Tuesday, July 17, 2012

2 weeks , 2 huckers, 2 french free ride comps , 2 meke bro!



Yep for the last 2 weeks I have been on the road with my good mate and swiss destroyer Ramon Hunziker .
final results
Starting from Switzerland , we loaded the van with ourselves and way too much stuff , and started driving towards the smell of fresh croissants cooking and the sound of frogs sizzling on the grill and the sight of the beautiful French alps..
Chatel mountain style  competition , a freeride , big mountain ,pick your own line style of comp is held at Chatel resort , France , I have been twice before and had a blast so it was an easy call to choose to show up again.
The weather wasn’t looking too flash on the  forecast and the pounding rain on the van window  was complimenting the weather forecast geeks handsome salary. Damn  lucky we brought mud tires!
L2A!!
The first ride on the course was hectic !, it was insanely wet and slippery with mud that stuck to your tyres and bike , I spent most of the run one foot off in no control of my bike whatsoever! The hotel room seemed like a better a better idea so we headed back and hoped for better weather in the morn for quals.
We woke to blazing sun  beaming down , drying out the muddy slop, everyone was pumped.  By the time3pm rolled around the course was running sweet!
The weather was looking shady for the next day which was supposed to be finals…so the organisers said “cut loose …today it might not happen tomorrow” , I took their advice and went hard in my Quals run , getting pretty loose on a few fast parts , floatin a backo  over the road gap and holding it together down to the bottom  which was good enough for 4th place. Stoked. My travel buddy Ramon scored himself a flat tire which he was pretty pissed about!
Sure enough the rain came the next day and they canned the finals …ya cant say they didn’t warn us!!..anyways I was stoked with 4th place  overall and 1000 euros …Paaaarty!!
 We Headed back to switz to grab the hard tails and cruise to Crankworx Europe in Les Deux Alpes , France. Driving to the resort was pretty epic, the road winding up with massive alps either side. We showed up to the hotel and caught up with all the rad team from Teva , chowed down a few croissants for breako and went to ride the course.



Sven Martin ..world traveler, photog and weapon 

from where I was standing

The Event organisation was pretty loose and the weather was a little shady… but somehow we managed to have a comp on sat morn , people were getting pretty wild, some crazy shit went down …mega French shredders I have never heard of juuust throwing down!
In the end Semenuk destroyed the field as per usual … big tricks on lock .and unbelievably smooth and calculated …a well deserved 1st place
Ramon and myself had pretty clean runs , I grabbed 9th and Ramon 10th..I was stoked on Two top ten FMB gold event finishes this Euro trip . (check out my Gopro footy)
With the comp done and dusted there was nothing left to do but drink a lot of beers with the crew and paaarty all night  and ensure that the drive to the airport in the morning absolutely sucked!
Euro life!!! hahahha
Cheers
Kelly

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