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Since I can remember there was the Kiteboardopen at Noordwijk, always a great event but never windy.
It was the same this year. We only had two hours of wind the first day and were able to ride the first two
rows of the singles. Through this I made it to the 9th place after winning my heat without an opponent..
next heat was against Anton Borsuk, he's a really good rider and he advanced to the next round.
Still I was angry because I didn't get my color lycra till 2 minutes before the start and by the time that I was
at the upwind side of the competition area the heat already started and I was exhausted from running.
I complained about this with the organisation but they didn't really bother..
Made me even more angry.. well, next time!
There's also always a good party which was even better this year because it was my birthday as well.
We went full on!
Saturday I'm flying back to norway to work over there for a few months, I will still fly back now and then to do
the Eurotour, still to come are Germany, Switserland and Poland.
Well, for now that's it, here are some pictures:
 
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Sitting here it has been a great winter, I've never had such good conditions up here in Haugastol! So much perfect sessions with good wind and nice snow. Today we had one of those as well, good fun!
The Red Bull Ragnarok didn't really go the way I wanted it to go. I was really stoked on the race and hoping to get a good result on it.. Sadly the wind picked up from 7m/s to 25m/s one minute before the start and I had to give up. I was really feeling shit about this.. Luckily I wasn't the only one giving up, from the 110kiters who started only 4 made it to the finish!
That night we had a good party to forget the day and the next day we had the Sector cable contest on the System 2.0. This was really cool! In the qualifier I had some problems finding the sweet spot for the kicker, but in my last run I had it and managed to land a nice frontroll, which no one else had done. I was really stoked on that!!
This took me to the finals with some sick riders like Remi Meum, Sigve Botnen, Marek Zach and Aaron Hadlow.
In the finals I had a good first run with a nice flat 3 on the kicker, after that my skills dropped badly.. I was only landing grabs and couldn't even ride the rail.. After the finals I decided to just keep riding, I wanted to get my riding back like it was earlier on the day. So I went for a fully loaded flat 3 and landed on my head.. This was no good.. I couldn't see a lot anymore, my balance was fucked and speaking wasn't going to well eather..
So when I came back in the hotel people started to notice that I wasn't doing to well and Hannah took me to the doctor in Geilo. When we got there I was pretty much acting like I was really drunk when I think back on it.
The doctor told me to go to the hospital, which was 200km away.. I really didn't want to go there, because there was a good party from the Ragnarok. Only then my arm went numb and so we decided to go to the hospital for a CTscan anyway. The scan went alright an my brain is fine. Now almost a week later I'm still taking it easy but it's getting better.
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It has been a while again, I need to update more over here. So that's starting now!
I've been in Norway for two weeks, then back to the Netherlands for about a month where we had great kiting conditions as well and I've been out on the water a lot! I do feel that I need to get the feeling back a bit and I also feel that my ankle isn't as strong as it used to be, hope it'll get better soon!
At the moment I'm back in Norway again where I'm enjoying the Haugastol lifestyle. Loads of kiting and the best food you can imagine!
It's quite busy over here now because we got the Red Bull Ragnarok. A race event of 5 laps that are 13km each. I'm really looking forward to it, it's going to be a lot of fun! the forecast is 30 knots with sun, couldn't be better!
Anyways, here are some pictures:
And then another thing I'm proud of, we painted my beetle:
That's it for now, I'll post the result of the competition tomorrow.
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So it has been quiet a while here. I had some problems with my website but it's fixed now so I'll update
on what happened the past time..
First of all I moved to Utrecht and now I'm living there with kay, good fun!
Then we had a lot of snow here, it's insane. We did a lot of snowkiting and snowboarding.
I've been to winterberg as well for a few days and now I'm getting ready to go to the wasserkuppe tonight,
after that we'll continue to the ISPO in Munchen and then continue to Garmisch for two more days of
snowboarding. Good stuff coming up!
