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| Dropstitch Iceland - Stalefish |
Hello everyone. I am now on my way to Italy for a World Cup before going to Avoriaz for another quarter pipe contest so I have a busy week ahead of me. I have just come from Laax where I competed in the Burton European Open. I was supposed to compete in the Slopstyle and Pipe but due to terrible weather conditions the slopestyle had to be cancelled. The conditions in Laax are not so good and were even worse when we arrived. The first day we were there we could not even ride down to the bottom of the mountain as the piste was basically a field. Fortunately for the resorts out here it got cold and started to snow with a vengence but this made it very hard to run the contest. Eventually after a lot of delays the pipe contest got under way in an excellent pipe. I rode well and solidly but just missed finals again, fianls being 8 this time, to come in 10th place. It is frustrating to miss finals twice by a hair but I am happy with the way I am riding and am feeling more and more confident all the time. The ladies pipe contest was won by the Aussie ripper Holly Crawford who was pulling off some beefy frontside tweaked 540s, NICE. Crispin Lipscomb from Canada took the mens gold with an almost perfect run including cab 1080 to frontside 900 combos. WOW. The rest of the Brits put in a good show with Dan Wakeham also narrowly missing the finals in 17th place, 16 men get in the finals of the European Open.
I have been hearing good things about Scotland and it seems like there is as much snow over there as in the Alps. I am heading back home next week to see for myself and am really looking forward to getting in some Scottish shredding. See you all soon,
Les
Wednesday 24th January 2007
Hello everyone, just a quick update from Switzerland while the snow is falling in Scotland, yippee! I am now at the European Open in Laax after competing in the World Championships in Arosa. I was pleased to finish in 8th place in difficult conditions. The weather and lack of snow made it hard for both the riders and the organisers but in the end there was some great riding and the competition came off well. Before the World Champs I was in Davos for the O Niell Evolution and was very happy to come 6th in the quarter pipe contest. It is not often that you get to ride a quarter pipe and especially not often that you get to ride one with a ten meter transition. I had a lot of fun riding that day!!!!
In the World Champs, Mathiew Crepel from France won the men's Gold with Manuela Pesko from Switzerland taking the ladies Gold. I narrowly missed the finals as I was 8th and 6 make it through. I am now hoping for a good result in the European Open before I come home to the powder in Scotland. See you all soon,
Lesley
Wednesday 20th December 2006
Hello everyone,
I hope you are all looking forward to Christmas and are as happy as me that it is cold and if it snows the snow will lie. In fact I think Scotland is as good as anywhere in Europe right now as 3 of my contests since Saas Fee in Nov have had to be cancelled as there has not been enough snow anywhere to run them! I have just come from Kaprun in Austria which is a glacier and right now is very very crowded. The valley below was green and it was even too warm for the snow making to work. Not good. Anyway, I was in Kaprun for the Roxy Chicken Jam but got roped into judging instead of riding as they needed a female judge for the all girl slopestyle. As Slopestyle is not my main event I thought it might be fun and educational to judge and I was right. Judging is not as easy as it seem and from now on I will give the judges a break as it is very hard to differentiate sometimes. All in all I think the judges did a good job though as there were no complaints, which is very unusual and the girls riding seemed to have a great time. It was a young American called Jamie Anderson who took first place and at only 16 years old she was the youngest competitor in the event!!!! Surely a sign of more wins to come. Cheryl Maas the slopestyle queen from Holland took second and our very own slopestyle queen, Jenny Jones took a very well deserved third place in front of Torah Bright.
In other snowsports, my energetic young cousin Noel Baxter has been silently creeping up the rankings and gaining valuable experience on the World Cup Tour in a few different events. I spoke to him a few days ago and he was excited to have placed 32nd, just a hair away from the second run, in the Mens World Cup Giant Slalom on Sunday. My older cousin, Alain Baxter is getting back to form after becoming a father for the first time and is looking forward to getting back to competition in the New Year. Chemmy has been blazing a formidable trail so far this season and especially so as she was injured most of the summer. So far she has raked up top 15 places with a 7th and an 8th last week in Austria!! Well done Chemmy and keep it up. The snowboard tour, like I said has been thwarted by cancellations so there is no news there. Here is hoping for snow in the next few weeks.
