Photo: ColbyOtero.com

Kitesurfing (also known as kiteboarding) predominantly takes place in the ocean. But rivers offer the added advantage of strong water currents combined with wind velocity, meaning higher speeds for the surfer. Plus there’s no added risk of being eaten by a shark.

The Hood River Sandbar in Oregon’s Columbia River Gorge is a sandy kitesurfing launch. It’s one of the most practical places for river kitesurfing in the United States because of its consistently windy conditions. Because many kitesurfing schools are centered around the Gorge, it’s a perfect place for beginners.

The Hood River Kiteboarding Guide offers tips about maximizing the river kitesurfing experience in the region, and identifies dangerous or difficult areas to ride. These guidelines include:

Photo by ColbyOtero.com

- Keeping an eye upwind to make sure a loose kite isn’t headed in your direction.
- Keeping your kite low when riding downwind of other riders, and keeping it high when riding upwind of other riders.
- Steering clear of the Hood River part of the sandbar where the pros ride, unless you’re a pro too (it can be quite dangerous).
- Avoiding the marina sandbar for a launching and landing zone because it is usually crowded with families and children.
- Watching for barges coming through the channel to avoid collision.

Another great place to practice or even observe with the amazing scenic backdrop is in Squamish River, British Columbia, Canada.

But that’s the easy stuff.

If you’re looking for something challenging and uncharted, you might want to consider kiteboarding the Lachine Rapids on the St. Lawrence River. So far it appears that only Julien Fillion has been a successful rider. This is no surprise considering the river is 2.6 million gallons of water pouring over rocky terrain, shelves, and reefs.

This location is not for the inexperienced: Fillion had to pair up with Corran Addison and Yanick Larouche, fellow experienced river surfers and kiteboarders, to use a Jet Ski for towing into the waves and to have emergency assistance on standby during his first ride.

Just how dangerous are the rapids? Addison says, “The converging currents create whirlpools and thick seams that pull downward towards the river bottom 30 or 40 feet below. The bottom is littered with underwater caves, and probably shipwrecks from the late 19th century.”

While Fillion pulled off the ride with minimal damage (other than cracking his board in half), something as simple as being pulled down by the most violent wave in the rapids, Mavericks, would have tangled his lines and prevented him from resurfacing.

In his video, Fillion describes the river kitesurfing experience and why he enjoys the sport.

Julien Fillion Kitesurfing Whitewater River Rapids from kiteroam on Vimeo.

Community Connection

Interested? Learn how to get started kiteboarding.

Besides a Youtube video with over 17 million views, It seems impossible to find any information on Danny MacAskill. Even his official website is a work in progress.

A 25 year old from Edinburgh, Scotland, MacAskill has been riding for 13 years and now rides professionally. He has a dog called Meg, and his favorite drink is Red Bull. That was the only dirt I could dig up on him.

Some of the tricks he can do include flairs on a tree, bunny-hop tailwhips, drops off of staircases, and riding along thin fences or railings. MacAskill claims not to train or take himself too seriously, saying he still rides his bike just for fun.

Perhaps a reason for his virtual anonymity stems from the fact he doesn’t want to be famous, and has turned down appearances on American and British talk shows and even a performance at the Scottish Cup final.

In an interview by BikeRadar.com, however, MacAskill opens up a little more. While he hopes to travel the world and create more videos, he also loves performing for children at their schools, hoping to inspire more athletes to pick up the sport. He’s a perfect role model: in his younger years, he was unruly and often found himself in trouble with the police. Now, he’s famous without even trying, simply for doing something he loves.

From the mouth of MacAskill himself: “I am not going to degrade what I am doing and act like a clown. I am not too fussed about making money. I just want to ride my bike every day and see a bit more of the world.”

Is it just me, or does his desire to stay out of the spotlight make you want to get to know him even more?

Community Connection

Tour the world’s 15 most bike-friendly cities, or fulfill your bicycling wanderlust with the great American bike trip.

Longboarding / Photo: Todd Binger

KEEN believes in encouraging people to balance what is important to them–creating, playing and caring. It’s about living a HybridLife and being part of a greater community. Enter the HybridLife photo contest by showing us how you live your HybridLife and win a free pair of KEEN shoes.

Wind, climb, rappel, and crawl through the contours and formations carved by flash floods and rivers racing through canyons. Canyoneering is the adventurous sport of traversing narrow canyons that have been sculpted by water. Canyons vary in their depth, width, and difficulty.

A wide range of canyoneering routes are found throughout the world from simple/non-technical walk in the park types hikes to extremely difficult routes requiring technical swimming, rappels, and ropework.

2. Fastpacking

Cut out weight, kick up the speed and travel far and fast into the wilderness. Fastpacking is ultralight backpacking combining trail running and hiking to propel hikers further and deeper into the wilderness. Fastpackers can travel upwards to 30 miles a day with their ultralight packs, simple shelters, and minimalist food supplies. Without such modern day distractions like deluxe multi-tools and a handheld GPS, fastpacking is a way to get more immersed in the terrain and the experience of moving through it..