Well my writing sucks so here you got some pictures:
And we are starting up a club for kitesurfing, wakeboarding and snowboarding here in Utrecht.
So make sure you become a member of us! For now just on facebook but we're working hard to get the website online.
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Utrecht/Alfa-Beta-Surfa/280686722467?ref=ts
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About two months ago a guy from the north of the Netherlands contacted me if I could give a presentation about Ditchboarding. He had seen our movie from a while ago and was looking for people who were doing something that was a little against the law but not harming anyone.
I was really stoked about it, but thought that the short movie we had wasn't enough. So I gave some friends some calls to get them together to make a new one, a better one! So off we went, carrying 3 cams, the car of my parents because it has a roofrack and some rope and boards.
We've shot this movie in two locations on the same day. On one hand I'm sad i'm not in it because it's good fun.. But it was really cold and since I wasn't even able to walk normally bacause of my ankle I'm glad I didn't go in the water.
We've posted the movie on Dumpert.nl as well where it got 80.000 views which was really cool!
So Many thanks to my parents for letting me borrow the car(which she will never do again after she's seen the movie), Kor Sander and Kay for riding in the freezing water, the farmer for entertainment!
Well, here is the movie anyways:
http://vimeo.com/7072271
By now we also did the presentation and we had a blast of a party afterwards. Great night, thnxs Floss.
This is the flyer of the evening:
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So it has been quiet here for a while. This is because about two months ago I strained my ankle and so I didn't have much news. Today though I started riding again and started in a good way as well! There were some really nice waves on Wijk and we had lots of fun riding those! Good fun!!
Then there are two publications as well, one in the calender from the dutch kiteboarding association(which you can order for 10 euro) and there's a picture in the kiteworld, this is really cool!!
All picture credits go to Sebastiaan Hogeboom!
Hopefully the next updat will be my new gear and some snowkiting action again, I'm really looking forward to riding in the snow again!!
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Like every year there's a really cool kite event on Texel.
This is not so much about competition but more about riding together, party and just have a good time. I love this principle so we went there. We meaning, pretty much al the people who went to norway and then we added Kor to it.
The forecast was sick! 40 knots of wind for friday and saturday, then a little less wind on sunday, only 20.
Good ingredients for a weekend of good fun!
We decided because of the forecast to go there friday morning although the event started saturday, but we couldn't let that wind get away. Around 1 o'clock we arrived and the people on the parkinglot told us it wasn't that much wind. So packed with the 7 and 9 we went to the beach. I don't know what they were talking about because I was overpowered on my 7 in the end. Great fun those big air jumps!! After some nice pizza we went to Martijn's place where we were staying(Thanks a lot!!), we had some drinks there and then went to the Koog where there was a really nice party! For some reason the bar thought it would be fun to put like a couple of thousand banana's on the sealling.. So it ended as a massive foodfight and everybody was completely covered in bananas! NICE!
This day was the best way to start a weekend! I couldn't get any better we thought..
The next day started with a hangover and a REALLY good breakfast made by Martijn's parents. After that we went to the beach to check out the conditions, it was quite gusty between 30 and 45 knots and there was a lot of rain.. Some went out to kite, I waited. My theory worked out perfect, after rain you'll get sunshine.
When the sun came out I went to kite and we did a hangtime contest, I ended up at the 3rd place with a hangtime of 5.07 sec.
Great fun doing those big air jumps!!
Of course our big friend Arien from Obesessed kitevids made a nice movie from the weekend as well which you can check out over here:
http://www.vimeo.com/6403564
That night we had some more party fun with banana's.
Sunday we went for a nice downwinder and pancakes with the whole group. Really nice.
What a great weekend it was!
Thanks a lot to everybody for being there and especially for Martijn and his family and the Texel locals!
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I made it to the cover of the Kite magazine here in the Netherlands, really cool!!
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I've been home for a week now, already starting to get used to it again. We had some light wind the last weeks in Norway but in the beginning we had some sick conditions there! You can see the pictures in the Gallery! Being home made me able to work a bit on my website and I decided it was time for a new design.
