, 000!!!  Really proud of the kiteboarding community for coming together and raising such a large amount of funds to send cancer survivors to camp!  Well done.

Right after KB4C the Ro Sham Throwdown was set to go down!  This event along with SSS are really pushing the park/wakestyle side of things in kiteboarding!  30+ of the best riders in the world came out to run heats and see who had the most steeze in the park (photos below) which included the Liquid Force Dancefloor, Slingshot Kicker, Airush Funbox and the Best Box/Single Barrel Gap along with Joby's Pole!   I was really worried about just making it through my first 8 man heat with a bunch of really solid riders but ended up being first to advance through after day 1.  The next day I got to sit out and watch as I was now pre seeded into the Semi Finals!

In the semis I had another pretty heavy heat with Sam Light, Rich Sabo, Jason Slezak and Jake Kelsick... but managed to lay down a solid run with a mobe, shifty 313, switch toe front 5 and some decent slider hits.  I guess I did enough to make it into the 6 man finals! 

The finals were going to be super tough with Sam Light, Brandon Scheid, Eric Rienstra, Sam Medysky, Alex Fox and myself going for it.  I was just stoked to be in a heat with these guys, even though were all friends, these guys have really been killing it these past few years.  I was up first and my run went pretty much perfect minus my gap hit from the up-box to the single barrel hand rail.  I managed to get off a a nice combo hit on the LF dancefloor, another switch toe 5 off the kicker, another backmobe, a big shifty 315 and a Stale S-Mobe.  The other boys were throwing down hard though and not making it easy for anyone.  At the end of it all Sam Light (Naish) ended up in 1'st, Brandon Schied (LF) in 2'nd and Alex Fox( Slingshot)  rounded out the podium with the 3'rd place finish.  I ended up in 4'th which I am really happy about considering the level of riders and all the big names at the event!

And also congrats to the girls 1'st Colleen Carroll (LF), 2'nd Laura Maher (Slingshot) and 3'rd Sensi Graves (LF)!

Thanks to Joby, Forrest, Katie, "the Spit crew" and everybody else at the Slider Project  who made this event possible!  Thanks to the local crew and all my friends for the hospitality and warm welcome!  And thanks to Jim Stringfellow for the majority of these photos!  Can't wait to come back to the Hood next year...

Keep your eyes peeled for lots of media to come out of this event in the coming months!  But for now check out the first edit to come out of the event...

2'nd Place at Wake Up Call 2012 Niagara!

Wake Up Call 2012 was held at the brand new Boarder Pass Sesitec 2.0 system in Port Colbourne, Ontario!  Lots of really good riders showed up to shred the fresh set up and everyone threw down hard.  Christian Primrose took me down in the finals with a super clean and tech run, dude is killing it.  Congrats bro!  Chris Sinkic came in 3'rd and Drew Austin 4'th.

SBC Kiteboard - Generation Next Feature

The latest issue of SBC Kiteboard just dropped.   And in it they've done a feature called "Generation Next"  on 4 North American kiteboarders that are "Busting up the Ranks!"  It includes Patri McGlaughlin, Claire Lutz, Evan Netsch and myself.

Also getting some love is fellow Canadian Sam Medysky with a two page spread from last falls Great Lakes shenanigans... this photo was taken 5 minutes from my house in the Turkey Point Marina.  Thanks to Josh Pietras for all the photos in this issue!

If your looking for this issue check out you local magazine stand or go to www.SBCkiteboard.com and pick a subscription.

Liquid Force Weekly Gear Fix

Here's the Liquid Force Kiteboarding Weekly Gear Fix... this week it's with me!  I explain what gear I've been riding this year and why!  Check it out...

2012 SSS Invitational - Wildcard and Rookie of the Year!!!

sunset in the backyard at REAL Watersports

just before things start to fire up with the Dub Plates

2012 SSS poster

The 2012 SSS Invitational just wrapped up... what a crazy week of riding and partying!  During the opening ceremonies on Day#1 I couldn't believe when I heard my name called up for the autograph session!  So stoked to be in the mix as a wildcard with the all the top riders in the world pushing it as hard as we can for a full week of SSS (Surf, Slicks and Sliders)!  The SSS Invitational has for a long time now been the most prestigious event in the industry and I'm super excited to be a part of it as every year the most progressive riding goes down with everyone trying to take kiteboarding to the next level!

