Monday 14 May 2012

Leise Bretter


THE DAY I MET SOME
SNOW SKATERS
THANK YOU SO MUCH
LEISE BRETTER

The night before Leise Bretter Beanie and I were struggling to get the strapless ladies posted due to some technical problems, this was eating into precious sleeping hours and the more we retyped the more we realised we would not manage to post it.
So at 2 am we went to bed. Beanie does not sleep the night before a day on the hill and is always tired but this time it was role reversal, shit. It was like waiting to see if Santa had come on Christmas Eve. So after no sleep I got up for a pee thinking well I'm up early and I can get organised, only to find after switching on the laptop that we were an hour late on getting up and Beanie had set the alarm wrong. Shiiiiit. Someone had posted on the Leise Bretter facebook page a contest timetable saying inscription would be between 7-9am. So we manically got ready and without breakfast set off in the car at 6.45am an hour later than planned. Beanie tried in vain to apologize for her alarm mistake but got flipped the bird all the way to Austria.
When we arrived in Ramsau we had no idea where to go and the only place we knew where to go was a lift that was bare of snow when we got there, so we carried on towards the glacier and up a crazy ass, winding killer snake road of Death not knowing if this was the right way until we spotted what looked like a snowskater in a van. We were right and followed him to the event (phew).

Jimmy (photo by unknown)

We then met the man,the Captain, the one and only Jimmy Churri who told us the contest timetable was a joke. LOL all our panic was for nothing. Unbelievable. So after some introduction we started to notice more and more skates lying around the place and Jimmy was pulling skates from the back of a car WoW: 


 Rocker trucks, Predog trucks, a Florida powder skate top deck, a Boyd Hill ski,Ungi Bungi leash and loads of Libs, Oh Boy, Kid in a sweet shop moment. 

 
Beanie and I then took a hike up to the top of the the slope, the location was stunning, so beautiful set right underneath the Dachstein glacier and after a quick blast down I gave the race course a try, which was super cool - a big drop in followed by two big humps then the banked corners, then either a box, kicker or chicken run, two more smaller humps and the finish line. I had two nice clean practice runs and felt pretty good. 

 Jimmy's Florida powderskate top deck Rocker trucks and Lib Sub(Ungi Bungi leash)
 
10.30am insciption and 11.00am time trials I was startnumber 26 of 32 to go so I had plenty of time to get nervous, standing on top of the starter mound for sure got your heart pounding and other riders I spoke to were also pretty nervous, as we watched the riders fly down the course there were a fair few crashes after the box.

BOOM

 And before I knew it I was up - oh shit here goes. To my suprise I did a clean run and set a pretty good time I think 35 seconds.

 My time trial
 
After lunch, which was a whole Piggy, would be the one on one racing and that's where the fun really began. I was up against Richard Gstöttenmayr who is a really nice guy. 

 Richard's time trial

At the starter block we discussed our riding stance and which side we were going to start from and how we hoped we weren't going to crash and hurt each other. I got a good start and was in the lead but after the box I bailed, lost my hat and then missed a gate and unfortunately lost the race.Bummer.

 Richard playing catch up.

Bloody Hat ( photo by Sam Bradford)
 
The rest of the races were Ace fun to watch lots of bailing after the box and lots of super close neck n neck stuff.




 Junia (picture of the day)

 Go Rossi Go!

 I got another chance to race just for the crowds with Walter Wieser when I went up to take a few photos. I named this the Fuck You Losers Race.

 Fuck You Losers Race

 And well judge for your self how close this one was. Managed to pull back some pride with that one.
After many great races it was down to just two men Thomas Tengg and Chris Seethaler  and again judge for yourself.

 Final Race

 The champion of the day......... had more than just the win to celebrate as he killed the competition with his own creation which I named the Slush Rocket a sub that he built himself,pretty impressive.

 Thomas Tengg
We all took a break from the baking hot sun after the racing until the last event the Chinese Downhill,everyone racing together top to bottom. 

 Chinese Downhill



 Well I didn't take that either but we were all pretty damn close, but again the Slush Rocket took first place but with a different rider.



 All in all Leise Bretter put on an Awesome day Jimmy and the Austrian snowskaters are all a cool bunch of laid back guys and it couldn't have been any better.

 Cool Dudes

 Maybe an Ice Cream van wouldn't have gone a miss.haha. But seriously the location, the riders, the crowds, the kids, the dogs and a pig made this the best day ever. Thanks to everyone.We will be back next year!

 The whole Motley Crue
 The after contest party/prize giving was missed by Sabine and I due to a lack of sleep the night before we were both fast asleep by around 11 o' clock but we heard the party was a wild affair that went on until 9am in the morning. We woke up an hour after that, Jimmy came to our door and told us I had won a magazine and a dvd in the tombola which was as good as winning the comp for me as it was a copy of Starfish and the Awakening (which Sabine was more excited about than me).

 After some late breakfast at a local pub we headed up the Dachstein glacier for a little blast down the slopes. It was insanely impressive to be that high up (3.000 metres)


 on freshly pisted slopes. Unfortunately we only got a couple of runs down the slopes due to the strong winds and our late arrival but the fun park looked way cool and we will be back for sure to give it a try. 

 

We would like to give a special thanks to Pauli Steiner for letting us stay at Kulmwirt which is a really beautiful,comfortable place we had a great well needed sleep.

Part Two coming in a few days with interviews and picture Gallary

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