I hope you like, I think it's much better! Also I've been out on the water a few times and I'm really suprises by the temperature, it's really good!
Obsessed Kitevids also came by in Norway, to bad we didn't have so much wind when he was there but he still managed to make a cool movie!
Check it out in this link!!
Well, that's it for now, hope you like the design and the movie!
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While I was driving to Norway, where I'm at now. Obsessed kitevids created a Really nice movie out of the footage we made in Brazil.
You can check it out HERE
When I have I'll post some updates from Norway to, but that'll probably will wait till next month.
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Yesterday I had a meeting with Dragon here in the Netherlands and they had some great news for me.
From now on they are going to support me with Snowkiting and kiteboarding! I'm really happy with this, Dragon is a really cool brand that creates very functional and cool Goggles and Sunglasses!
Dragon Website
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So the last week in Brazil we still had a lot of rain but also a few days of very good kiting.
But when there is rain you don't have so much to do, we got pretty bored.
We decided to go to the Cashaca museum wich is about 60km from cumbuco so we just rented a Taxi for the whole day wich cost us about 15euro each. What an expencive country it is!
We had some good fun there. Free trying the Cashaca(the stuff they use to make Caipirinhas), using waterbikes, stealing mango's from the tree and more stupid stuff you do when you're bored. But is was a fun day with good fun!
Later that day we made friends with owners of a new bar/cafe/restaurant in front of our hotel. They were cool. They asked if we had any stickers for them to put on the fridge so we completely filled it up with Skullcandy stickers. They really liked it and asked if we could paint it on the wall. With nothing to do because of the lack of wind we agreed. Next day went to the market in the next city(Caucaia) and bought paint, pencils and some more stuff you need to have for painting. After some great drawing of Kor we had the logo on the wall and started painting it. Turned out pretty good, at least, that's what we think.
Then we had two days of good wind and we decided to try kiting on a new lagoon. A lot of people told us it would be full with rocks so we really had te be carefull and not crash. Well, we just concidered it as good motivation to land the tricks. We did some nice filming here wich we will put in a movie later with Obsessed Kitevids, so keep posted here!!
Now being home for a week already, normal life starting to pick up again. But I'm also getting ready to go to Norway in a few weeks. This year is going to be awesome! There are a lot of friends coming over, gonna meet friends from last year. And I also made a few friends in Brazil that live in Norway who I'm definetely gonna visit!
Nice weather...
Told you we were bored..
Cashaca Museum with my friends, Bram the Beast and HardKor
Funny Brazilian guy(nickname: RED) owner of the Skullcandy Restaurant
Polly, the best dog ever! Just point at somebody and he's gonna try to bite him! HAHAHA!!
Skullcandy restaurant!
Finished, what do you think about it?
Getting ready for what turned out to be the last kitesession in Brazil.
Started with this one and will and the trip as well with it.
We had a really good time, enjoyed every moment of it!
Thanks for everything,
Bram en Kor!
Nobile
Thrill-Seeker
Dakine
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Long time no talk here. I had some problems with my website, alle the pictures and newsitems were gone! But with all working again here a new update from us here in Brazil.
The weather is shit at the time! We had last week rain almost everyday and the wind went down really fast. Pretty obvious that the rain saison is kicking in.. At the moment we're in Cumbuco again after being in Jeri for a while. We've been doing a lot of kiting on the 7 there and took some nice pictures with Salgado, a local photographer there. After taking the pictures with him we decided to head back to cumbuco because it's cheaper here and we are running out of money.