I am heading back to bonnie Scotland for Christmas and a rest before Jan hits and I have four contests in as many weeks. I am hoping to have a bit of Scottish white stuff to slide around on and I hope to see you all up the mountain.
Merry Christmas everyone!!!
Cheers, Lesley
Tuesday 27th June 2006
Hello everyone. I hope you are all enjoying the summer so far and are managing to get out and about. i have spent the last few months trying to learn to surf better in Scotland. It really is amazing in Scotland for surfing as long as you don't mind the cold too much. The beaches are perfect and they are very quiet and the waves are pretty consistent. We have also been getting the next film together and it is now in the editing process. I am starting to get very excited about how it is looking and can't wait to see the finished film. Apart from surfing I have been doing a lot of biking on the road and on my mountain bike to get myself good and fit for going to New Zealand where I am heading to in july to get in some on snow training. It is so nice to be injury free, touch wood, for a summer and be able to train instead of do re-hab all summer. I reckon I will be in great shape when I do get on the snow. So, if you haven't checked out the Scottish beaches then give them a go, you will be very surprised!
Bye for now, Lesley
Thursday 23rd February 2006
I hope you have all been glued to the winter Olympics and have been enjoying the action as much as I have been. I was in Torino until yesterday and was lucky enough to take in some of the other events there. The atmosphere is really great and the crowds have been amazing.
The half pipe was fairly early on in the games, the mens on the 12th and the womens on the 13th. The pipe was in perfect condition and we were very very lucky to have had the best of the weather as well. The only down side was that the pipe was very icy but it is better that than really snowy. The riding there was the best I have ever seen in a contest setting. Both the men and the ladies were really pushing limits with the trick combinations being tried and with the amplitude they were getting. I got to Torino having had the most intense lead up to any competition I have ever been in. Things had not been easy for me and I had had a very tough year but I had finally overcome everything and was riding better than ever. It takes a while before your confidence returns enough to be able to think about riding better than you have ever ridden and I had reached that point just in time. I had been riding at my best for a few weeks and had been lacking that little bit extra I knew I was going to need to get in the top ten at the games. All the top girls in Torino had been riding and competing hard since July and were really on top form so I knew I needed that little bit extra to be in with a shout at the final. I was so happy that everything had clicked into place in time.
I watched the mens contest with Kjersti Buaas and Cheryl Maas who had been my riding budies for the last few weeks. We were blown away by the standard of the mens riding, especially Shawn White who seemed to be doing a different sport to everyone else. We were almost relieved to see him mess up one run in the qualification though!! After watching that we knew we had to go all out to even get near the finals and we got really excited about the next day.
The next day came and I was really relaxed and ready to take things on. The pipe was a bit softer than it had been and the flat bottom a bit slower because of this but apart from that it was in great shape. I knew to get enough amplitude I had to drop in as fast as possible especially as it was slower than it had bee. It was the first time since I had hurt myself I had felt totally confident dropping in with so much speed and I was ready to go bigger than anyone else. That is a special feeling that only comes now and again and I was so excited to have it at the top of the Olympic pipe. I knew anything could happen and that I had the chance to pull out my best ever run. Then the unthinkable happened. I dropped in for the first run really fast but ready to go massif and I hit some soft snow in the transition and lost my edge. I could not believe what had happened. I had only ever done this in soft pipes in training and never in a competition and could not believe it had just happened a the Olympics right when I was feeling better than ever. So many things went through my mind right then. All the hours of training and physio I had done to get back from injury in time to be here, all the hard work just to believe I could make it back to the level I need to be at and all for a crash on the drop in. I don’t have a word to describe what I really felt to be honest. The second run was going OK but I just mis timed my first spin by a milisecond and my tail hit the coping. The Olympics was not to be for me. I was gutted but in retrospect I had to be a happy that I made it there and that I was lucky enough tto be there and ready to take it on and compete because if I had not done that I would not be the competitor that I am or indeed the person I am either. I could have taken the easy option and stuck with a safe run but I knew the best that would have gotten me would have been around 15th and I needed to be int he top 12 to make the finals so I had to step it up. I know it takes a bit of time to get in the competition zone and ride at your limit in contests and I knew it was a big risk to try and pull it off in the Olympics after having only competed a couple of times since my injury just to make sure the ankle was OK and never having competed at full steam since my injury but it was a risk I had to take. It could have worked.
