The event had both team and individual categories which were divided into sport & expert classes. The racing was tight among everyone and it was shown that even the slightest nudge from your competitors could send you to the back of the pack in an instant. It was a long day with the racing getting off from not long after 9am and continuing right through until almost dark, it was a testament to all those that travelled that the crowds never stopped cheering not once all day long.

The finial “Salmon Leap” rapid was the location for some very interesting lines and some carnage from both the expert and sport classes and the dash to the finish line was littered with abandoned boats & bruised egos.

People has travelled form all over Ireland and even as far as Switzerland with a couple of well know faces from the UK paddling scene.

Not only was this one of the most fun and exciting kayaking events ever held in Ireland it is also possible the first Boater X held in a tight & technical gorge that saw a paddler use a 16ft sea kayak avec full face helmet.

My own camera died a death at the weekend but fellow team i-canoe member James V D B got loads of savage ones just which you can check out on his blog jammersworld.net , there are a few photos in there which I would rather didn’t see the light of day but sure if we can’t laugh at ourselves its a sad sad world.

Events like this I reckon is the future of competitive kayaking. After all the paddling was done while some of the team i-canoe crew settled for a quiet night in the rest of of headed for the after party in Waterford.

While our team didn’t win the Boater X we certainly were in the running for winning the party judging by the “tired heads” the following day. After we managed to crawl out of the beds on Sunday and headed back up the country we stopped for a wee bit of park and huck action at Pollanassa Falls in Co. Kilkenny.  After an awe full lot of standing about and all sorts of excuses being made only four of us took to the water.

AD was on hand with his camera and got some nice shots including one of Paddy Mc Govern stomping a freewheel, you can check out these & loads more on the team i-canoe blog . He even managed to catch a couple of me where I almost look like I have a bit of an idea how it all works.

That’s about it for now folks but the weekend ahead has epic water about so pretty much every run will be off the scale if met.ie is to be believed.

Paddle safe and enjoy.

Adrian

As the aim of the free your style day was to encourage and foster an interest for participation freestyle events I had little choice to postpone the event until a further date in the near future.

In contacting the coaches who had volunteered there services for the day they were all really keen to still take part in the event at a later date. I was aware that lots of the people who all set to travel to Kilkenny for the day were still keen to do something regardless of the level so I said that I would run a river trip on the Sunday for the first few who got back to me and would decide what section of the river to use upon seeing the water level on the day.

Sunday morning brought us sunshine and highish but workable levels, we ran a mini rive trip from the Bleach road get on to the weir. We all had a wee chat at the get on and set out what we all wanted to work for the day and set off in good form with every one set to pick up some new skills and brush up on the ones we already had.

On the way we worked on getting the perfect stern squirt, which everyone really enjoyed and people even surprising them selves with just how good their results were. One of the things we focused on was that control & finesse was more important than brut force and that concepts learned in even the most basic of moves transfers to the more challenging ones.

get your gallery at realiventblog.com

Once we got to the weir everyone was well warmed up and keen to see what to could do, I was really impressed with everyone and just how willing they were to get stuck in. Again after a small bit of coaching everyone’s rides were improving. One of the things I really like to encourage is peer learning and sharing ideas with each other which the whole gang got into.

I have to say I had a great day on the water and a huge thanks to all those that came along on the day, also a big thanks to Johnpaul Ryan for helping out on the coaching side of things. Also a thanks to Kilkenny County Council who had given us access to set up bank side had the event gone as planned and also to the Irish Freestyle Committee for the use of their event shelter.

To all those that had registered & contacted me wanting to take part in the “Free Your Style” event don’t worry we still have those medals up for grabs and are planning to reschedule for some time before Christmas.

Till next time,

Adrian

Hey,

As some of you know this idea was only really conceived in the Sluice car park last Sunday afternoon after a training day organised by Ger O’Reily and to be honest I am surprised how quickly this has snowballed. The premise for this event and the ones that are planned to follow it is pretty simple “To run a series of freestyle events with will allow people to learn new skills & develop their existing ones in a fun and safe environment”.

From having attended the day Ger organised it was clear to see that there was an appetite among folks for events just like this. As if to prove a point when I advertised that we would be running an event at the end of October in no less that 23hours all the thirty allotted spaces snapped up along with a rapidly growing “reserves list”.

Having run a couple of training things before there is a bit of behind the scenes things to sort out which are starting to slot into place nicely. What I would like to say that the real stars of these kind of days are the guys and girls who give up their time & experience to coach and make the whole thing possible.

