SUPping in Delft and visiting the Brunotti Shaper

Yep yep, life is good!

For the last days I've been travelling between Holland and Belgium for lots of stuff.

Last friday I gave my first official Judging course in The Hague and it was a great succes!
It looks like we're building a good team of judges for the Dutch kiteboarding competitions.

We held it at the office of Christiaan, the head judge in Holland, what made it perfect.
I could play the footage, Bas Koole gave me, on a big white wall. Pretty sweet to see kiteboard action on a big 'screen'.

After that it was time for a party and a chill day in Belgium.. Always great to go party and see a lot of people back!

On monday I left to Holland again as it was Queensday. All dutchies go outside, drink beer, have BBQ's.
So Frans from Brunotti had the idea to go SUPping in Delft, the city where I went to university for 1year.
Kor and Shelly, my Dutch family came with us so it was great fun!

The city exists of a lot of channels, like Venice.

Here you see Kor and me going to the side, because there were some boats passing by. It's pretty sketchy to stay on the board with these small waves.
Nobody fell, which is good!

When people saw us, they were so stoked about it.
It's always nice to share joy with everyone!

After almost 8km of Supping we arrived at a place where little kids were playing and they asked if they could try the Sups, so they were Supping while we had a nice time drinking beer and BBQ'ing with their parents.
These people were so hospitable!









For so far the SUP pictures! We did a total of 10.8km..

The day after Frans and me went to Jinne, the Brunotti board shaper, to check out his workplace.
It's nice to see the place as it has a lot of history!

So yeah, that's what's going on. Lot's of fun!
In 2 weeks it's time for more events.

We start with Hooked, a nice event in the north of Holland. Will be sick!!
And then directly after Hooked, the PKRA is going to start in Scheveningen.

The first time that we go to Holland with the PKRA and I'm looking forward to it!
Fingers crossed for wind!

Belgiummmm

Check out some random screenshots from last session on The Pointe, France!

Temperature is rising and it's already possible to ride for more than 1.5hours. Pretty sweet!
Last week we had 3 sessions, 2 in France and 1 in Belgium.
How sick is it when the wind is offshore, you can just take the car and go to another country for a session.

Yesterday I had my first session on my homespot since January.. Wind was pretty shit but I tested the RPM 12m and liked it.

So yeah, life in Belgium is still nice. We only have too much rain!
In 2 days I'm going back to Holland to give a judging course for the Dutch federation for Competition kiteboarding. These guys are doing a great job!

That's what happening here..

Dakhla The End

Dakhla and internet doesn't match.. That's why I didn't keep my blog up to date..
At the moment I'm waiting for my flight to Barcelona to go to the second PKRA tourstop in Leucate, France.

I had two nice days at home between Morocco and France. It's always nice to be in Belgium for a couple of days. (2 days are enough)

The competition in Dakhla was nice. Many riders improved their riding so it was fun to watch.
After this winter the level of riding is really high. A lot of riders are riding really powered and combine a lot of tricks with grabs, which is awesome!

We didn't have the normal Dakhla conditions. Last year we were riding 7m and 9m everyday, but this year we used all the sizes. We also had a couple of days without wind.
Check out what we did when there was no wind:

I did some backflips with Alberto Rondina.

And some running off the dunes..

A lot of fun without technology..

Check out the event pictures made by Toby Bromwich on the PKRA facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/media/albums/?id=127400413970019

Toby made a nice picture of the judging tower in the middle of the water.
We were lucky that the water wasn't that deep, so we could walk back!

The wind during the singles was pretty good, and the finals were amazing!
Alex and Youri were pushing it in the finals. Two different styles but both sick to watch!
Alex took the win with his smooth and powered style. It was very close and I think we will see a lot of close heats this year!

Also the girls were rocking! Looks like they trained on power a lot.. Bruna and Karolina were in the final and Bruna took the win.

In the doubles the windgods didn't like us that much.. We had to postpone sometimes.
But at the end the wind picked up again and the finals could be held.

Youri and Alex were in the finals again and Youri had to win twice to become 1st..
The wind was a little bit on/off so it could go either way, but Youri made it.

In the girls devision Bruna made it after a nice technical heat between her and Karolina!


Next up is PKRA Leucate, and I hope I will be able to update my blog more often.
So stay tuned!
You will be able to follow the event live on live.prokitetour.com
Livestream, live commentating,... everything will be live this event and we will be judging with tablets so our scores go straight to the internet!

Dakhla!

Finally it was time to leave Belgium again! On the 18th of March I left Brussels together with Axel and Christophe. It's always fun if you don't travel alone.

We were afraid that we would have to pay 150 euro's for the kitegear, but it was 40. Great succes!

Always nice to have Doritos and beer during the flight!

We had a small stopover in Casablanca airport, where we met Forest and Gisela. So now it was 5 of us to play card games to kill time.

We finally arrived at Dakhla airport and when the boardbags arrived it was sick to see!

I've never seen so many boardbags at one small place!

Check the picture!

