benjamin wiedenhofer blog

Fav5es: Shred Champs Montafon 2012

Ben — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 15:45:50 +0000

Uppps…nearly forgot to post those favs from my last trip to the alps for this winter season. But here it is:

End of march I went to Montafon where the last qualification of this years ChillAndDestroy Tour took place: the Shred Champs! Our crew had to manage some troubles throughout the weekend, due to our crazy host at the accommodation and some after-party-stress. Maybe not the perfect ingredients for the weekend but okay…

Here is the crew-shot:

The crew!

Lets talk about the event. The park was shaped perfectly and with some cool features. I decided to begin with some kickershots. In the beginning we had nearly perfect conditions but as the time went on it went more and more windy, as well as slushy and in the end the final hat to be canceled. So no park-jibb-shots for me. Anyway…nice day at the NovaPark! Thanks to the shaping crew for giving their best!

Here are some of my favs:

Fav5es: Shred Alert Heubach 2012

Ben — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 16:28:25 +0000

Last weekend I went to the wild wild east again. This time to Heubach for joining the ChillAndDestroy tour over there for the 4th time in a row. The “Thueringer Wald” is always worth a visit…not because of the biggest kickers, or sickest rails, but just because of the crew over there doing a good job and having the most important thing: FUN!

The CAD Crew going crazy...as usually!

We had a sweet comp with perfect weather conditions, but I lost again some flashes! R.I.P. Anyway…thanks to our crew for a good times at the Shred Alert. Here are my Fav5es from Heubach. Allthough it was a freeski comp as well, the only freeskier shown is Lutzs’ portrait! Haha…

Fav5es: Wake the Pool 2012

Ben — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 11:00:57 +0000

Fives seem to be the real deal at the moment. So I have to stick to this as well. Okay, that’s not the reason…I wanted a new recap category which sets a focus on my favorites from certain events. I gonna start the series with this years Wake The Pool event at the Beach & Boat tradeshow Leipzig. It was the first time for me there and what should I say: small pool but very well organized event! Keep it up.

Patrick "Pancho" Schmidt

And here are my favorite fives from Leipzig:

Edelweiss Shred 2012 – Arosa

Ben — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 19:20:20 +0000

Last weekend the Edelweiss Shred at Arosa took place, which was the first showdown of this years Chill And Destroy Snowboard and Freeski Tour. It was my second time at Arosa and this time we made it up the hill without any problems on the road or at the customs. More than 1.5 m snow where waiting for us at downtown Arosa and maybe something like 3 to 4 meters up in the park! The setup was shaped completely out of “real snow” and it was again perfect. The only thing mission was a big kicker, but in the end all riders where shredding the park to the max.

Unknown

Freeskiers as well as snowboarders where giving their best. In the end the snowboarders-winner of 2011, Roman Hausamann, took the lead again and Fabrizio Guntli ended up winning the mens freeski-division. Big up to him! But some others showed massive style as well. The after contest party in the evening was of course another highlight. I selected some of my favorite shot for a small gallery here. If you want to see more, check: www.chillanddestroy.com!

Season recaps #10: Cash For Tricks 2011

Ben — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 18:29:33 +0000

Uppps…it’s 2012 and I haven’t finished last years recaps yet. My bad! Anyway: all the best for 2012 to all you guys out there!

But let’s get back to the recap thing. Last september Nico von Lerchenfeld was host for the 2nd edition of his Cash For Tricks Jam at the INTERBOOT tradeshow at Friedrichshafen in the very south of Germany. Nico is a hell of a guy and I was stoked to be invited for shooting the jam and of course do some media stuff. If you remember we weren’t lucky the year before because of worst weather ever…this year of course, it was all good. Well, let’s say: PERFECT!

Everyone went home winning some cash!

Nico welcomed once again some of germanys (next) top obstacle riders, but with canadian Kevin Henshaw, Matthias Hoppe from Sweden and our german-belgian friend David Vervenne, there where also some world class international riders attending. What should I say more then: STOKED! All went out perfect.

The CFT-Riderscrew

The boys where throwing out one after another hammer on the water. The setup by UNIT Parktech with a spine kicker, a straight rail and Nicos Signature Obstacle – which is normally waiting for all shredders out there at TURNCABLE – where perfect, as well as the Sesitec System 2.0 which pulled all riders through the lake in front of the “Messe Friedrichshafen”. Thousands of spectators where watching, cheering and in the end celebrating David Vervenne who went home winning the most of the price money which was once again given away by the wake-voice himself, Clint Liddy! The evening ended at the riders party which rounded up a perfect day.