3. Four Square

Grab some sidewalk chalk and a rubber playground ball and you are good to go. Four square has moved off the playground and into the driveways of hip twenty and thirty-somethings across the US and Canada. A court is drawn up with four squares of equal size and each square occupies a single player. The player in the top spot serves the ball into any other player’s square and play continues until someone misses the ball or messes up and that person is eliminated allowing everyone to move up a square and get closer to the highly coveted “King” spot.

Geocaching / Photo: William Hook

4. Geocaching

Search high and low for hidden treasures in this huge global game of hide and seek. Geocachers use a GPS to find treasure stashes anywhere in the World. Geocaches are usually waterproof containers that contain a logbook and some trade items that a geocacher hid and then logged the GPS coordinates online for other geocachers to find.

Geocaches have varying difficult levels from simple drive-ups to more complex searches requiring long off-road drives, scaling mountain peaks, or underwater dives. Geocaches are even found in such far-flung destinations as Antarctica and north of the Arctic Circle.

5. Packrafting

Backcountry exploration is often limited by water crossings–creeks, rivers, wetlands, or lakes that because of temperature and other factors, are impassable with out some kind of boat.

Packrafts are lightweight, portable boats compact enough to be carried during treks through backcountry terrain. Along with collapsible paddles and safety equipment, packrafting gear weighs last than nine pounds and fits into your backpack right alongside other backcountry equipment.

Bike Polo / Photo: PhilxThomas

6. Bike polo

Construct a homemade mallet with PVC pipe, a ski pole, and hockey tape and head out to your local parking garage for a game of urban bike polo. Played in parking garages, basketball courts, or any other urban concrete slab urbanites can find teams of bikers use mallets to strike a ball into a goal.

In contrast to the mellower version of bike polo played in the grass, urban bike polo often results in plenty of crashes and carnage. As far as rules go bike polo has more in common with hockey than the traditional horse-riding polo. The game begins with a ball placed in the middle of the court and each team waits behind their goal and then charges the ball when the game is called to a start. The game continues until a team reaches a preset number of goals or reached a time limit.

7. Parkour

Flip, jump, and vault your way over walls, fences, and other urban obstacles. Parkour is actually a philosophy of movement in addition to a sport – think urban gymnastics meets humanistic theory. The object of parkour is to get from one place to another in the most efficient way possible using only the body and other objects in the environment. Parkour is about overcoming mental barriers as well as physical barrier and parkour strongly discourages competition, reckless behavior, and risky stunts.

8. Longboarding

Carve down paved hills on a snowboard with wheels. Longboarding is just downhill skateboarding with a longer and wider board. There are no freestyle moves, aerials, or flip tricks in longboarding, it is all about cruising from one place to another with smooth fluid movements creating that feeling of snowboarding or surfing.

9. Extreme Croquet

Drive croquet balls through weeds, rivers, sand, and mud. Extreme croquet in contrast to the regular backyard variety is an anything-goes version of croquet where there are no boundaries to the playing area, a number of unique and interesting challenges, and ridiculous house rules or no rules at all.

Stand-up Paddling / Photo: Mike Baird

10. Stand-up Paddling

Paddle through flat water and into waves while standing up on a super long surfboard. Stand-up paddle surfing is an old school Hawaiian sport originating in the 1940s when Waikiki beach boys would paddle out on their longboards to take pictures of the tourists on shore. Since then stand-up paddling has exploded in popularity because of its quick learning curve and simple nature – most people are up and paddling within 30 minutes of learning.

Note: This article is sponsored by our friends at KEEN. Win a pair of free KEEN’s by entering the HybridLife photo contest.

Are there any sports we missed? Share your picks in the comments!

Photo by Amiee Maxwell

The Teva Mountain Games, which will be held June 3-6 this year, is not for those who like enclosed tracks and comfortable stadium seating. Athletes from around the world will be coming to Vail to compete in 24 disciplines of eight outdoor sports.

Photo by Amiee Maxwell

Some featured events include fly fishing, kayaking, rafting, mountain biking, climbing, road cycling, stand up paddle, trail running, and a half marathon. The International Federation of Sport Climbing Bouldering World Cup will also be held at the games.

As an open event, many of the competitions are open to both amateurs and professionals, and spectators can watch for free. Some of the events are by invitation, but many others are still open for registration.

There will also be “lifestyle” events for participants, including a photo competition, film festival, concerts, parties, and expos.

For a dose of the kayaking action, check out this clip from the Mountain Games’ organizers:

Community Connection

If you can’t make it to Vail this year, consider signing up for an adventure race instead.

A competitor jumping at Madrid’s Festibike exhibition in 2009 – Photo by DavidHT

This year’s Black Hills Fat Tire Festival is being held from May 28-31 in Rapid City. Cyclists and spectators come together for a few days of sport appreciation and lots of fun on the trails.

The races all take place on M Hill in the center of the city, and cater to different skill levels. Downhill, Super D, x-country, and Sprint hill climb are just some of the options for the participants. Then there’s the two-day ride on the Mickelson Trail, the triathlon (kayaking, running, and mountain biking), and a 10-kilometer trail run.

In other words, there are going to be some serious athletes milling around Rapid City.

There’s also a whole schedule dedicated to off-trail events. Mingle with others at a BBQ followed by a downtown pubcrawl, sell your used bike at the bike swap, and attend a film festival with sport-inspired movies.

