I went to Germany to join the PKRA world cup slalom event and also went there to meet the other team riders that are also riding for Flysurfer. The first 2 days of the competition, all the slalom riders were released since the organizers wanted to focus on Freestyle while the forecast looked good. The forecast did not look that great for the week. The first two days I helped out in the test center. It was a lot of people coming to Flysurfers test area since it was the first opportunity to try out the new and first Inflatable kite from Flysurfer, The Cronix. I managed to test the Cronix early one morning when the wind was really good about 20-25kts. I have to say that it’s a really good kite and very easy kite to ride and I really liked that it has some features that no other kite on the market has yet. I tried the self launch system and it worked really well.

When the competition started for us slalom riders I was lucky and ended up in a group where I could make it to the final, since it’s only the 3 best riders from each heat that make it to the final.  You have to be lucky that you don’t end up with all of the best guys in your heat. So after the first two days of competing I was in 8th place and since my goal was to be in the top 10 I was happy 🙂 Unfortunately I was not so lucky in the seeding of the qualification heats for the rest of the week so I more or less always ended up in 4th place for the rest of the week, so I never made the final for the rest of the competition. I took the opportunity to try out some different race boards during the qualification heats but riding new boards for the first time during a competition did not turn out to be so smart, since I did my worst results during the week when I was test riding the different race boards but I got some valuable info while testing so I did not regret doing what I did even though I dropped down to 12th place in the end.

Overall it was a good trip and I met a lot of people and made some good connections. I’m also proud since I was the only competitor who was riding on a twintip board that made it to the finals. Now it’s time to focus and train for the world championship.

/Atte
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