Marijn
01/08/2011Took to the road Friday the 29th early morning thinking to arrive at Romo around 15:00, but soon found that traffic didn’t cooperate. After about 10 hours driving (shouldn’t have taken no more than 7) I arrived on Romo beach and winds were up so it took me about 2 minutes to get out the buggy, a kite and go ride, funny how every little annoyance disappears as soon as you feel the wind in your face riding a buggy or board at a place like this.
After about 2 hours of cruising and having fun we all moved to the camping for some BBQ and drinks, but since most riders been riding all day everyone was in bed by 11 (which is early for KLB standards :-) ). Saturday we started early and everyone was at the beach around 9 in the morning and its safe to say that conditions rocked. The decision to do one of the KLB events at Romo turned out to be great.
Because the conditions were perfect with 20 to 25 knots all 5 races were held in the morning, which was especially hard for Jeroen because he drove through the night and had only about an hour of sleep. Nick Stimpel was racing his Vapors and the speeds he reached on the downwind tacks couldn’t be beaten by any of the other riders and then I’m not even talking about the upwind tacks, it was no surprise that he won all 5 heats and is now almost unbeatable with only one event to go.
With all 5 races out of the way by noon already we had some time to recouperate (racing landboards is a serious attack on the legmuscles and 5 races in short succession took a lot out of all the competitors). At 14:00 the freestyle briefing was on and soon enough the first heats were on the way. Peter Lynn was well represented with Romain Feaux (France) Nick Stimpel, Florian Giehl and Jeroen Pigmans (NL) and our ”unofficial rider” Joey Oldenburger who was flying the Tube proto’s.
Heat after heat was done in which all competitors rode against each other and because there was about 25 knots of steady wind in the afternoon, all heats provided a spectacular show for the spectators. In the end the final round was between Joey Oldenburger and the 2010 German champion Emmanuel Norman. And according to everyone watching it was the most exhilarating final round we’ve ever seen in the German KLB tour.
Both Joey and Emmanuel were throwing their biggest tricks and all spectators were cheering them on giving them the energy to go on for the full heat (mind you, both riders had done at least 8 freestyle heats to get to final round). Joey to everyone’s amazement threw an S-bend to blind, which is pretty insane to do on land and my guess is that this was the first ever on land. Well done Joey!
By 4 o clock the tide came in so we had to get off the beach quick, arriving on the Camping it was first time for a shower to wash the fine sand out of all the uncomfortable places and after that me and Romain hit up PL buggyteamrider, (and grillmaster!) Bastian Bischoff who was kind enough to prepare us some nice BBQ food. After dinner everybody was having a lauch and reflecting on an awesome day. Sunday we all were freeriding and enjoying the superb conditions and late in the afternoon I headed back to Holland.
A huge thanks to everyone making the event a success: Thorsten Acker, Tom Klar, Guntram Leibrock, all the riders and everyone else involved. See you in a few months for the finals in Wanlo!
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