Rider of the Year 2011

The team at Tribe have once again headed of the world wide phenomenon that is 'Rider of the Year awards'. Last year there were a bunch of epic film clips of people out there doing what they love on the water and making it look good, big, classy and even really really bad!! This year people have raised the bar and there are some epic shots coming out! Check out this trailer to see some of what is in store and who might come away with the grand title!

In here you can see nominations for Hydraulics Team riders Tyler Fox, Louise Urwin and Brendan Bayly!! Good work guys and good luck!!! EPIC!!!

BRENDAN BAYLY!!

Alright so we are stoked here at Team H to have Brendan Bayly on board and as usual he is charging! Right now he is up in Norway with a few other Kiwi boys and they are ripping! After an epic week in Voss at extreme sports week he headed north to Sjoa festival and then his latest update is from the Lower Rauma! This is one of the most epic looking creeks out there!!! Check it out!!

Lower Rauma river, Norway. from brendan bayly on Vimeo.

Head on over to www.brendanbayly.blogspot.com for more epic photos and updates!

Cheers for all the sick updates brendan!!

Voss Extreme Week 2011 with Josh Neilson

Monday, July 4, 2011

A spot of kayaking with a bit of flying

Gudvangen BASE site - Amazing day!

- The view from the top! Jokke in front right after take off

So things have been so busy in the last week I haven't had time to post anything! Firstly Extreme sports week started here in Voss and it was raining pretty hard for the start of the week meaning a lot of the comps were postponed or canceled! Luckily we were able to shoot some sweet kayak footage and get some edits done! My job for the week not only to film my own film was also to film and edit the 'Todays videos' for kayaking in the festival tent. I was stoked to work with Julian, Hugh and Finn to make some funny films and was stoked that I was awarded Best film of the Todays Video!

With the bad weather I was forced to shoot the interview with Jokke Sommer indoors but the content was great and it shouldn't be too bad in the final film. With a bit of good weather on the way we headed out to Gudvangen to film some BASE shots. Day one was not a big cliff and Jokke just busted out a double back flip into a straight base without his wingsuit. Then it was back to work with kayaking the next day for the race where we busted out a quick edit on the race mixed with a bit of dancing!

- My ride for the day

Luckily the BASE day was postponed to saturday and I was able to fly up to Gudvangen exit point and film there! I was up on the lip of the cliff all day and watched all the jumpers have sweet jumps! Jokke busted out 2 sick lines one left and the last to the right buzzing the cliff and trees on the way down with his buddy Tom. From here we flew back to Voss in time to gear up for Prize giving where Sam and Toni won their head to head races and I got a sweet new Gopro for best film.

- Teams race prize giving

Next up was Fat Freddies Drop in concert and the rest is history! What an epic week of filming and hanging out with awesome people! So inspired by all the sick athletes out there doing what they love! Stay tuned for more updates as the film is coming together fast now! Stoked on all the support from people who have made this film happen so far! Big things on the horizon!

Cheers

Josh

- Team Gopro on take-off - Such nice guys!!

- Jokke checking his wingsuit

- Base day 1 - Most chill people I've met!

-Brothers Sutton at the teams race

Voss Extreme Week 2011

Monday, July 4, 2011

A spot of kayaking with a bit of flying

Gudvangen BASE site - Amazing day!

- The view from the top! Jokke in front right after take off

So things have been so busy in the last week I haven't had time to post anything! Firstly Extreme sports week started here in Voss and it was raining pretty hard for the start of the week meaning a lot of the comps were postponed or canceled! Luckily we were able to shoot some sweet kayak footage and get some edits done! My job for the week not only to film my own film was also to film and edit the 'Todays videos' for kayaking in the festival tent. I was stoked to work with Julian, Hugh and Finn to make some funny films and was stoked that I was awarded Best film of the Todays Video!

With the bad weather I was forced to shoot the interview with Jokke Sommer indoors but the content was great and it shouldn't be too bad in the final film. With a bit of good weather on the way we headed out to Gudvangen to film some BASE shots. Day one was not a big cliff and Jokke just busted out a double back flip into a straight base without his wingsuit. Then it was back to work with kayaking the next day for the race where we busted out a quick edit on the race mixed with a bit of dancing!

