It was planned for 2 days of straight chaos to get to the states. Fly, Drive and get to South Lake Tahoe by 7pm to see all the kiwis and go celebrate. Mission Accomplished!!!!!

4 bags for 3 months…..

Tahoe had already had 12 feet in a week and so I was amped to leave, bags packs, said goodbye to Namu and Mama and was ready to go. A quick flight to Auckland and met up with my Wanaka buddy Mads for the flight to San Fran. Being a big rig I needed some more leg room etc so tried out the Premium Economy Class. Was a great step up from the normal cattle class economy where my knees usually hit the seat in front. Stoked!!

The view flying into San Francisco, USA

13 hours later we arrive in San Francisco, USA and we got picked up by Dick Schultz who had just got back from the European Open. The kiwis had done alright over there and by the sounds of it Ben Stewart is BLOWING UP!! Beating Shaun White in the semi finals halfpipe to get 5th. The kid is 15!!!! Watch out for that grommet!

The drive from San Fran to North Lake Tahoe

Another 4 hours later and we were in North Lake Tahoe, it was snowing already and we were exhausted but the kiwis were all in South Lake Tahoe and ready to party. So we picked up OJ (my truck) and drove another 2 hours through a mini snow storm to South Lake and checked in to THE BLOCK AT TAHOE – Marc Frank Montoya’s Hotel. That place is seriously a snowboarders dream, free tuning, drinks, dvds, wireless and the staff are all super relaxed and down for the cause. It’s sick to go stay at a place that is really supporting the sport so if you get a chance go check it out.

The Block At Tahoe – A Hotel for Snowboarders in South Lake Tahoe

Seeing all the kiwi crew again was awesome including Bevan Hall, Jody Blatchley and even Spencer Falls aka Usher was in the house. We call him Usher because 1. He’s a grommet so we can give him nicknames 2. He has a big earing 3. He dances like Chris Brown, Micheal Jackson and Usher combined. Anyways…. we hit up the nightclub Vex in Harrahs Casino and thanks to Aimi X from Heavenly Ski Resort we rolled the VIP line and even got our own booth. What can I say next…… well, I was jetlagged and traveled for 2 days so the nightclub was pretty much the best EVER!! Usher threw down some next level dance moves which impressed even a couple dudes, Rangi came out and pretty much everyone had a great time.

Jody, Usher and his ‘bling’ in Vex Nightclub

The next morning after a big group breakfast I caught up with fellow Kiwi Blair McLeod and got my trailer all set to go so I could pick up my new snowmobile. It’s a 2005 Ski Doo Summit Highmark 1000 with a 151 track. Blair had recently crashed it in a Ditch for me so it was in getting fixed!! Shot Blair!!! ahha.

Back to North Lake and I got hooked up with and Paul and the crew at Thin Air Motorsports picked up my sled. Those guys pretty much have the best customer service and know all the ins and out with anything and everything, motorbikes, seadoos and ski doos so I was in great hands. Let’s hope this new one doesn’t blow up like my one from last year. I even bumped into Gus St Leon and his mate Kendal who are also getting some sleds so will be awesome to get out with those boys too and have some fun.

The Setup…..

So that’s it, I’m in Tahoe and all settled in up at Truckee, North Lake Tahoe, the snow is amazing and as I look outside it’s still coming down. There is more snow here now than the whole of last season so no doubt it’s going to get crazy with some sick riding.

Peace.

- Holler, NZsnowboard.com

A Special THANKS to:

Marc Frank Montoya, Charles and Maggie at The Block at Tahoe – www.blockattahoe.com
Aimi X from Heavenly Ski Resort – www.skiheavenly.com
Paul at Thin Air Motorsports – www.thinairmotorsports.com

Last weekend was the official start of the NZ 08 season, it kicked off with the Grom/Pro series at Lake Karapiro. It was an awesome event for the younger riders to gain contest experience. I was judging the event and got to see the growing talent of our young riders and the future for NZ wakeboarding is looking good.

The next day were supposed to be the finals but due to strong winds making the water dangerously rough it was cancelled and the results were taken from the previous days heats.

From Karapiro myself and Antz drove over to Tairua for the Pipemasters, NZ’s biggest rail contest. Unfortunately it was extremely rough due to the strong winds, in fact it was so strong that we had kiteboarders riding around while we were hittin the rails.

It was awesome to see that some of our younger rides have really stepped it up on rails.

I ended up having a few average rides in the heats but managed to put it together in the rough conditions in finals.