To all those that have registered keep an eye on your inbox as the days itinerary and more details will be landing very soon. To people that did not manage to get in this time stay tuned for further events or if you would like to help out on the day making things run smoothly drop me a line.

If anyone wants to try get in some pre event practice more details of this wicked little spot can be found here on irishwhitewater.com .

I hope to add a few more photos and video in the run up to the 25th just to give people a better idea of what to expect & to get the excitement levels raised. Until then here are a couple of shots taken on a recent recce to the spot by myself and a couple of the lads.

That’s about it for now but here is a video that for me pretty much sums up the value of holding and attending days such as these. At the start of August I exchanged a few emails with Two Time World Freestyle Silver Medallist Billy Harris who gave me permission to use this clip and also said he couldn’t stress the importance of getting solid foundations to help progress your skills and always push your self.

Inspiring stuff I reckon, I hope ye are as excited as I am about this upcoming event and those that hopefully will follow it.

Adrian

get your gallery at realiventblog.com

How to double pump 101 from Adrian Shanahan on Vimeo.

Hi,

A few days back on of the guys from the UKRGB Bren (aka Peakfreak) posted up that there are no videos online that just explain the “double pump” and any that try assume too much previous knowledge from the person looking to learn.

I had being thinking of doing up a few wee how to tutorials but was being a bit lazy about it, I took this as a bit of motivation. I hit a part of the local river two cameras and tripod in hand. Sadly after I had uploaded the footage to my laptop I some lost it all , a fecking disaster so I flew back down to the river with my younger brother Keith “shaky hands” Shanahan and managed to get only 6mins of raw footage before the battery died. I managed to salvage this after all that.

This has kinda inspired me to put a bit of effort in and knock out a few more hoping to improve on the quality.

Stay tuned……

Adrian

So I have broke the onlyish kinda rule I set my self when I started this blog thin up, “to keep it updated regularly”. The only positive is that I’ve had loads of stuff on as of late which included some boating & good times.

Clifden Fun Rodeo 09

So for the few weeks leading up to the weekend of 20th/21st of June myself , Bowsie & some of the NUIG/GMIT kayak club crew were busy making plans for Event 2 of the IFS league which was to be held in Clifden Co. Galway.

The idea of the event was was pretty straight forward, “lets get everyone over to Clifden do a training / freestyle event lash a BBQ & beach party in the middle of it all and hope every one has a savage time”. From the feed back we have gotten I say it’s safe to say we did what we set out to do.

We had to limit the numbers to 50 for the competition itself but the training day was open to more and the BBQ was all comers welcome.

After the feature had stopped working on day one we held a quick flatwater rodeo so all the folks cold show their skills to the judges. This was only put in for a bit of “Fun” but I did notice allot or serious faces in the eddy & even heard talk of “ride plan’s”. It was a great spectacle showing off a variety of paddle spins / self reasuces / huge loops and epic cartwheel sequences. In the end Ger O Reily in his pink boat took first place.

That evening were had a BBQ out in the dunes in Dunloughin (or however its spelt), Colm Healy /Ethan / Michelle / Donna cooked up a storm on the BBQ’s making sure everyone was stuffed to the gills with food before they had a social drink. We had DJ Shmenda ( NUIG Oldie) was manning the decks of our make shift mobile night club and blasted the tunes out late late into the night.

I reckon Caitriona O Brein’s photo sums up how most people felt the next day.

After a clean up of the camp site we headed back into clifden to set up for the competition itself!

There was a super turn out for the event with some great runs being put down across all of the classes, a special mention has to be made to Conor Bredin & Adrian Durrant who put down some some nice entry loops.

All in all it was a cracking weekend and folks who were there are really looking forward to hitting up Cork for next months event. There will be a full rundown of results & league standings on IFS in the next day or so, but here is an over all of the weekends scores.

On a personal note I would like to thank everyone who made the event possible, all the guys in NUIG , the people who traveled, the time keepers , judges , scribes, River Deep mountain high, Peak UK, DJ Shmenda, to Bowsie for going to going to bed early so he would be fresh to judge on Sunday and thanks to all those who said thanks.

I-Canoe video night for Irish Freestyle team.

Adrian D & Colm in i-canoe decided to run a bit of a video / social night in the shop to show case the entries for a video comp they had run along with trying to raise some funds for the Irish Freestyle Team who are heading to Thun at the end of the summer. I didn’t make it to the night myself as I was across the far side of the country at the time but I’m informed that it was great craic and loads of prizes were given out.

Well when I say I wasn’t there myself…. Mr Healy owner of i-canoe decided to show a bit of film he made a couple of weeks ago of a spin we had on the Dargle where I had a “paddle malfunction”. I reckon whit friends like this who need enemies…lol Anyway have a laugh at my expense.