All the girls in the finals were on their limits. A lot of them crashed in at least on run of the finals if not two so I was not alone. Kjersti, who happily won the bronze medal, later said to me, “I am so happy to see you riding like you are after the year you have had and I am proud you took it on. If you ever stop doing that you have to quit. I crashed in the last three contest I did and then it came together and it will for you too. Next time you have the chance to ride better than ever and that is something to get really excited about.” At the end of the day that is snowboarding. The Olympics has adopted snowboarding but has not really adopted it’s spirit and that makes it hard for the snowboarders sometimes to stay true to that spirit but I can feel happy that I did that and the as a snowboarder I really improved at the Olympics and it gave me that chance to become better than before. That is all I ever ask. And I saw one of my best friends do just that too.
I am now looking forward to the rest of the season. I am heading to the Vans Crown in the USA then on to the next World Cup in Lake Placid before arriving in Laax for the Orange Brits. I am really looking forward to trying out some new tricks and also to the end of March when I get to film a bit for the next Chunkyknit project. So much to look forward to and so many new things to learn. Hope to see you all soon,
X Les
Tuesday 24th January 2006
Hello Everyone,
Hope you are all getting as excited about the Olympics as I am. I have had a very busy few weeks and have also got in a lot of riding and a lot of travelling. My XC90 is definitely racking up the miles at the moment!!!!! I was in Scotland for a family Christmas which was lovely, although I missed the snow.
I went to Breckenridge in Colorado at the start of Jan for some pipe training with Cheryl Maas the Dutch girls and my fellow team mate Kate Foster. The pipe was really perfect and the US team turned up along with Australian rider Torah Bright. It was perfect training as the US team girls are definite favourites to win medals at the Olympics and Torah is definitely trying to challenge them too. Unfortunaltely I got a bad cold which did not make hiking the pipe at 3500m any easier!!! I battled on though and got in some great riding and managed to get my tricks back to where they were before I hurt myself which is a good position to be in. I then flew back to Europe and drove to Switzerland for the World Cup in Leysin. Luck was not on my side and the weather turned bad and my decision to miss the first days practice in lew of staying in Breck for an extra day back fired when the second practice day got cancelled and I have to start the competition having not riden the pipe. This was not ideal as the pipe was very different to the Breck pipe. I unfortunately crashed in the first contest and the second, only managing to put together one half good run. Sometimes it is like that though and hopefully it is another step on the way to putting together whole good runs in Turin. I did manage to notch up and 8th place which is my best World Cup result so far this season.
The Leysin comp was dominated by Manuela Pesko, a Swiss local who is on form right now. Polands Paulina Ligoka also rode really well and won the second comp beating manuela into second place and winning Polands first ever Gold at a World Cup Pipe!!! Well done Paulina!! Julianne Bray from New Zealand was also riding really well which is great to see. She will be the only girl in Turin competting in Boarder X and pipe and is a real all rounder. My team mate Kate Foster also rode really well. I think it is the best I have seen her ride and she was happy to make the qualification criteria for the Olympics, managing a very good 7th place, so now I am not going to be on my own, which is great news!!! Well done Kate!!! And another well done to Dan Wakeham who also made the Olympic qualification and managed an impressive 5th place in the mens pipe. Great news.
From Leysin I jumped in the Volvo and headed to Laax for the Burton European Open. I rode pretty well in laax and was happy to make the finals. In the end I didn’t quite have a great run but had a few good ones and ended up 7th. Again another step in the right direction. Dorianne Vidal pulled out all the stops and stomped a massif 900 to win the girls event ahead of Manuela and Cheryl Maas surprised everyone except the people who had seen her riding in Breck and came in a convincing 3rd place, stomping a very impressive haakon flip. The guys at the BEO were amazing to watch. 1080s galore and back to back 9s everywhere. Finnish rider Risto Matilla took the mens title in the end closely followed by French man and fellow Quiksilver rider, Mathew Crepel. The Olympics is going to be something pretty special.
I am now on the way back to Scotland for a bit of a break before I get into the final prep stage for Turin. I am having a jam session in Aviemore on the 28th and hope everyone can make it along. T&T and presenting the day and there will be some cool prizes up for grabs. If there is enough snow we will have a snowboard jam session on Cairngorm followed by a skate session in Aviemore outside the Winking Owl in the afternoon. If there is not enough snow we will just have the skate session and a big party!!!! It is going to be a lot of fun and I hope to see a lot of familiar faces there. Fingers crossed for the snow!!!