We headed to the after party at one of the local pub and had a few drinks before they announced the winners.
3rd place was a drew between Travis and Antz and they had an arm wrestle to decide who got the trophy.
2nd was Riley Bathurst (brother of MD Snowboarding Ambassador Tim Bathurst) who has really stepped it up on the rails.
And I managed to take out the top spot, meaning I have now got the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place trophys on my mantle at home!

Big thanks to Devo for putting on the event.

I am now in OZ for the next 3 weeks, this weekend is the second stop of the APWT. I will check back in with the results.

BRad

Brad Smeele is proudly sponsored by:

Oakley
Mountain Dew
Ronix Wakeboards
Ballistics
Ju$t A Dollar
Skull Candy

www.myspace.com/bradsmeele

Well I’m back in very windy Wellington (130km/h) for the first time since Christmas and I’m getting ready for parachute festival this weekend.

Results from the NZ nationals – I had a hard quarter final and had no waves come my way, so again I finished 9th over all. Its Ok though, its a five star rated comp so there is still good points for it and I can make them up at the next events.

Congrats to fellow MD rider Angie koops on winning the open Womans!!

Below is a taste of the dvd that is to come of the fun some of the boys got up to during the week collecting all the drunkin MD cans.

Also, as a bit of a anger release after the comp me and some mates did some surfing behind a 4WD alng the beach. Here are a few photos. . .

Enjoy!

Kirk

The NZ Nationals have been running since Saturday at Makarori in Gisborne. They are through to the quarter finals of most divisions now because they have been doing super long days to fit in as many heats before the bad weather and big ugly surf arrives tomorrow (apparantly).

But good news, I have made it through the first and second round of the Open Men Longboard division and I am through to the quarter finals.

I have given away about 10 boxes of Mountain Dew already to all the lil grommies, they are frothing as soon as the van pulls up because they know it means Mountain Dew and motorized skateboards!! stoked.

Here’s some pics…

It’s my first chance to jump onto an internet…….flew into auckland and did the huge mission down to Gizzy, haven’t competed yet but have had some super fun surfs and so far has been super hot the whole time so I’m stoked! Also there is a cyclone swell coming so the waves should be big which is great!

Sorry its short but heading out for another surf!!!

See ya

Ange

Sup. Happy New year to everyone! Hope everyone partied hard and had a good time. Margaret River is still ripping. Getting pretty hot over here.

Pretty much lived in the water over the christmas break. The surf has been pretty sick the last few weeks with some big swells. I’m starting to get the hang of the whole surfing thing. Stoked! Cant remember when I wrote last but I had a pretty classic christmas new years…it’s a mission trying to find a house in Margaret River in summer and we had been looking for 2 months.

We had staff drinks on the 20th Dec and ended up pretty maggot and after the bar shuts at 12 we decided to go back to our house and have some more drinks with some of the crew. Long story short we were way to maggot and noisy and our older flat mate lost it at us. My mate Zac who was living there too lost it back at her and it was all on. Anyways in the morning we found an eviction notice and we had 24hours to get out. haha so we packed up all our gear and moved…to where we weren’t sure, maybe the camp ground was the call. In our hungover/angry/gutted state we were cut! But then out of nowhere Zac gets a call and one of our mates has hooked us up a 3 bedroom house right in town! Sick! We didn’t care wot it looked like we were there! We met the owner and he gave us the key and we were in! Only $200 a week, 5min walk to town, skatepark 50m away, bottle store and bar just down the road…stoked! Had no bed so went on a late night mission to St Vinnys and there just happened to be a Queen mattress with my name on it, yeeyah!

Had one night chillin after a stressful day then decided to celebrate with a few drinks…it got late, we got drunk, we got noisy, bottles got smashed, we woke up to the owner calling and saying “come pick up your bond you are out!’ OH SHIT! haha not again! Zac and one of the girls went round to see the owner and took a xmas present to assist the apology. Somehow she fell for it and we are still here. so stoked we didn’t have to pack up all our stuff again.

Christmas day….spend all day in bed with some 24hour bug…not so much fun when its 40 degrees.

Other than that it been all good. Been surfing and went for a camping mish with my girlfriend for a few days. Checked out a few places south of Margaret River and did the tourist circuit for a few days. Pretty sick

Anyway’s this has nothing to do with Snowboarding which is what I should be writing about but summer is sick and WA is pretty dope to. check the pics… chur.

I am in the latest SLIDE longboarding magazine with a 15 page article on my trip to Indonesia. This mag is distributed around the country and world. You can pick it up from most magazine shops, check it out if you can. Hope you like it, I am stoked with it!!

Hey,

Here are a couple of pics from the first event of the Hyundai Pro Longboard tour held at Papamoa beach/ Mount Maunganui.

You can check out more on the comp from my blog here…