Pyranha Van Tour 2014 – Augsburg

by: Matt Cook

Our next stop on the tour took us to the famous Eiskanal Slalom course in Augsburg, which was host to the Olympic slalom event at the Munich Games.

We were kindly put up in our friend Thomas Funke’s house that belongs to his wife’s Sylvia’s family where they operate enormous water turbines with a river running under the house. What a place to live. This was to be our base of operations for the next week whilst we caught up on work and did some Rockie–based training around the grounds of the house and at the slalom course.

The WW course itself was built of an innovative design with far more gradient than seen in other artificial courses. Built around the cities park system it is surrounded by forest and locals walking dogs and exercising As well as being host to major slalom events since its construction, it is also extremely popular for white water and freestyle boaters alike with the legendary Augsburg rodeos held there in the past. It has many different features to practice your skills. If you are from the UK and planning a trip to Austria, it is a superb warm up for the bigger water and is directly on your way.

Our event, that was held on Wednesday evening kicked off with demos, coaching and some music. We had a great afternoon with many local club paddlers coming along to enjoy the water. We hosted a BBQ after the show with Wolfgang Bolg from Kanu Treff and Thomas Funke from Kober paddles who are the go-to guys in the area if you require any white water kayaking gear.

It was great to see such a thriving kayaking community having fun on a course that runs 24 hours a day for the majority of the year. There were a plethora of new and old school kayaks along with new and old school paddlers. When the sun comes out (luckily it did for us) it is an extremely pleasant place to be. We hope to improve the event for next year so if you’re in the area please stop by.

watch the video >