Cheers, Les
Saturday 24th December 2005
Hello Everyone,
Well I hope you all made the most of the early season dump in Scotland and got a wee slide. Just as it started dumping in Scotland I got on a plane for Whistler where there was not really that much snow. Not natural anyway so I was gutted that I could not be riding at home. However there was a good pipe and a World Cup on and a double one at that.
It was really the first time I had had the chance to really ride hard on my ankle after my injury and I am very happy to say that is is all 100%. Unfortunately I only got two days training in the pipe before the competition so stuck to an easy run that I knew I could land well. I was very encouraged the first day as I got a 13th place which is very respectable on any occasion and the next day I did even better and got 11th, just missing the top ten by 0.1 of a point which if you keep up with half pipe riding is really nothing. I am very pleased with my season start especially as I have not been able to be on snow in the summer.
I am now on my way back to Aviemore for X-mas and am crossing my fingers we will get some more snow. After X-mas I am heading back to the states to put my head down and get in some training before I compete in the Avoriaz World Cups on the 19th and 20th of Jan and then the Burton European Open just after Avoriaz.
Surprises at the World Cup in Whistler were the Japanse girls and guys. On the first day 5 out of the possible 6 girls in the finals were Japanese. They have been training at an indoor super pipe in Tokyo all summer and it has obviously payed off as they are all riding really really well. They may well be the ones to watch at the Olympics and may well be the ones to upset the strong favourites the US team. Kjersti Buaas was my favourite rider of the week but she was having a stroke of bad luck and kept crashing. She is definitely one to watch though.
I hope you all have a great Christmas and a brilliant New Year celebration.
And I hope we get dumped on all week!!
Cheers, Les
Tuesday 11th August 2005
Hello everyone,
Well it is Premiere Time again and that means heading to the Daily Mail London Ski and Snowboard Show. It must be nearly winter, how exciting!!!!
I have just had my first taste of real winter for the coming season. I was in Saas Fee in Switzerland for a bit of pre season riding to see how my injured ankle has recovered. Happily it held up brilliantly and I was able to get in a good bit of riding. We were lucky enough to have a meter of fresh powder snow and winter conditions which really is a bonus at this time of year. A lot of the World Cup half pipe riders were in Switzerland training for the up coming World Cup in Saas Fee at the end of October. Everyone is stepping it up a gear in anticipation for the Olympics next February.
Before Saas Fee I was in Aviemore for a while getting back to full fitness. I trained a lot with my cousins and ski team athletes Noel and Alain Baxter and spend a lot of time cycling around Badenoch and Strathspey on my road bike. It has been great weather for cycling in the highlands, and I only got soaked through once!! There are a lot of great back roads to cycle on that are pretty quiet and offer beautiful scenery to take your mind off the effort you are putting in. Anyway, all the effort has payed off and I am now almost 100% fully fit and ready to go for a good season.
It is going to be a very exciting few months for Scotlands snowsports athletes. Finlay Mickel has been in the Southern Hemisphere all summer training with the Australians and the very strong US team. He has had great training and has also been getting great times in the time trials they have been doing down there. He is confident he can carry his form from training to competition and is very much looking forward to the first contests. Noel and Alain also feel like they are ski-ing very well. They, too, have been training in the Southern Hemisphere and have benefited from training in winter conditions on winter snow. My fellow Snowboard Team mate Ben Kilner, who is only 17 years old had a cracking start to the season in the opening World Cup half pipe in Chile where he cocked up a 25th place. If he manages to get another top 25 placing, which is very likely, he will be well on the way to making the Olympic qualification criteria and being there in Turin with his fellow Scots. He did exceptionally well as he was the youngest in the whole contest!!! The rest of the British riders also rode really well with Dan Wakeham, Dominic Harrington and Kate Foster all one step closer to making the qualification criteria.
I am now heading to London for the main premiere of Transfer, the latest Chunkyknit Productions all girl snowboard film. It should make for an amazing night as a lot of the Chunkyknit girls are also heading to London for the night. From London I am going back to Saas Fee for the World Cup there at the end of the month. I will start riding pipe again in Saas Fee and if all is well with my ankle I may start the contest. I am very much looking forward to getting back in the pipe and feel all the fitness training I have been doing over the summer has really paid off as I am in better shape than I have ever been in. Also the break away from the snow has left me very motivated and excited to get back in there.