After a busride through the desert we finally arrived at the Dakhla attitude camp.

The morning after it was time for a first session!

After more than 2 months no freestyle it was nice to ride again, and it's even better with my new Brunotti board!

The wind was pretty gusty and it was choppy as hell, but it was only a warming up session.

In the afternoon we went to the speed spot. It's a super flat spot almost 15minutes downwind. 

The speedspot is amazing! The wind is not gusty and the water is super flat.

Everybody was riding his or her 7 and in the beginning it was perfect for freestyle.

After a while the wind picked up and we started to jump over eachother, it was nice to ride with so many friend again in these conditions.

We filmed a little bit so I took a screenshot of me jumping over Forest Bakker his kite.

Check it out!

Here you've got another screenshot from a latemobe that I tried..

At the end of the day we had to do an upwinder back to the camp.. That was hard after a whole day of kiting! But we all made it!

We finished the day with a few cold beers and some music. Enjoying life..

The second day everybody was so tired after the first day, and it was really really windy so we took a day off.

Next to kiting and chilling there is not a lot to do, but it's still nice.

Now it's time to eat!

Cheers!

On Swell.be!

Check it out if you understand dutch!
Swell magazine is a free Belgian magazine, they are also posting the latest news from the Belgian kiters, surfers, snowboarders and windsurfer so have a look on the website!

http://www.swell.be/ian-sleuyter-gaat-voor-brunotti/

Brunotti!

I am proud to announce that I will be working together with Brunotti from now on!
I will be riding their boards and wear their awesome clothes while I continue to travel the world.


Yesterday I met Frans from Brunotti in The Hague and he had really cool stuff for me, Check it out!

Check out the YZ Pro model from Brunotti! I will be riding this freestyle machine next week in Dakhla!

Next to epic boards, Brunotti has got sick boardshorts, T-shirts, jackets, and so much more! 

Go to www.brunotti.com to find out everything about Brunotti!

In 5 days I'm leaving to Dakhla, Morocco. We will have some nice cameragear, so there will be some nice stuff coming!

Follow this blog for a lot of updates soon!

X-Treme People Are Awesome

Awesome!
Some sick action and finally people are starting to know kiteboarding as an extreme sport!

Snowkitemasters January 2012

I decided to stay at home for a couple of months during this winter, but then suddenly I got an email from the race director of the Snowkitemasters. He asked me if I wanted to judge the snowkite competition.
I never judged snowkiting before, but I always wanted to check it out one day.

So in January I took a plane to Geneva together with Thibaut Michiels, a friend of mine from the highschool years. It's always nice to travel with somebody else.

A few days before I bought a GoPro Hero 2. Perfect timing!

During the flight we had an awesome view, check it out:

We arrived at Serre Chevalier at night and we were lucky. The whole day the road was blocked because of the snow, and it just opened 30min before we arrived there.

The first day was windy and it was time for the French nationals. 

Riders were doing some nice tricks similar to the tricks on the water, but they did it on a 2.5m kicker landing on ice.. Insane!

I was really looking forward to snowkite myself, but we didn't have enough time the first day..

But no worries, the second day was the day!

After some more judging it was time! 

IT WAS AMAZING! 

I thought it would be hard, but from the moment my kite was in the air I started cruising to the top of the mountain!! Check out the view:

The third day, there was no wind, but still we managed to keep ourselves busy..

For the rest of the week we saw some nice action.

You can check some pictures on http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151128362080364.785787.294761655363&type=1 

I didn't have time to snowkite until the last day, but then the snow turned into ice. 

It was still fun, but not like the first time when we had fresh powder.

During the week we also had some nice parties, but I think it's best to say that what happens in Serre Chevalier stays in Serre Chevalier..

Enjoy my story and my pictures!

Time To Blog Again

So, here I am with a blog. 2 years ago I also started one, but I stopped doing it. A lot has changed.

Since last year I travel the world almost fulltime. At the moment my life brought me to Holland, France, Switserland, Germany, Argentina, New Caledonia, Australia, Thailand, Morocco, Lanzarote, Spain, Fuerteventura and Brazil. 

This season looks really good. This is the schedule for the moment:

For the moment I'm still in Belgium, but my first ticket is booked already!

On the 18th of March the season starts for me. 10 days of kiting before the competition.

After a long winter it will be nice to have sessions with friends everyday again.

I will keep everybody posted with this blog. The most posts will be travelstories with pictures, but sometimes I will post videos that inspire me.

So follow me!

Here you've got some pictures from last 2 year.

picture YZ Pictures

picture YZ Pictures

picture Toby Bromwich

picture Batist Bulcke

picture Toby Bromwich

Since Brazil I've got a new sponsor, which is Waxx Underwear, that's why I was kiting without shorts ;)

picture Toby Bromwich

picture Toby Bromwich

Tikibad The Movie!

Last weekend we went to The Hague for a housewarming party and we took the time to go to Tikibad.
A swimming pool with lots of waterslides!
Check out the movie:

Damien Walters 2011 Official Showreel

A video like this has to be shared!