For the family, a Hide and Seek Fun Ride and Geocache Event will be taking place on Rapid Creek. Just use the given coordinates and a GPS to locate the stickers and redeem them for prizes at the end of the event.

With last year’s event being such a success, event coordinators are expecting bigger and better prizes and an even higher participation rate. The All-Festival Pass is $65 and comes with a t-shirt.

Community Connection

If you’re looking for more bicycling fun, check out 8 Quirky Bike Rides Across the US Or test-drive the bike that lets you drink beer onboard.

Photo: Josey Miller

After the thunderstorm that had hit us the night before, the Hilton Fly Rio Hang Gliding Center would undoubtedly shelve our excursion. At least that was what the concierge at our hotel had said. So I ate yogurt, bacon, piece after piece of candy-sweet pineapple, until I slumped over in my seat.

When your parents are as openly acrophobic as mine, you grow up convinced that you’re also acrophobic. Together my husband Jeff and I had surfed, biked around volcanoes, and dived with sharks as big as sofas. But it was no accident that I’d never agreed to adventures involving heights. That’s why I was puzzled to overhear him telling some new friends he wanted to impress that sure, we would love to try hang gliding.

I knew hang gliding was a tourist tradition in Rio—since the mid-1970s, I’d later learn—with nearly 10,000 tandem flights each year. I’ve never been one to decline a challenge, and this felt like a triple-dog dare. Jeff took me aside to coax, and I ultimately conceded.

Now, my anxiety seemed unjustified: this storm would be my savior.

Photo: Ana Paula Hirama

The sliding glass doors of the hotel entryway brushed open and closed as we waited. And then, to my dismay, it coasted into the scene: the black SUV that would transport us to a 1,700-foot-high hilltop in the depths of Floresta da Tijuca, the world’s largest urban forest. I felt the Ipanema tan drain from my face.

“Too much breeze for you back there?” Jeff asked our friends in the backseat. “Though then again, given what we’re about to do!” We both crack jokes when we’re nervous, and they were rolling off his tongue. Thud. The vehicle swerved as our driver’s eyes left the road while he introduced himself. One of the few things we understood through his thick Brazilian accent was
his nickname: Mosquito. “Did you really just say ‘Mosquito’?” Jeff asked. “Not ‘Eagle’ or ‘Hawk’?”

“We make dreams come true,” Mosquito said. “We help you fly like a bird!” He told us the story of an 84-year-old client: “See? Anyone can do it!” I asked for some music to drown out his transparent “you haven’t paid yet, don’t back out now” sales pitch.

We disembarked on a dusty plateau with a makeshift snack bar. A crowd was gathered on bleachers built into the cliff, and their roof was a 15-foot-long ramp of two-by-four floorboards.

Photo: elicrisko

Staff members yanked each member of our group in different directions. Rony, a tandem pilot in a bright orange shirt and spiky black hair, stepped me into the armless cloth straitjacket that would attach me to the oversized kite. He and I sprinted back and forth together simulating takeoff, as if we were competing in a three-legged race.

“You will run as fast as you can, yes?” he insisted.

I nodded, and the breakfast in my stomach churned. The remaining saliva in my mouth tasted metallic.

In my peripheral vision, I saw Jeff in ready position at the top of the wooden runway. “I love you!” I shouted as if it would be the last time. He glared back at me as if this had been my idea, not his. I watched my husband disappear into the clouds.

I realized that the helmet strap didn’t hug my chin. “Is this safe?” I asked Rony, as I showed him the gap between strap and skin.

He responded only with a laugh, led me to the ledge and instructed me to keep my left hand on his spine and my right hand on a noose hanging from the steering bar at all times. His back was sweaty on my left hand. The frayed khaki rope splintered my right.

Photo: Ana Paula Hirama

“And…run!”

My legs sloshed like water balloons. But when we reached the edge, there was no drop of stomach or limp, freefalling body. We were flying, as promised, like an eagle, a hawk, a mosquito.

Besides my and my pilot’s breathing, all I heard was the wind echoing in my ears. I noticed details in the Brazilian landscape that I couldn’t possibly have seen from sea level. I wished I could swap out my smelly pilot and swap in Jeff. Or better yet, enjoy my flight in solitude.

Then it hit me: more than 1,000 feet between me and the ground. That was all. Rony grinned into a camera at the front right edge of our kite and clicked the button with his thumb.

Are the clips holding me to the glider made of metal or plastic? What if they forgot about one of the clips altogether? What would I do if I heard the sound of splitting fabric or tearing Velcro? Could I hold my full body weight from this thin rope and, if I could, what would happen during landing…landing! We never discussed landing!

I remembered reading once that bird bones are hollow; human bodies aren’t built to fly. As we circled, I didn’t feel weightless; I felt every ounce of my mass, multiplied.

Would it be better if I were to plummet into that mass of trees over there? Into the pool behind that house? The ocean? Is it true that your body goes into shock during free fall—that you don’t feel the pain of impact?

Photo: Ana Paula Hirama

Without warning, Rony ripped off my leg straps. My limbs dangled with awkward freedom. As our speed slowed, we hovered over the shoreline.