I will keep you all updated with how it is going in the build up to Turin.
It really is a very exciting time for British snowsports.
Cheers, Les
Wednesday 17th August 2005
Hello everyone,
Hope you have all been having a good summer so far and have been surfing somewhere or doing some other summer related sport. I have been in Scotland a lot lately as I broke my ankle in the spring and have had to do a lot of re-hab work on it with the physio. I have been really well looked afer by Alison Robb my physio and it is now well on the mend. I should be ready to get back on the snow by the end of September and will be very ready by the time the Olympics come around. For the moment I am in Germany chilling with my boyfriend but will head back to Scotland soon armed with my surf board to go check out the Scottish waves in preperation for getting back on my other board soon.
We have been very busy getting Transfer all done and dusted and it should be completely finished in the next few weeks. It looks great and we are very excited about it. We are going to be having a few different premieres around the world with the first one in Wanaka, New Zealand on the 18th Aug. I am proud to say that we are also having a Scottish premiere in Aviemore at the newly remodelled auditorium in the Aviemore Highland Resort on Friday the 2nd of September. It will start at 7.30pm with tickets available to buy from 6.30 at the reception so I hope to see some of you there. All the proceeds we make will go towards the Badenoch and Strathspey Schools Snow Sports Association which helps local primary school kids get to the snow each year. Special guests will include Jenny Jones and Tina Birbaum, two of the chunkyknit riders, and my cousins none other than Alain and Noel Baxter. We will then party the night away in Café Mambos in town. It should be a great night and is supported by The MacDonalds Highland Resort and Cairngorm Breweries.
To keep up to date with the premieres as they are organised check on www.chunkyknit.com.
Cheers, Les
Monday 13th June 2005
Hello everyone. Here we are and it is June already. I can't quite believe the season is over and summer is already here. I have had pretty mixed fortunes in the last few weeks. Just as I was finished doing World Cups for the season, having made the Olympic qualification criteria, and was gearing up to get a good bit of filming under my belt I knocked myself out. I managed to recover from that and headed up to Sweden with the ChunkyKnit crew to compete in The Candy Jam and film in Scandinavia. I was having a great time there and really enjoying riding the park when I managed to misjudge the speed for the big kicker and take a pretty nasty landing. I managed to break my right ankle and sprain my left and that was me on the first plane home!!!! It was a bit of a shock to end the season so abruptly and just sods law for me to hurt myself in the very last contest of the season but these things happen. The break was pretty bad but is now healing up well and I am starting to do physio on it so that I have an ankle that is as good as it was before the crash.
Right now I am heading to Scotland to hang out there for a bit and see all my friends and family who I have not had time to see for a while. Hopefully in a few weeks I can get in the water and on my surf board. I am thinking of going out to the Hebrides to check that out and get in a bit of surf out there over the summer months. In the mean time I am looking to getting out on my mountain bike and exploring the Spey Valley once again.
On the snowboard front, Transfer, which is the next ChunkyKnit film is well on the way to completion and is on schedule to come out in September. The new site looks great and there is a forum page so you can leave us a message if you feel like it. You can also check out our new teaser and let us know what you think.
Hope you are enjoying your summer time.
Bye for now,
Les
Tuesday 8th March 2005
Hello everyone, I hope you have all been making the most of the snow back home and the cold weather has been inspiring you all to get wintery. I have had a very busy month and have see my fair share of bad weather too. After I was in Oregon I headed to Whistler for the World Championships. The weather was the worst I have seen in a very very long time. It was pouring with rain all week and the pipe just kept melting away and getting smaller and smaller. The rain really did not let up once all week. Unfortunately my years of Scottish rain experience did not help me much and I managed to crash in the contest which was a real shame as I had been riding pretty well in training. From the World Champs I headed to Aspen for the Winter X-Games. It was the first time I had competed in the X-Games and really was a great experience. The pipe was excellent and the competition was a lot of fun to ride. Again my crashing bad luck kicked in and when it came around to competition day I manaeged to crash in both my runs although, again training had been going well. The American girls really showed their skills in Aspen and it was Gretchen Blieler who took home the much coveted Gold Medal. Doriane Vidal was second and added the silver X-Games medal to the Gold World Championship medal she had picked up the week before in Whistler.