Tim going big in front of the crowd!

Thanks to all the riders, supporters and staff, but especially to Nico von Lerchenfeld for making this happen! Here are some of my favorite shots of the day…

Season recaps #9: Fred & Nikki mission III

Ben — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 18:00:42 +0000

Lets post some more of the last season. In mid September we headed north for the last part of the Red Bull “Fred & Nikki” missions. Finally we filmed at the sweet KÖRKs Strandarena close to Rostock. Fred and Nikki where threatened to ride all day. Ok, of course they wanted to ride nearly whole day long.

Fred & Nikki - High5

It was a day of fun and Fred & Nikki even “learned” a new trick. They called it “Kampfrolle” but let’s say “Loveroll” cause it fits just better. After some serious action and double-rope sessions the video-boys edited a sweet clip. Check it:

As I had my camera with me, I took some photos, too. All together it was a cool project, which brought us to some nice spots and hopefully will be continued in 2012. Here is a tiny selection of our day at KÖRKs. Thanks to the whole crew…

Season recaps #8: ION – resolve obstacles

Ben — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 17:00:56 +0000

Only few more days this year, so I have to hurry up to get those recaps done. Next was the ION “resolve obstacles” videoshooting which I joined for taking some photos, too. It took place at TURNCABLE, which is known to be always worth a visit. We had a small but nice team: Sebi Thums, Benny Sae-Chong, Sandro Reinhardt and of course a groom I didn’t know before, Max “STYYYLE” Reigbert!

Max - going biiiiig!

We started at the cable and ended up winching, at least one spot. Unfortunately we had some technical trouble and only got very few tries. It was enough for a nice short clip, though. Here it is:

ION – resolve obstacles on vimeo.com

Watch out for the new ION collection! Thanks to the team. Hopefully we will continue the “resolve obstacles” project in 2012. Here are some impressions from this year.

Season recaps #7: Telekom Playgrounds

Ben — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 09:08:13 +0000

As the 2011 is nearly over, it’s time to get the last view recaps online. First one is from the Telekom Playgrounds, which I attended once again. Weather was as usually, i’d say “hamburgish”! But this couldn’t stop the riders to throw down a sick contest at Pinneberg and of course the organization was again perfect (as expected)! The bad thing about the comp was Fredys defeat, which nobody expected. But hey boy: that’s what always can happen. Send it next time…

Fred after his unfortunate run...

Anyway…Pinneberg was again insane and if there is one day where the weather is as hot as the action on the water, it’ll be perfect. In the end Nikki Gührs tried to claim the victory, but it was again Tom Fooshee who went away winning, although it was a tough fight. The wakeskate category was won by the maybe most complete rider these times: Reed Hansen. Here are some impressions from the competition-weekend…

Season recaps #6: Chill And Ride 2011

Ben — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 19:06:39 +0000

Here is the next part of my recap story 2011. In august I joined the Chill And Ride powered by NISSAN for the 3rd time. And if you remember those posts from last year (if not here is the 2010 link), Chill And Ride ha something like the best weather deal! Same this year. As our summer was again not the best, everything changed for exactly this weekend at Freistett. More than 30°C all day loooong. So it was again quite perfect for the photo-documentation of the event.

Dominik Hernler

After all it was again a perfectly organized weekend - thanks to Daniél, Tanja and all those helpers at this point - and still the biggest european boat gathering. Some top level wake boarders where there as well and the contest track was crowded as always or maybe even more. Here are now some impressions I want to share with you…

Season recaps…#5: Fred & Nikki Mission II

Ben — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 18:00:09 +0000

The next recap story is about the 2nd mission with Fred and Nikki. The spot search brought us one of the sickest winch-spots I have seen so far! The “Zeche Zollverein” at Essen in the so called “Ruhrgebiet”. An area where coal-mining was one of the main industries for quite a long time. The spot is now a protected cultural place and that is another point why it was so special to be able to winch there.

Here are some impressions I took with my pocket-cam during the spotcheck:

The 600 meter basin of the "Zollverein Kokerei"...

...and the question: are 10-15 centimetres enoug to winch? Ask Nikki!

What we did was building up some rails and install a new winch-system. After that it was all about Fred and Nikki winching this bad ass spot, for filming and photographing. Marcel Lämmerhirt was there as the main photographer and did some actionshooting as well as portraits and stuff. He is a really hard working nice guy and it was great to see and chat with him. Hopefully there will be a chance to work together some time in the future. But in the end it was the videopart that counted and here it is. Enjoy some minutes of epic shredness at the “coal mine”!

Video: Red Bull via YouTube