lining up for a winch session

the new Liquid Force reverse rainbow/flatbar

the 2012 SSS crew

It was a full week of riding all the brand new features, shredding flat water and kickers at KitePoint, some amazing surf sessions at the Lighthouse and of course as always the raging SSS parties did not dissappoint! Everything from the past week was a blur going into the final nights closing ceremonies!  We did another autograph signing for the huge crowd and then the awards ceremony got under way.  The NA Blend crew dominated SSS this year!  With my boy Liquid Force team mate Brandon Schied cleaning up with 1'st overall followed by Billy Parker and Eric Rienstra... NA Blend sweep!  The same results for sliders  Scheid, Parker, Rienstra.  While in the slicks PKRA boss Alex Pastor was on fire with Scheid and Sam Light rounding out the podium!  On the girls side of things, good friend Colleen Carroll (Wildcard Winner) and Liquid Force team mate cleaned up the ladies side with a 1'st in Sliders, 2'nd in Slicks, 2'nd in Surf and 3'rd in Winch giving her 2'nd Overall to PKRA champ Gisela Pulido.  Sensi Graves, Laura Vroman and Claire Lutz (all LF girls) held it down too killing the sliders and winch jam!

DJ Chela kicking it off

poster signing session

rider awards

NA Blend crew sweeping overall!  Billy Parker 2'nd, 
Brandon Scheid 1'st, Eric Rienstra 3'rd

LF girls holding the sliders down!  Sensi Graves 2'nd, 
Colleen Carroll 1'st, Claire Lutz 3'rd

One big surprise was the Rookie of the Year Award... Could not believe it when Trip called me up for the award!  Was so excited to just be in the event, riding with all my friends and the best riders in the world!   But winning Rookie of the Year just took everything to a whole new level!  So needless to say things got crazy after the awards and I'm still recovering from the week long event...  Was pretty much the best way I could've capped off my spring on Cape Hatteras Island!  Just want to say thanks to everybody at Real Watersports for putting on the event and making me feel at home in the backyard!  You guys are the best!  Gonna miss the Hatteras crew... hope to see you in the hood!

Davey Blair (Slickstyle Attitude Award Co-Winner), Craig Cunningham (Rookie of the Year), 

Joby Cook (Slickstyle Attitude Award Co-Winner)  Stoked to be up there with these legends!!!

the NA BLEND crew is deep!

gonna miss this set up...

LF East Coast Demo Tour

A couple weeks back some of the Liquid Force crew (Jason Slezak, Brian Smith, Colleen Carroll, Stan Radev and myself) took off on a short demo tour up the East Coast from Cape Hatteras.  First stop was Ocean City, Maryland where we scored a fun ocean side session and night out on the town!  This place definitely has some great flat water potential but we had to get moving onto NYC early so this will have to stay on my list of spots to hit up another time.

We then hopped on a fairy across the Delaware River into New Jersey and started the drive up to Brooklyn.  I've never been to NYC before so it was quite the experience driving through the burrows and checking some tourist spots out.  We had an amazing dinner at one of Jason's friends restaurants in Manhattan and a bunch of drinks, then headed out on the town!

The next day the crew rallied early and made our way to the NYC Kiteboard Centre in Long Island who has recently taken on LF as a main brand at their shop and school!  The crew there was very welcoming and things were looking good in the morning as far as conditions coming through.  So we took a boat out and checked out some of the famous NYC slicks and picked a few spots that we would hopefully ride later in the day... But no luck, the wind backed off and so the party started a little earlier than expected and multiple no wind activities ensued.

After a long day and night at the NYC Kiteboard Centre we were back on the road and it was looking like we'd be able to grab a sesssion back in Ocean City.  So we b-lined it for 6 hours back and showed up to Ocean City blasting 30 knot winds!  Everyone was stoked and ready to get on the water but as we rolled up to the parking lot it started to downpour and continued to for a few hours until we had to call it and head back to Cape Hatteras.

So not a lot of sessions but we definitely got to talk shop with bunch of kiters and I managed to see 5 states I've never been to before!  So all in all it was a really good time with the crew and now I have a few more spots on the radar to go shred!  Will definitely look forward to another East Coast road trip!

Kitespain Issue 2.3 Coverage

The new issue of Kitespain just came out... really liking the look and content of this mag since it started the 2.0 version!  They've also been running lots of coverage from the NA Blend crew which has been great for all of us getting more media exposure over in Europe!  In this issue I have a 8 page feature on my top 10 ways to max out your fun on the water!  It's all about having fun!!!

If your Spanish is as good as mine you'll have to wait a few more weeks for the English version to drop!  Thanks to JPietrasPhotography for all the shots!