So back here we have 3 guys from Chile in our pousada where we've been hanging out with. We even went to see a bit of inland Brazil. Crazy what you do when there is no wind haha.. Yesterday we went to fortaleza to visit mercado central, a market what used to be a prison but that now is a market. We bought some souvenirs there and then tryed to get back to Cumbuco with the bus. This is quite a hassle if you know that Fortaleza is a city with 4 million people who don't speak english and that there is one bus that is going to cumbuco but you don't have a clue where that bus is leaving from. In the end wwe managed to find it and got back in cumbuco.
so for now that's except that I have a nice picture to show:
 
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Jeej.. We made it to Brazil again! With a big hassle caused my my new kites and boards arriving to late to take them on the plane I had quite some stress about it, but most of it worked out in the end. Only the boards are still a hassle to get them here, mainwhile I brought my old board wich is still rippin hard!
So now I'm getting back in the rhytm of brazil. Wakeup, eat some fruit, go kite, have lunch and chill a bit, kite some more, eat some cheap food somewhere, have a drink in the bar and then go back to the appartment to chill a bit and go to sleep.. That's pretty much the everyday song.
Yesterday we took some pictures so I don't wanna keep them from you guys:
(check what's in the sink!)
I placed the rest of the pictures HERE
 
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After it had been prosponed for a lot of times because of lack of wind last weekend we finally had the dutch nationals. This was the first time for me since two years that I was not in the organisation I thougt. Only the friday befor I got a call that the photographer wasn't able to be there and if I wanted to take pictures.
I was going there anyway to compete so taking some pictures wouldn't be a problem.
The pictures I took are also on the site, you can find them here.
Then me and the competition..
I fucked up.. Saturday the wind was offshore and although I hadn't been riding footstraps
for a few months I decided to ride footstraps because I couldn't walk back upwind when I was riding boots. The worst decision ever, I sucked riding straps.. Lost my board with every jump I made and so I got kicked out inmediately.. Hoping for the doubles to get back in the comp.
Sunday I came on the beach and there was 22knots side onshore... WOW!! GREAT this was wat I was waiting for! I couldn't get the smile of the face knowing I had to start in the first heat of the day. I would show them now what you can do in boots( I was the only one riding boots)! So I did, I had the best heat of my life landing almost everything what I can. Perfect, I was really happy and advanced to the next round easily.
Then disaster stroke again, 10 minutes before my next heat I went out of the tent away from the warm tea to get ready. But fuck, my lines were tangled! In my rush I didn't take them out as quick as normal because of the stress it gave me. So when I got my kite up and went to the water to put my boots on the green flag came up already! No more time to put my boots on so I grabbed a footstrap board again.. That did it, this one was a little better then the other one and I could stay in the board for several jumps but I was so pissed that it went shit anyway.
Now I'm just going to focus on Brazil and Norway, some sick stuff is going to happen this winter!
But I've learned a hard lesson, have your equipment always ready properly before a comp.
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I'm really happy to announce that Bram Bast, Kor de Jong and me are going to Brazil for two months!
For me this is the third time but still I'm really looking forward to find some new spots new Jericocuara but also just for training hard to learn some new wakestyle tricks. I already have my eye on quite a few that I really wanna stick when we are going back to the Netherlands. Also really cool is that my Nobile teammate Judith Roetman is coming to Brazil as well, we're definetely gonna take some sick pictures and will shoot some really nice movies!
Also I arranged that I'm going back to Norway(Haugastol). The beginning of march I will go there and I will stay two months there for some great snowkiting. I'll probably go to Sweden again as well to do the Nordic masters.
Stay tuned for some sick pictures, movies and whatever coming up when we are in and when we are back from Brazil and Norway!
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This month there is a nice article about snowkiting in the Kitesurfmagazine. I wrote it last year and now, with the winter coming up they placed it in their magazine.
Here is the article:
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March this year I was thinking of making a movie in the dark with colored lights. I spoke about it with Obsession kitevids and he thought it was a great idea and we would definetely do it this summer. Well, it took a while but last saturday we made the movie and now it is online! I think it came out great although it was very difficult to ride because you couldn't spot the landing.
Here is the movie:
http://vimeo.com/1903003
Thanks to Obesession Kitevids!!
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