Erik Hedblad goes to Marocco and Stefan Rolen wins the Worlds?

Well Erik Hedblad borrowed my Supair Altirando XP and he goes to Marocco tomorrow, but i dont know if Stefan Rolen is winning the Worlds(paragliding world championships)…

But it would be supercool if he did

Thumbs crossed for one of the allaround best dudes around.

Also offcourse i keep my thumbs crossed that Russ Ogden gets gold. And i think he might, he’s got what it take to do it. Russ is where i’d bet my money. If i was rich… Good luck Russ.

But to be honest and realistic, gold will go to Slovenia. No doubt.

Urban, Aljaz or pod spudnick or what ever his name is

Fast faster Urban?

Cant remember who took this picture, sorry!

Or maybe the raving mad french Simon, he’s fun and icecream all the way

In 2 days the first heat will be done, cant wait to see the results. The next couple of weeks will be intressting in the paragliding world. In more than one way…

Grinding real pool coping makes me happy. Sk8r 4 ever.

Finally i got myself together and went over to Frysen for a skatesession. My knee still far from 100% okey , but i decided to give it a go.

Lets just say my knee did not get better from skateboarding;-)

But i feel like a million dollars, first copinggrinds ever.

The pool in Frysen has a very tight transition, and in the shallowend of the pool it’s supertight. Grinding there is sweet.

Coping against trucks makes a gnarly noise. The coolest sound in skateboarding. And this afternoon i enjoyed making that noice myself. I have a silly smile on my face now…

Meet an old friend there to, Olov Rickardsson. Skater/snowboarder from Åre. We had fun in the pool.

Egelsvikshanget, good flying conditions and big eagle flying with us

Today me, Tor Jansson and Tomas Fridzen went south…

To a place called Egelsvik, close to a famous restaurant called Oaxen. The ridge is about 35 meters high and there’s nothin’ in the way for the wind. So when it’s on, it’s smooth!

When we first arrived i said, -no way i’m carrying my glider up for a toptobottom. It was almost no wind at the bottom. But Tor noticed that below the actual takeoff it was waves on the sea. So up we went. And the wind was weak. Maybe 4-5 m/s. Hmm. No way this can be soarable…

I was wrong, Tomas took off first and went up. Perfect buttersmooth soaring. And 3 pilots. We owned the place for the next hour, only to be joined by a big eagle. Fantastic.

This is my third weekend in Stockholm and it’s my third weekend flying. Not bad

Last weekends flying is now avaliable on vimeo, LEK did the filming. http://www.fenixflyg.se/index.php?option=com_hwdvideoshare&task=viewvideo&Itemid=190&video_id=19

Here’s some of my pics i did not fix for the blogg last weekend…

And here’s a couple of pics from Björn Hårdstedt, www.velodrom.se

Thanks for another good weekend.

Sportfack 2009

I have started my new job, and after 3 days in the office we attended a sports trade show over 2 days. I now know what’s hot and what’s not for the winter of 2009/2010. But i wont tell U…

The people i work with at Sportfack is a bunch of fun lovin’ magazine creating friends.

I thought i should introduce them to You.

Linnea, editor with a full on knowledge in Swedish language. And also a very good writer. She’s fast. Rather intimidating to sit on her right side… Not only that, she also has a mean slapshot on the ice. Good thing i’m atleast older than she is ;-). She lives in the woods she says and travels for hours to get to the office. Tough girl.

Martin Willners, the Boss, even older than me ;-), the only one i know that has beaten Terje Haakonsen in snowboarding and Tony Hawk in skateboarding. He’s been skateboarding as long as me, but seams to have been sidetracked by golf. He’s also been into ballet skiing soo what could U expect… Now’s everything worth knowing about producing magazines. Guru.

Pelle, graphic designer, photographer, this dude is fun. Raving mad, nutter and allaround good guy. Does modeling on his sparetime, mainly naked. Mc donalds commercials is also in his bag of tricks. And yeah, he’s awesome at designing magazines. Used to be working as a PR dude for WE, a rather big Swedish clothing brand. And he too has beaten Terje Haakonsen in snowboarding.

This is what i have to put up with for the next 2 1/2 months. I realy look forward to this project. Very inspiring and also a bit scary. The game is on.

