Germany Training Day 4-5

The past couple of days we have seen much rain here in Plattling Germany. So much so that we may even loose the wave if the water keeps coming up as it will be flushed out with high water levels.

 

The higher water is rounding out the field of competitors and there are a pile of solid boaters here from all around the globe.  The feature itself has seen a range of water flows over the past week and fluctuates daily with the sun and rain. In fact, the rain and sun here can change the levels of the water flow in minutes either bringing it up with a light rain or allowing the water to drop dramatically when the sun us shining.  Either way, I think most competitors would agree that rain is welcome as it make the wave/hole we are surfing rock free. For those that don't know and are reading this, rocks are the defining features that design the shape of any given wave or hole. When the water levels are too low, the rocks come closer to the surface creating a hazard for both kayak and kayaker. These rocks can stop our momentum while in the middle of the trick and in doing so we can flush or fall off the feature, not a good thing. The other issue it brings is for those of us who have carbon fibre kayaks which are expensive, custom and generally fragile, "big/deep water" play kayaks do not like rocks and start to break down fairly quickly when hitting rocks. Anyways the water flow is getting high right now and I heard from a local kayaker here in Plattling that if it were to keep raining for the next day or two we could literally loose the feature all together as it would simply flush away with too much water. This is precisely what happened here one year ago almost to date at the last big contest they tried to host here, it rained and rained and rained some more and mother nature basically was having none of it, in the end, the event was cancelled. Here's to this less fortunate possibility not happening here again. 

 

 

The heat is on these past couple days with people getting dialed in, a few stand out are, Nick Troutman (current champion), Dane Jackson, Tyler Curtis, Eric Jackson, Gerd Serisolis, James Bebbington, Stephen Wright, Katia, Ruth Gordon Ebens and to be frank quite a few other unknowns to myself that have come out of nowhere and rippin'. This feature definately favors the small hole boaters out there which covers alot of ground as most places in the world offer small hole/wave boating for year round training. Where I am from, the Ottawa Valley, we have big water for a loarg portion of the year and hence we are lucky enough to be able to prefer big water, big wave boating and surfing, in my mind, its simply more exciting and fun. However this smaller feature here in Plattling present unique challenges of its own and is quite fun also, just in a different kind of way. Basically a less fun kind of way for lack of a better phrase and yes, I am tired and ready for bed right now.  So here I am in Germany getting ready for another world championships at a small feature in a small town with big prices, a glass of coke in this town costs 2.40 euros, thats works out to be $3.36 CAD which works out to be 3.43 USD. unreal if you ask me and I still can't figure out why. Beer is cheaper than coke and in some places even water which would be great if I were here to party but I'm not. Anyways the food has been great and I have been getting my fair share of Schnitzel. I have been having a hard time finding a bratwurst sausage also which is as far as I'm concerned next to the schnitzel one of the representing foods of Germany, man was I wrong, took me a week to track a cooked sausage down, was it worth it...? YES! 

The training is going well but again with the changing water levels, the feature changes daily which means we are making changes on the fly with our training and I have changed my routine 3 times now to accommodate the constant flux. Its interesting to say the least and presents its own challenge simply because you have to stay light on your toes; so to speak, as we simply don't know what to expect come our first contest day this coming Wednesday, prelims.  The water level could be high, it could be low and presents an interesting dynamic for this contest, one which we deal with in probably more than half the contests around the globe and reminds us all of one thing that is all bigger than us and that is, mother nature runs our show!

Ciao for now and more to come soon, enjoy the pics below!

Cbomb back in the boat playground

Old buddy Thomas from Team Ireland

Odbjorn from Norway and Joey and Joey's creation

Joey getting some hang time at the pool

Dane and EJ

Cbomb never letting that bottle get to far from him

The bib give away at Globus for Nick Troutman and Emily Jackson

Nicholas Troutman, the current World Champion with the number 1 bib.

Team Canada`s training lineup

Cooper Lemkay

Sara Jane Daub loopin`it up!

Joel Kowalski killin`it

Kalob Grady doin`somthing cool

Adam Chappelle also killin`it

«the line up

Keegan Grady chasin oranges

Ruth Gordon Ebens slaying this feature! One of her impressive loops!

Joey & Calder post dinner walkin`it off... 

I`m going to do my best to get a video of some of our training up here later tonight or tomorrow. Ciao for now!