“Again, run. Stand up very straight,” he coached.

Jeff, also grateful for solid ground, proudly waved to me from the shade of a nearby palm tree. I wobbled over, feeling a manic rush of adrenaline, and we swapped stories. His pilot had taken four cell phone calls—in flight—and their out-of-control beach landing had involved a gritty tumble. But he loved it. I told him I was really proud of the bragging rights, but couldn’t imagine doing it again.

“Come on, you wouldn’t?” he prodded.

I thought back to the sight of Rio de Janeiro from above—mountains, mansions, ocean, favelas—and I couldn’t come up with a better way to take in the sweeping view. In my peripheral vision, I caught a glimpse of the next aircraft approaching the sand.

I reconsidered with a nod. “Fine. Just call me Mosquito.”

Community Connection

Find more reasons to love Rio in 10 Reasons to Love Brazil.

Photo: US Air Force

Nicknamed “Fearless Felix,” Baumgartner has made over 2,500 jumps, including BASE jumps off of the Petronas Towers and Taipei 101 and a carbon-wing flight across the English Channel.

Now, he’s preparing for his biggest stunt yet, a jump from the Earth’s upper atmosphere that, if successful, will be the highest and fastest jump in skydiving history.

The plan calls for Baumgartner to take a balloon high into the stratosphere, to an altitude of about 120,000 feet. Wearing a modified space suit, he’ll then open the door and step out of the gondola.

Baumgartner will be in free-fall for about five and a half minutes, during which time he expects to break the sound barrier. By the time he deploys his parachute, he will have traveled over 21 miles straight down.

“When I jump, I’ll be going on a journey that no one has ever done,” Baumgartner told England’s Sunday Times. “But you absolutely can’t let fear take a hold of you.”

Red Bull is sponsoring the jump, which will likely take place sometime this year at an undisclosed location in North America. The event will be broadcast live via streaming video.

Photo: Red Bull Stratos

Falling From Space

The current altitude record was set in 1960 by Joe Kittinger as part of an Air Force program dubbed Project Excelsior. Kittinger, then a test pilot, made a series of high-altitude jumps, culminating in a 102,800-foot leap from a balloon above the New Mexico desert.

What is it like to fall from space? According to Kittinger, who’s now working on the Stratos team, it’s surprisingly peaceful. With little air resistance, there’s almost no sensation of falling at high altitudes.

“There’s no sound, no movement,” Kittinger wrote in his autobiography. It’s like being suspended in the sky.

At that altitude, skydivers’ are almost completely dependent on their gear. Many of the attempts to break Kittinger’s record have ended with equipment failures, with one skydiver dying after his helmet depressurized mid-jump.

Kittinger himself was almost killed during the first Excelsior jump when his drogue chute, a small parachute meant to stabilize his fall, deployed too early and got wrapped around his neck.

To prevent possible gear problems, the Stratos team has spent three years planning and constructing the gondola and pressure suit that Baumgartner will use for the jump. Baumgartner also hopes to not have to use his drogue chute, and plans instead to control his descent with just his body position.

Reaching the Speed of Sound

The biggest unknown for Baumgartner is how his body will react when he reaches the speed of sound. Scientists assume that he’ll be able to stay conscious, but they can’t say for sure.

Photo: US Air Force

“We just don’t know what will happen to Felix and the suit when he goes supersonic,” Stratos engineer Mike Todd told the New York Times. “Felix could slip right through it, but if half the suit’s supersonic and the other half isn’t, there could be turbulence that knocks him out of control.”

To find out how Baumgartner’s body behaves as he breaks the sound barrier, scientists will fit him with instruments to monitor his heart rate and his acceleration. Video cameras built into his suit and the gondola will record his descent.

Besides gathering data on how the human body performs under extreme conditions, Baumgartner and Stratos hope that the jump will help contribute to the development of new emergency escape procedures for astronauts.

Community Connection

Find out more about the jump on Red Bull Stratos’ site.

Photo: Lost Albatross

1. Ray’s Indoor Mountain Bike Park – Cleveland, OH

During the winter, Ray’s Indoor Mountain Bike Park gives Midwestern riders a refuge from the snow, wind, and ice. Ray’s caters to riders of all levels, from newbies riding the low wooden pathways of the beginner room to freeriders that come to fling themselves off the eight-foot drop.

Ray’s is housed in an industrial complex and has over 110,000 square feet of terrain. The park closes from May through October to completely rework the structures, giving it a new feel each season.

Photo: Lisa_Nichols

2. Edinburgh International Climbing Arena – Edinburgh, Scotland

The damp winters in the UK prompted climbers Duncan McCallum and Rab Anderson and architect David Taylor to build the Edinburgh International Climbing Arena. Built in a former quarry, this climbing mega-complex is the biggest in the world, with hundred-foot-high walls and bouldering problems graded up to V15.

Besides climbing, the arena also has rappelling and “Aerial Assault,” a free-hanging obstacle course high above the arena floor.

3. Wave House – Santiago, Chile

This surfer-friendly water park features Wave Loch’s “FlowBarrel 10,” an standing wave generator designed to mimic the ocean’s best breaks. At full power, its jets propel 130,000 gallons of water a minute over a curved surface to create a ten-foot pipeline. This consistency means that even beginners can drop in.