From Aspen I headed back to Germany for the ISPO trade show where Chunkyknit Productions was lucky enough to have won a stand in the new business section of the show. We have decided on a new name for the next film and are well under way with the filming of it too. It will be called Transfer and will be released in September 2005. I was only at the ISPO for a few days before I had to jump in the car and drive to Itlay for the pre Olympic pipe contest in Turin. Again the american girls were riding really well and Gretchen took home a gold and then Kelly Clark took home the second gold of the double comp. I still had not shken my run of bad luck and managed to crash and crack a rib. I was not dis heartened though as I was still riding really well, just maybe pushing my limits a bit too much. From Italy I headed to Japan with the goal of taking my riding down a few pegs so that I might get down a run without crashing. I managed to come in a very respectable 8th in the next comp and then 9th in the comp in Korea so I have hopefully beaten the run of bad luck for the rest of the season!!
I now have a week of filming in France before heading to the British Championships in Laax in Switzerland on the 12th March and then on to the World Cup Finals in Sweden where I hope to repeat the win I got there last year!! In between all the comps I hope to make it back to Scotland to ride a bit there and hang out with all my friends back home. I really hope you are all having fun and hope to see you on the slopes soon.
Cheers, Lesley
Thursday - 11 November 2004
Well, here we are, it is the start of the season already and everyone is getting geared up to get on the snow. Right now I am in Scotland for the Scottish premiere of Dropstitch which will be at the Scottish Ski and Snowboard Show on the 12th of Nov. From there I will be heading Europe ways via the all Girl snowboard session in Tamworth on the 13th which I am very much looking forward to. I have a busy few weeks ahead of me as I then go to Mammoth for a bit of pipe riding and filming before heading to Avoriaz for the next pipe World Cup on the 10th Dec.
We have been mega busy getting DropStitch out and about and are very pleased with the reception it had received. Everyone who has seen it seems to love it and we have some really great feed back about the film. We still have some premieres to go and hope that these will go as well as the ones we have done so far. We are also well on the way to planning the next film, which we will film over the coming season.
Check here or on www.chunkyknit.com for news of the new film.
Cheers,
Lesley
Wednesday - 22 September 2004
Hello everyone,
Well, what a busy summer I have been having. After spending a great few weeks on the isle of Tiree logging all the footage for Dropstitch and getting in a bit of surfing, I headed out to Les 2 Alpes for a bit of pipe riding. The conditions were really good and I had a lot of fun riding there with the French crew. From Les 2 Alpes I headed to Scotland for a few days to check out the launch of City Active. I am proud to be an ambassador for the City of Iverness and was excited to see all the opportunities available for active City Breaks in Inverness and other Scottish cities. It was a really fun day and I met a lot of fun people including Colin Murray from Radio 1.
From Edinburgh I headed to Essex, where our film is being edited. I was very excited to see the editing process and very pleased to see how things were coming along. I then went on a quick holiday to Egypt for a week just to try and get as far away from Snow as I could!
From Egypt I headed back to Aviemore and managed to get in a bit of surfing on the Moray Firth at Sand End. It was a bit of a shock to the system going straight from the Red Sea into the Morray Firth but the surf was good, if a little bit big, and it was great to see a crew out there having a blast. The weather was amazing, blue sky and very warm and the scenery was as vividly coloured as it gets. I had almost forgotten how lush the Morray coast is. Especially after the deserts in Egypt!
I am now heading towards Saas Fee in Switzerland to get some more pipe riding in. We are also planning our film premieres and will keep you posted on the dates. Hopefully we will have a few.
Bye for now,
Lesley
Wednesday - 30 June 2004
Hello everyone,
Well here we are well on the way to summer and we are just finished logging all the footage for the final editing of Dropstitch! How exciting is that? I have just spent the last two weeks in Scotland on the Isle of Tiree off the west coast with Josie, Natasza, Lisa F, Tina and Sian and we have been going through all the footage and logging the bits we want to be in the film. It was quite a job as we had way more footage than I had originally thought and I think the final choices will be hard to make. We already have a pretty good idea of what we will use though and it looks great. I can't wait to see the final film now.