After we had gotten of the Dargle we made a quick dash across to Laragh we we got a speed / dusk descent of the Avonmore followed by a pint in Lynamhs. Not a bad round up to a funny evening of after woork boating.

Prior to that paddle incident on the Dargle I had being using Select W1 paddles and really liked but finally gave in to the temptation of Foam Core Werners. In waiting for my custom Werners to arrive I had put my Select’s up for sale not thinking they would shift quick with money being tighter for everyone these but two days later and I had to fall back on some 10 year old Rough Stuff Tempests which were long long past their best before I brought them on the Dargle that evening.

Happy days yesterday when I package arrived in i-canoe for me of two new sets of paddles, 191cm Double Diamonds & 200cm Sho-guns . I know some of ye are thinking 200cm that’s massive but trust me its the forwards for rivers ( or more like back to Slalom style paddles) . Initial impressions apart from they fuel my Carbon fetish is that they feel, super light , rigid & responsive. I am really looking forward to getting some quality river time with them as opposed to the canal outside the shop.

A day out for the dogs..

Last weekend Tullamore Canoe Club held an open day for members of the public to come along and try canoeing and kayaking which also doubled up as a social gathering for friend to catch up and try some new boats. Colm and myself headed along for the day and brought loads of different boats from wild water racers / crossover boats and the worlds newest boat manufactures “Big Dog Kayaks”.

We had a couple of different sizes of the Havoc (playboat) and one of the Kaos ( river play) there on the day and folks were lining up to see how they handled. Most people seemed quiet impressed, myself and Colm had to wait until the very end of the day before we got a shot in them. I had spent the the the previous while doing some freestyle coaching so when I eventually managed to get a go I was pretty spent. What I would say is that the sizing is quiet strange and the outfitting would need a bit more tweaking before I would be happy with it, overall not a bad boat and it give the impression that to would be responsive and loose on a wave.

Last night we had them on the canal with our team looping monkey AD just to make sure they go big on the loops.

So that’s about it for now, there has been loads more happening and the next couple of months it looking good with the Cork Rodeo coming up , a trip to Canada boating and a trip to the World Freestyle Champs in Thun also, not to mention what ever summer boating the Irish weather allows.

Fair play for reading this far, chat to ye later.

Adrian

]]> http://adrianshanahan.com/wordpress/index.php/2009/06/bumper-blog-update/feed/ 0 http://adrianshanahan.com/wordpress/index.php/2009/06/as-seen-on-tvlol/ http://adrianshanahan.com/wordpress/index.php/2009/06/as-seen-on-tvlol/#comments Mon, 15 Jun 2009 11:15:55 +0000 Adrian Shanahan http://adrianshanahan.com/wordpress/?p=345

Hey,

As some of you might know I am a member of the Irish Freestyle Committee and that our National Team are in preparations for the upcoming World Freestyle Championships In Thun Switzerland later in the Summer. RTE’s magazine program Nationwide decided to do a a small piece on the Freestyle Team and Freestyle kayaking as a whole, this was a bit of honour for us as we are the only sport/ discipline to get covered twice.

As this was Filmed at relative short notice and that the team are currently spread from Uganda to the Ottawa I drafted in some help form friends / Sluice locals and those of the national team that were in striking distance of Dublin.

Fellow team i-canoe member James VdB took some shots on the day

The piece aired on Irish National last Friday evening to approx 500,000 + and was received well among both the paddling / non-paddling community.  My only regrets are that there was not some more kayaking shown as a few of the guys managed to go huge on the evening but this wasn’t shown, there were also a couple of more interviews shot too which didn’t get aired ( one of which included the single best “why do you kayak” answers I have ever heard ).

I’d like to thank all those who made this posible in no particular order Cyril & crew from Riverside Television and all the paddlers Jim Keohe, Fran O D, Adrian Durrant, Emer Farrell, Ronan Brennan, Caoimbe Farrell, Brian “Bowsie” Cahill, Eoin Farrell, Niamh Cleary, Cake boy. Also to James for his savage photos and to all the parents who took the time to ferry the juniors about.

The show can be view from inside Ireland on RTE’s Player service right here (alt here ), for those of you without an Irish IP address I have hosted the video on my site here . If you just want to get straight to the freestyle piece just fast forward to 13mins.

Update Feb 2010…

I finially got around to sticking this bit of film online

I’m really looking to traveling with the team to the Worlds this year & thank all those who have helped in their preparations to date.

Adrian

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