4. Chill Factore – Manchester, England

Chill Factore is an indoor ski area that offers fresh snow year-round. Besides their surprisingly long slope, Chill Factore has a freestyle park with kickers, funboxes and rails, as well as a 60-meter luge run. Even with two T-bar lifts ferrying skiers to the top, lift lines can get long during peak hours.

5. SkyVenture – Nashua, NH

SkyVenture simulates the feeling of skydiving by using a 1200-horsepower turbine to let visitors float on a cushion of air. Experienced skydivers can work to perfect difficult moves that would normally take several airplane jumps, while novices can simply enjoy breaking free of gravity’s hold.

First-time visitors have to complete a 20-minute training class before using the tunnel at SkyVenture.

Community Connection

Bring a piece of the outdoors inside with Matador Goods’ article on the Live Moss Carpet

Photo by Newhaircut

When I think of croquet, I imagine elderly men ambling around a level green field, swinging rainbow-colored mallets and engaging in polite conversation with competitors. Extreme croquet is like that, but for people who take life less seriously.

While croquet-like games are thought to have been played in France about 600 years ago, the first example of extreme croquet didn’t appear until the 1920s. Newspaper editor and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Herbert Swope played a jazzed-up version of the game at his Long Island estate, with no boundaries and few rules.

According to mystery writer Rex Stout, who had a ball thrown at his head during a game in 1937, croquet with Swope could get rough.

“Croquet is not for sissies,” Stout said.

Photo by wharman

Today, extreme croquet usually takes place in one of three environments: woodland areas, stream beds, and railroad tracks. All fields must be irregular and at least 50 yards long, though they are often much longer.

The aim of the sport seems to be to play in the silliest fashion possible. Some players go by nicknames like Dr. Punish and Steakboy. The most amusing part of the game, is the house rules. Here are a few of the best ones:

Hit the Beer – Hitting another player’s drink will give you two extra turns. Hitting your own drink will result in “a berating from the other players for wasting precious resources i.e., beer or brain cells.”

Dogs and Children are Permitted on the Course – Regardless of distractions or interferences, the ball must be hit from wherever it lies, even if moved from its original position. The rules note that “the training of dogs/small children for this purpose is legal but frowned upon.”
 
 No Show Tunes – Singing show tunes or songs in the style of show tunes on the course will result in physical violence.

Be Quick – Anyone moving about the course with exaggerated slowness “will be tackled enroute and beaten with mallets.”
 
Balls Must Be At Least 52% Through the Wicket – Otherwise, you forfeit your turn. If a ball passes all the way through and then backwards through the wicket again it can be considered a made wicket, but the event “must be witnessed by a fair and impartial judge in a bunny suit, who will certify that their findings are without bias or malice.”

In summary, it doesn’t really matter if you can bench press 200 pounds or run a five-minute mile. If you have a sense of humor and a case of beer, you could be the next extreme croquet superstar.

Community Connection

What defines a sport, anyway?

Photo by rhurtubia

Crashed Ice is an incredibly fast race that mixes downhill skiing, hockey, and boardercross, and it all takes place on a steeply-sloped ice rink.

The sport originated in Stockholm, Sweden, in 2000 and began spreading to other European cities shortly after. In 2003, it arrived in North America, first appearing in Duluth, Minnesota, and then becoming a popular winter event in Quebec City, Canada. Over 85,000 spectators regularly show up, making the sport a fairly big deal for Quebecers.

How It’s Played

Groups of four athletes compete against each other on a course up to 500 meters long. The track is narrow, and competition is literally shoulder-to-shoulder. The downhill rink is also set with vertical drops, jumps, and rollers.

Athletes can do whatever they want–push, sprint, wrangle–anything goes. There’s only one real rule: “first to the bottom wins.”

Crashed Ice skaters, who are typically pro ice hockey players, need a pretty varied skill set. Skaters must have quick reactions, speed, the skating skills to navigate the course, and the ability to recover quickly. The whole thing has high entertainment potential for those on the outside looking in, vying to see someone face-plant into the sideboards at 70 km per hour.

Winners move on until the final race, when the victor is named.

The next Crashed Ice event will be presented by Red Bull and is going to be held in Quebec City on March 20, 2010. Still finding it difficult to wrap your head around exactly what this sport is all about? The following video should help:

Community Connection

Want to learn about more overlooked winter sports? Check out Dog-Skiing and Ice Soccer.

From March 1-5, Chris Burke, Kristin Boese, and seven other pro kiters will head to Necker Island for the contest, where they’ll compete in events including a race, an obstacles competition, and a freestyle jam.

Not surprisingly, the parties on schedule are much more upscale than at most comps. The jam kicks off on Monday with a party and fashion show at the Fat Virgin Cafe (branding gone horribly wrong?), and goes on with meals at the Bitter End Yacht Club and dinner and dancing.

This video promoting the jam isn’t horribly convincing. It seems less about kiting than about alcohol product placements (I counted four), pictures of Richard Branson’s unshaven mug (I counted 11), and the Caribbean “good life” in general.