As well as logging all the footage we spent a lot of time in the water surfing. For those of you who don't know Tiree is a small island off of the west coast of Scotland and is known for its peace and quiet as well as its good waves and wind. It is already pretty famous to windsurfers but is just becomming known in the surf world. There are numerous beach breaks all of which have well formed waves and there are just no people there to get in your way. The locals are all really really friendly and we all caught more waves than we have ever done before. It really was amazing. We also had two of the Roxy Surf girls there helping us out with surfing tips. Luckily for us the waves were not too big when we wree there as none of us is very experienced but the surf girls let us know that it can get massif there soemtimes.
I am now on my way to Les 2 Alpes in France where I may try and get some really last minite footage for the film and get in some fun summer riding with Jenny Jones and the French crew.
Enjoy,
Les
Wednesday - 05 May 2004
Hello everyone,
We are just back from a hectic but not so fruitful trip to the States. The conditions in the parks in Vail, Breckenridge, Keystone and Copper Mountain were great but the weather was really awful. It went from being so hot that you could not get enough speed to hit the big kickers to being so cold it was sheet ice and resembled Saas Fee in October. We lived in hope of a perfect weather day and were up at the crack of dawn every day just in case it was good and then just incase it would get better. We did have fun riding the jibs and the pipes though and got some great rail shots. Unfortunately Anne Fleur broke her collar bone again on a gnarly S rail she finally made it to the end of. She has just had surgery back home in Holland and we wish her a speedy recovery.
After a week in the wintery conditions of Colorado we decided to head for sunnier climes and drove all the way through Nevada to Lake Tahoe. We had heard that it had been perfect there all the time we were in Colorado so were full of expectations when we arrived. We woke up on the first day there to a howling gale which did not give any respite for the whole of the week. Again the conditions in the parks in Heavenly and Squaw were brilliant and we hung out riding the jibs waiting for the wind to go away. It never did. Some of the resident Mammoth crew came up to ride with us, in the form of Emily Akerblom, Hannah Lundmark and Sara Philips. Along with Silli and Jenny the jib sessions got going and were impressive to watch.
When not waiting up the mountain for the wind to die down we hung out in style at THE BLOCK which is the uber cool hotel set up by Marc Frank Montoya in Lake Tahoe. This place is amazing and definitely well worth checking out. All the rooms have state of the art electronics and are uniquely decorated. The atmosphere is really friendly and helpful and staying there definitely made things a whole lot easier to handle.
We even went to Mammoth a couple of days only to turn up after the two hour drive to see spin drift legging it across the park at such a rate you could not see the ground never mind the kickers.
We are now on the way to the GAP camp to try and get the park footage we didn't get in the States. We are praying to the weather gods as I write this!
Cheers, Les
Sunday - 21 March 2004
Hello everyone,
Hope you are getting a bit of sliding in somewhere. I heard it is snowing in Aviemore right now so maybe it will be a good end to the season up there.
I am on my way to the British Snowboard Champs in Les 2 Alpes. I have just been at the World Cup Finals in Italy where we got to ride the Olympic pipe. It was a great pipe and a fun event even if the organisation was a little bit hectic. I was very happy to be back riding and had a strong qualification run, qualifying in 6th place. Unfortunately I crashed on the next run and ended up 14th but this was enough for me to end up 3rd in the overall World Cup Half Pipe standings which I am so happy about.Especially as I managed to miss the middle part of the season!
Torah Bright, the amazing young rider from Australia finished the comp in 1st place which moved her up to 2nd in the overall standings and Soko Yamaoka stayed in pole position in the overall after finishing in 3rd in the italian event.
From there I went to the Roxy Slopestyle pro event where I was exstatic to get through to the finals. I ended up 4th which I was very pleased with as I hadn t hit a kicker since my accident. The riding standard in the girls comp was great with Doriane Vidal landing frontside 5s and Torah Bright landing switch 5s and both landing backside 3s. Great to see.
The riding in the Guys half of the comp was also impressive to say the least with Hampus Mosseson taking the win from French ninja Matt Creppel.
I am now on my way to the Brits where I hope to thoroughly enjoy myself and really get back into riding now that my jaw is nearly all better!
Hope to see you there,
Cheers, Les
Monday - 08 March 2004
Hello everyone,
We have just had a very successful week filming in the Portes Du Soliel with Vera Jansen, Claudia Fliri, Jenny Jones, Melanie Leando and Tina Birbaum. We were lucky enough to get a few powder days and a few sunny days in the park too.