- My ride for the day

Luckily the BASE day was postponed to saturday and I was able to fly up to Gudvangen exit point and film there! I was up on the lip of the cliff all day and watched all the jumpers have sweet jumps! Jokke busted out 2 sick lines one left and the last to the right buzzing the cliff and trees on the way down with his buddy Tom. From here we flew back to Voss in time to gear up for Prize giving where Sam and Toni won their head to head races and I got a sweet new Gopro for best film.

- Teams race prize giving

Next up was Fat Freddies Drop in concert and the rest is history! What an epic week of filming and hanging out with awesome people! So inspired by all the sick athletes out there doing what they love! Stay tuned for more updates as the film is coming together fast now! Stoked on all the support from people who have made this film happen so far! Big things on the horizon!

Cheers

Josh

- Team Gopro on take-off - Such nice guys!!

- Jokke checking his wingsuit

- Base day 1 - Most chill people I've met!

-Brothers Sutton at the teams race

Upper Middle Consumnes

KR trying to piece together the next mission via dreamflows

Over the past couple of weeks we have often remarked on what its like to be the tourist in a paddling destination like California. Back home we know what runs are good, who's been on them of late and what river to head to next.

Paddling in Cali doesn't come that easy to us, especially this year with the record snow pack. The high water levels have kept us on our toes so to speak. All too often the plan had been made, gear and cars packed, only to check the river flows and find that our planned run had risen beyond what we were happy to paddle. As it turns out, not all the adventure happens on the river. More like at the Coloma bakery.

Part man, part ginger wolverine. The one and only Keith Riley

We like it stacked. KJ and Tyler talk California polictics

The one river run that proved to be consistent was the Upper Middle Consumnes. Low volume, steep and packed with granite. It's almost always a winning formula.

Keith Riley, Matt Coles and I managed four laps on this gem over a week long period. We were also joined by team latvia (Tommas Marnics), Rachel Curtis (NZ) and Jake Greenbuam (our token American).

PGA. Post Granite Awesome

Making it happen. Foxy's first day in Cali. Can you believe it.

Matty dropping skatepark

The UMC is an amazing run. It does, however, have a way of exacting a carnage tax from those who venture into its granite playground. Be it on the river or simply trying to get to or from it there seems to be some form of mini epic.

Swims, broken paddles, broken boats, broken people, lost teams, lost vehicles, lost tempers and a very typical very long california shuttle. All of this in only 7 trips.

Tyler firing the Arahura or UMC?

That good!

After a couple of laps on the UMC we decided to break a little further north and have a crack at the Rubicon River. I paddled this run back in 05' or 07' and only remembered good things about it. Our flow then was about 800cfs. This time we gave it a nudge at 2000+ cfs and the Rubicon nudged back. The Rubicon only flows on big water/ snow pack years and as a result the river bed is filled with large Alders (kind of like willow trees). As a result there are no eddies to speak of. You are pretty much locked into a corridor of trees with no option to get out if you want. I'm sure the run goes at this flow, especially for the bold, very good and courageous. However, we dealt with a tree across the main flow and didn't rate the chances of it not happening again. The result, two miles in we pulled the pin and decided to practice the art of hiking out with our tails firmly between our legs. Good call.

The Rubicon put-in..... and take out.

T-Fox following the path of least resistance

Got wood?

Back in Coloma we made the call to...... yep, head back into the UMC.

Our luck did extend to having fantastic flows for pretty much all out runs on the UMC. 450-560 cfs meant that there was enough fluff in between at the good stuff to not pin ball down the run. At these flows all the bigger drops were good to go. It even mean that we could paddle two rapids that I had previously portages in recent years. It definitely added an extra element of 'aesthetic' to link a bunch the bigger rapids together without many eddies and without having to get out of your boat. Jackpot! This also cut down on paddling time as well. Just over two hours boating had as at the take out in time to meet our lovely shuttle drivers. Complete with chips, beer and bikini's. Thank you to Rach, Melissa, Soph, Amy and Laura.

KJR in the honeymoon stage of the run.... just plain fun

Matty Coles furthering his Calfornia kayaking education.

School was in session