From all of us at Matador, have an extreme weekend!

The competition was called on Thursday afternoon. By the end of the day, four friends and I had confirmed a spot on one of four boats scheduled to leave from San Francisco harbor. By Saturday morning, three of the four captains had backed out, as conditions were too dangerous.

After taking five headcounts of the 30 people on board, the captain of Whacky Jacky set off for the two hour journey south to Half-Moon Bay. 12 of the 30 got sick within the first 20 minutes, but seeing the surfers was well worth the journey on the NorCal Pacific.

All photos by Nick Polansky and Luke Groesbeck. All rights reserved.

1. Leaving the harbor at 6:30 AM

2. Dense fog and poor visibility left San Francisco Bay eerily barren, with Alcatraz lurking in the distance.

3. The clouds began to break as we crossed the gate into the 25-foot swell.

4. We arrived just after the first heat, when the surfers were preparing for the next round.

5. Five other large boats, including ones belonging to the the sheriff and Coast Guard, sat in the channel.

6. Search and rescue crews were constantly dragging surfers out of the white water.

7. The waves at Mavericks were pushing 40 feet.

8. Takeoff points were inconsistent, and positioning was critical.

9. Riding down the face of a mountain.

10. Some couldn’t make it down.

11. Others pitched it perfectly.

12. Surfer Ion Banner finishes a ride as the wave breaks in a wall of water behind him.

Last month, Sydney daredevil Lucky Chance became the first person to do otherwise when he used the swing to launch into a monster, somersaulting BASE jump. The leap was caught on video, and it went online last week.

While the jump succeeded, Chance says that it didn’t go as smoothly as the video might make it seem.

“On the day of the video it was atrocious conditions, really windy,” Chance told ninemsn. “I hit the ground pretty hard and thrashed my hands and ankles.”

BASE jumping and the Death Swing are both banned in the park. We can only speculate how park officials feel about combining the two.

From all of us at Matador, have an extreme weekend!

Community Connection

Photographer Josh Caple shot another one of Chance’s Death Swing BASE jumps. You can find the pictures on his blog.

Check out more extreme sports videos at Matador TV.

Photo: m.gifford

No wheels on the ground. Which is actually how many extreme unicyclists spend a lot of their time.

We should have seen it coming. First skateboards. Then mountain bikes. Now unicycles.

For someone like myself who can’t even ride a bicycle without both hands on the handlebars, the idea of unicycling—let alone extreme unicycling—is terrifying. But the pros make it look easy, and anyone interested in the sport of unicycling can find them all at this year’s Extreme Unicycling Championship, which will be held February 13 to February 15 in Cologne, Germany.

Competitors will be participating in street, trial and flatland unicycling.

Street unicycling requires riders to use ledges, handrails and stairs to perform tricks. Like street skating, good street unicycling requires technical precision, style and creativity. Trial unicylcing is focused on riding over obstacles and hopping. These are the unicyclists who jump onto high structures such as stacked palettes.

Flatland unicycling uses a combination of skills, and is akin to a dance off where two athletes compete against each other to put together the most intricate and interesting combination of tricks in a limited time.

There will be 150 participants at this year’s Extreme Unicycling Championship—some girls, but mainly guys—who will compete in age categories (juniors and seniors, seniors being anyone over 15 years old).

To give you a feel for the sport, here’s a video of Spencer Hochberg, who is currently ranked as the top flatland unicyclist in North America and is the second best flatland unicyclist in the world. He will be competing in the flatland category at the Extreme Unicycling Championships.

Community Connection:

If extreme sports are your thing, check out these 5 crazy gravity sport videos. You might also want to take up extreme skipping or extreme bowling.

You wouldn’t think it would work, but it does. It works so well, in fact, that the sport has its own world championships, which will be held this March in Austria.

The snow paddlers in this video from Broadband Sports shred so hard, you’d never know their boats were made for water. Still, the cliff jumps they hit look scary; even in powder, those landings must be harsh.

From all of us at Matador, have an extreme weekend!

Photo by Omer Simkha

From January first to the 17th, 362 riders, drivers and crew on bikes, quads, cars, and trucks will cover 5,500 miles through Argentina and Chile.

Extreme? Absolutely.

Argentina and Chile are actually quite far removed from the race’s original route, from Paris to Dakar, Senegal. Its founder, Thierry Sabine, started the adventure in 1977 after getting lost in the Libyan desert on his motorbike during the Abidjan-Nice Rally. He was so inspired by everything he had seen that he wanted other adventurers to have the opportunity of experiencing the extremes along the route.

Since then, the race has been fraught with misfortune: drivers deal with desert sands, dangerous mountain passes, and determined opponents. Then there are issues like political disturbances and terrorism threats, which caused the Dakar to change its route from Africa to Argentina and Chile in 2009.

Photo by exfordy

Every year, riders, crew, or bystanders get lost or killed during the Dakar, like Mark Thatcher, the son of Margaret Thatcher who was lost for 6 days in the Sahara in 1982. He got off lucky: more than 50 deaths have been reported since the race began.

Competitors aren’t the only ones at risk. On January 2, a 28-year-old woman was killed near Rio Cuarto when German driver Mirco Schultis and his Swiss teammate Ulrich Leardi accidentally drove into a crowd of spectators. Five others were also injured.