I was behind the camera but was very happy to be riding again. I also saw the footage of my crash for the first time ever and I can safely say it is one of the grimest things I have ever seen. Right now Josie and some of the girls have gone to Eastern Europe on a special jib trip for a week and I am on my way to the World Cup finals in Italy. I am still second in the Half Pipe standings, which is amazing after missing the last two events, and if I am really lucky I can stay there. It is very close though and the difference between 2nd and 10th is small.
I am looking forward to riding pipe but am understandably a little apprehensive and will be riding with a face guard on!
I will keep you posted on the outcome.
Cheers, Les
Sunday - 08 February 2004
Hello everyone.
Well what a week I have just had. I went to Kreischberg for the double world cups there and managed to come second in the first one, holding on to my overall title and then fluffed up the qualification for the second one, therefore losing my overall lead to Soko Yamoko from Japan. The second place meant that I have had 3 podium places this season though so I was stoked about that.
Thinking that my competition luck had run out I headed off to St Anton full of anticipation about riding some powder and doing some filming. Our plans were thwarted by the weather for four days in a row and on the fourth day we got so fed up we decided to have a "spin to win" competition off a little windlip.
It was not only my competition luck that had run out - I managed to spin my knee right through my face and broke my jaw in two places, as well as split my lip so badly that I needed plastic surgery. Fortunately, the doctors in Feldkirk managed to replace my lip and put a plate in my chin. They also had to elastic band my teeth together to protect the second break, meaning that I have to eat soup for three weeks.
I am now chilling out and eating lots of soup before I head back down to France to be behind the camera for a few weeks before I join in the riding myself.
Hope you're all well, and getting some good sliding!
Cheers,
Les
Thursday - 22 January 2004
Hello everyone! Hope you are all well and getting to hit the slopes somewhere and rip it up.
Right now I am at the first World Cup after Christmas and I just qualified for the final again!!! I am so happy as this is the fourth final I have made this season. the final is tomorrow night so fingers crossed. Last week I was at the European Open in Livignio and had a lot of fun riding with the other girls. We filmed a lot for DropStitch and got in some good kicker action which was nice. Natasha Zurek was ruling it and so was Kjersti and Lisa Wiik and Beck. Infact all the girls were ripping both off the kickers and in the comp, pipe and slopestyle. I ended up 4th in the pipe contest behind Dorianne, Kjersti and Manuela. I made the finals of the slopestyle but they got cancelled due to bad weather. Before that I was in Innsbruck for the Roxy Chicken Jam where I ended up 3rd. I was really happy with that as it was a slopestyle and I do not ride so many of those.
After this I am off to St Anton to hit the powder and am loooking forward to that a lot!!!
Speak soon,
X Les
Wednesday - 24 December 2003
Hello everyone,
I hope you are all having a great festive period and have some sliding about planned for sometime soon!
I have had an amazing few weeks and have had some of the best runs in the pipe I have ever had. After winning in Sweden I went to Whistler where the pipe was great. Unfortunately I didn't have a great run in the comp but was riding well all week and got in some good training. I ended up 9th there and felt good about going to Quebec. I was riding well in Quebec and was stoked to be doing back to back 540s consistently. This paid off and I ended up 3rd close behind Manuela Pesko and Soko Yamaoko. This put me in pole position on the leader board and I now have the yellow bib for womens pipe. How cool is that!!!!!
I am now on my way to spend Christmas in Chamonix then to Morzine for New Year then the next comp is the Roxy Chicken Jam in Innsbruck on the 8th of Jan.
Have a great Christmas and New Year!!
cheers, Les
Saturday - 06 December 2003
Hello everyone!
I just managed to win the first half pipe World Cup of the season!!! How cool is that. I am in Tandadallen in Sweden where they were supposed to have the second comp of the year but the last one, which was to be in Laax got cancelled so this is the first. And, I won it.It was super icy and pretty scary as the pipe here is very fast and steep but I was having a good day and enjoying being back in the pipe so just got into riding.Kjersti and me were having a see who could go biggest on the first hit contest which we got really into and I kind of forgot that it was a competition day.Then I found myself in the finals and then to my amazment I won. Fabienne Reuteller was second, Anna Olafson third, Soko Yamaoko fourth and Kjersti Buaas fifth.
I can't wait for the next comp in Whistler now!!!
X Les