Soaring and treelandings at Klövberget…

Today again we went to Klövberget outside stockholm city, and it was on. Realy good soaring, one pilot, Tor Jansson was in the air when i got there. And a glider in the tree on takeoff.

I fixed my kit right on and went flying. Rock’n roll soaring. With few pilots and good lift. Big wingovers and swoops and toplandings was on the menu. I landed after half an hour to warm my hand. After a while i took another flight but lost the upgoing air and went to land almost emediatly. Hmm.

Walked up the stairs again and chilled. Another pilot got his glider in a tree. Hmm. Then i took off and went over to the right to get altitude. No problems, got lots of hight and went for wingovers. Great fun! This site is great.

Then i went back out to the right and all of a sudden i started going backwards and sinking hard… in to the trees… Shit. Noway i could get my feet on the speed quick enough. -Just stay in control of where U go down, i thought to myself.

The last thing i wanted was to bounce of a treetop and then slam into the ground 10 meters lower so insteed i tried to deepstal my way down inbetween the trees and i almost succeded in doing so. My glider ended up in a tree and i landed on the ground, but with a rubberband effect so not hard at all. I was unharmed and so was my glider.

This was my first ever treelanding in all the years i’ve flown. I started flying in 1992. But as Russ Ogden once said, -You are not a complete pilot until You have treelanded. Soo i guess i’m one step closer then

Then alot of pilots got in the air again, soaring in the sunny afternoon. And there was a glider in a tree, again. We helped him out of it.

I picked the branches out of my lines and took off again. Flew down and had a hot dog. Chatted and drove of in the dark evening. Fun had been had.

Anyway, again, big thank’s to everyone who helped picking my glider down from the tree. Especially Björn Hårdstedt who climbed the tree.

Flying in the stockholm suburbs is good fun. And the Fenixers are nice too;-)

Windy and grey… And sadly not flyable.

Today the wind was way too hard for flying. I wish i had brought my speedrider with me to Stockholm…

Still we had a nice day and i got to see 2 new flying sites in the Stockholm area. I hope to fly them later this winter.

We had a late coffee at a place called Cafe Lyran. Roughly translated Lyran means “being drunk”…            Nice oldschool cafe with lots of spirit.

Tomorrow i start my new job at Sportfack. Editor with focus on wintersport and outdoor is my area. More on this later.

By the way, there’s a new cool glider in åre. A U-turn Morpheus 19 with Broken loggo on top.

Pilot is Martin Kjellman who thrashed his old ozone 6907 in a collision with his syncro partner…

Paragliding in the outskirts of Stockholm. Very scenic!!!

Thank’s to a bunch of friendly Fenix pilots i got to the place of the day, sadly the wind was not quite with us today but the site was nothin short of scenic. And with temperatures at 15 below zero(celcius) it was freezin cold.

This did not stop about 15 pilots from driving there for a 1 minut toptobottom!!! And also for meeting. And good fun was had and short flights. From what i’ve heard tomorrow will be good, if U have a small glider… lucky me;-)

Take a look at my pics of the day.

Falkenström was first man out, he went straight down. And since sausageman Hårdstedt arranged a BBQ the rest of us stayed at TO.

When the wind picked up most of us tookoff and landed on the ice, packed up and had a chat about flying tomorrow.

See U there.

Paragliding and wavesurfing on gran canaria

Well after getting back to Stockholm i have checked my pics from Gran canaria and åre. And soo, here some good ones.

Well flying in shorts and t-shirt is nice, if only the seabreeze would have been on…

Takeoff and landing Amadores Gran canaria.

And the area from above

Before landing i had time for a couple of wingover close enough to scare the shit out of a bunch of english charter tourists up by the pool next to takeoff.

Jonna Sture took all photos above. Except the one i took on myself in the air…

And now a big SURF gallery. From Quintanilla on the north coast of Gran canaria.

Not bad huh?

Anyway, i was not there for surfing, men and Jonna went there for a calm holiday. To charge our batteries

And tranquility is to be found when U get of the beaten track. The mountains and the west coust is realy nice on Gran canaria. The east coast is hell…

Just check this british bloke on vacation… Sorry i just had to show it to U all;-)

I wonder if he was planing to attend the mass?