Schultis reportedly tried to help the girl and was overcome with grief, and later withdrew from the race. Of course, since then, people have been questioning the accident: were the spectators in an area where they were not permitted, or is Schultis entirely responsible?

Regardless, the Dakar does not seem to be slowing down anytime soon. To follow the race, check out the official website.

Community Connection

Do you think tighter safety regulations need to be enforced for extreme sports events like the Dakar? Share your comments.

He’s won multiple X Games medals, but being a first-class motocross rider isn’t enough for Travis Pastrana. In recent years, he’s joined the Rally America circuit and performed stunts like jumping out of an airplane without a parachute and trying to do a flip in a monster truck.

On Thursday night, Pastrana started 2010 with yet another stunt: flying a car. His 269-foot jump onto a barge in Long Beach beat the previous record by nearly 100 feet.

From all of us at Matador, have an extreme year!

Photo: Wolfgang Staudt

1. Paddling West Virginia’s New River

This is one you can do right away: the Class IV rapids on the New River run year-round, right through the heart of West Virginia. If your traveling companions don’t paddle, the New River Gorge area offers plenty of other activities, including zip-lining and rock climbing.

Photo: jl_2

2. Rock Climbing in Zion National Park, Utah

Zion is the land of big walls, and its sandstone cliffs have routes for climbers of every level, from modest, well-bolted sport walls to inaccessible, multi-day lines thousands of feet high.

If you’re planning to hit up Zion, be prepared: climbing sandstone presents challenges you won’t see on granite. Wait to climb after rains, and make sure to back up any protection you place.

3. Wreck Diving in the Great Lakes

Divers who keep to warm-water destinations like the Caribbean are missing out: there’s world-class diving in the Great Lakes. The main attractions in the Lakes are thousands of perfectly preserved shipwrecks, some of them hundreds of years old.

Beginners looking to get their feet wet can get started at the Wells Burt, a 19th-century wooden schooner that sits in about 30 feet of water off of Chicago’s near north suburbs.

Photo: Jed Sundwall

4. Trekking Colorado’s Fourteeners

Colorado has 55 peaks with altitudes of 14,000 feet or more. Some of them, like Mt. Elbert, are fairly straightforward trail hikes; others, like Pyramid Peak, involve difficult scrambling or technical climbing.

Matador Trips co-editor Hal Amen recommends Quandary Peak as a good first fourteener for aspiring mountaineers.

5. Big Wave Surfing in Waimea Bay, Hawaii

Waimea Bay is one of the world’s hottest spots for big wave chasers, with swells topping off at over 30 feet during the winter surf season. The break is famous as the site of the Quicksilver Big Wave Invitational in Memory of Eddie Aikau. Held only in years when when waves reach a height of 20 feet or more, the tournament has only occurred seven times since being founded in 1984.

Community Connection

What adventures are you planning for 2010? Let us know in the comments.

Photo courtesy of Adrian Wallett

Whether you’re a snowboarding fan or not, most everybody knows of Shaun White, who has won competitions and hearts around the world, flaming red hair and all.

But if the average person had to name a female snowboarder, the challenge would get significantly more difficult. You may remember that one of the American women in the 2006 Olympic Games made a major mistake in the first women’s Olympic snowboardcross final, but do you know her name? (It’s Lindsey Jacobellis.)

Though there are women carving up the slopes, certified snowboard instructor Kassandra Cassily realized the first few days on the mountain can be the most intimidating for girls as they’re learning to snowboard—especially with guys hanging around—and many quit before they have a chance to begin. In response, Cassily introduced the first “Girls Can Shred Too” event in the Midwest last year.

Photo courtesy of tibchris

This year, the effort has gone international.

“Girls liked physic breakdowns of how the sport works and learned fastest when able to do flatland statics before starting out on the mountains, but most guys were anxious to hit the slopes right away,” Cassily said in a press release about the event. This led to the creation of the girls-only snowboarding day, which empowers women to make mistakes and overcome their fears without the self-consciousness.

The first annual international Ladies Shred Day is being held on January 23, 2010. Participating slopes will be offering discounted lift tickets and rentals and free lessons tailored specifically to women ranging from beginners to jumpers. Right now there are confirmed locations in Germany, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Washington, Colorado, British Columbia and Quebec, and organizers of the event are still working on securing additional locations for the day’s festivities.

So what are you waiting for ladies? Pull on a beanie, grab some female friends and hit the slopes. It’s time to make a name for ourselves.

Community Connection:

Snowboarding isn’t just a winter sport. Here are 10 places you can hit the slopes in the summertime.

Jake Scrace, 25, and Lewis Crathern, 24, had been planning the Worthing Pier jump for three years. Finally, 40 mph winds and ideal weather conditions provided the perfect opportunity for these guys to catch some major air.

Scrace was the first to attempt the jump, and Crathern followed shortly after. The two athletes say the feat was terrifying: “To go for something you know no one has ever done before, you just don’t know what the outcome is going to be.”

Terrifying doesn’t do the video justice. Watch these two fly over the pier with the apparent ease of flying acrobats. Their next goal? Kiteboarding from Worthing, England, to France.

COMMUNITY CONNECTION

If you’re an inexperienced kiteboarder, never try a stunt like this. For more kiteboarding resources, check out some beginners videos from Progression, or read up on how to get started.

All Photos: Peter Gene

Most volcanoes would have to erupt to get as much attention as Cerro Negro gets. For the past four years, travelers have come this peak in western Nicaragua to try their hands at volcano boarding, a new adventure sport that transplants duneboarding onto the slope of an active volcano.

Volcano boarding started with Darryn Webb, an Australian tour guide and duneboarder based in the nearby city of León. In 2005, Webb began running volcano boarding tours from his Bigfoot Hostel. All the while, Webb continued to refine his gear, finally settling on a sled-style board made of metal and Formica-reinforced plywood.

Since then, volcano boarding has exploded in popularity. Bigfoot now takes groups to Cerro Negro four days a week, with tours often selling out. After the 45-minute climb to the top of Cerro Negro, guests don goggles and bright orange jumpsuits and get a quick lesson in technique before blazing down the slope at speeds of up to 68 km/hr (42 miles/hr).

Other tour operators offer their own spins on the activity. For $33, León’s Va Pues Tours gives guests the option of carving down Cerro Negro on one of their stand-up boards, though they do suggest that riders have previous snowboarding experience.

Safety first

While spills are common, both Bigfoot and Va Pues said that no one had ever sustained a major injury on one of their tours.

“The only possible problem is a little gravel rash on the bottom of arms and legs,” wrote Bigfoot manager Gemma Cope via email. “Nothing too serious.”

Then there’s the danger of eruption. Cerro Negro is Central America’s youngest volcano, and is still active, erupting as recently as 1999.

While the possibility of eruption is all part of the thrill for many visitors, tour operators say that the threat to participants in minimal. According to Cope, Bigfoot works closely with the national park’s staff to stay updated on any tremors in the area.

“We are also on the volcano every day, so we would see the changes prior to an eruption,” wrote Cope. “The risk of an eruption is not an immediate issue for us.”

Community Connection

Have you tried volcano boarding? Want to try it? Tell us about it in the comments section below!

Brian Conley, Barrelfest

Some of the sickest footage on the internet: dudes getting pitted with the sun shining into the barrel.

Loic Jean Albert Looking at his Own Shadow on the Mountain while Flying

Check the opening 10 seconds of this video where wingsuit pioneer Loic Jean Albert looks down at his own shadow for a few seconds before looking back up.

High Speed Motorcycle Racing

These turns are just amazing.

Freeriding Powder Day in Valdez Alaska

You can find footage of crazier jumps and terrain and riders out there, but this helmet cam footage just gives a great perspective on what a classic freeride powder run feels like.

Community Connection

Matador’s own Shon Bollock gives us his review of three of the top Helmet Cam models available right now.

Photo above: Uncleweed / Feature photo: roland

Growing up in Vancouver we didn’t have a big range of options for terrain. The cul-de-sac out front of my house was littered with blast ramps and quarter-pipes that I built (with stolen wood, but that’s another story). My friends and I used to wheel a ramp a couple kilometers down the road to a big brick building to do some wall riding.

There were only two skate parks in those days: the Broadway bowls and the North Van bowls. My preferred stomping grounds was the one in the North Shore. It had a big snake run that led to a deep bowl. We’d ride up and down the banks, picking up momentum, then dip down and up the bowl and launch an air out the other side.

The author gets air, circa 1988

There was also the Richmond Skate Ranch, but that was far and you had to pay to get into the warehouse full of halfpipes, so more likely for us was the concrete playground of downtown Vancouver — the steps and rails of the art gallery and anything we could find before being chased away by security guards.

But enough reminiscing. Although the board has been put away for a long time, I still love to stop and watch the skaters anytime I’m out. The sport is different, evolving way beyond my ability levels. The sticker “Skateboarding Is Not A Crime” doesn’t make sense anymore, because it no longer is a crime. As Chris Young of the Vancouver Skateboarders Coalition says:

“10 years ago kids were getting tickets, getting their boards confiscated, and there was nowhere to skate except for China Creek.”

In Vancouver the scene is thriving. One of Vancouver’s premier bloggers, Miss 604, brought to my attention that this week, June 15-22, has been offically named Skateboard Week in Vancouver.

It’s sanctioned by the city, and has been announced by Commissioner Sarah Blyth on behalf of Mayor Gregor Robertson. The week culminates in Go Skateboarding Day with the Emerica team on Sunday, June 21.

These days, skate parks are popping up regularly, including six new ones in the past 10 years, and the VSBC are a major part of the sport’s success. To hear these words from the Vancouver mayor was something I would never have dreamed about in my youth:

“NOW THEREFORE, I, Mayor Gregor Robertson, on behalf of the City of Vancouver, do hereby proclaim June 15 – 22, 2009 as “Skateboarding Week” to recognize the importance of this sport in our city.”

Congratulations, Vancouver.

COMMUNITY CONNECTION

For a glimpse of what Vancouver looked like 20 years ago in the skate scene, check out Baxter Jackson’s article, Egypt’s Emerging Skate Scene.