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	Insul 2010 - IGSA Euro Champs It's always nice to go back to a good racetrack! The track in Insul located in the Eifel in Germany was the European Championship in 2006. I won the timetrials and placed third behind Aki von Glassow (SUI) and Adrien Barat (FRA) after crashing out in the last corner. Now, 4 years later, I started the practise session the way the race ended in 2006, with a fall on my butt. Well, after a few runs I found inner peace and I started feeling better... I was getting excited for qualifying. But then the race organizers moved the whole race to Saturday and they even cancelled the second timetrial. With only one go you kind of have to play it safe and timetrials aren't as interesting as they would be with two runs. Ramón placed first followed by Patrick Switzer (CAN) and myself on third spot. The race started after a short lunch break. Racing went really well and I was stoked to make my way through all heats right into the final!
	The semifinal: With Mischo Erban in the lead, I had a tight battle with Andrew Chapman right from the start. Andrew lost too much speed in the 4th corner and I could finaly pass him. Mischo's footbraking for the last lefthander, nicely on the right side of the road, opened the door for me and I took the inside to win the semifinal. Mischo Erban quailified for the final along with Ramón Königshausen and Christoph Batt on the other side of the bracket.
	The final: Long story short, I had to stay back until the 4th corner. Ramón tried to make up some speed wiggling while I passed him tucking. I was lucky to get the inside for the last lefthander pretty much just like in the semifinal. A big predrift was the key to success. Stoked! By the way, the last corner was the only thing I didn't like about the racecourse in Insul. And it seems as if someone heard my complaining: the corner now has a nice radius, it got quite a bit wider and doesn't require anymore braking. Thank you so much Insul!
	Reaching out for the finish line... It looks stupid but everybody does it so I have to do it too... Green wheels for the win!
	The final in Insul... Thanks to Ross Baradoy, Patrick Switzer and Ramón Königshausen for this short clip.
	2010 European Championships - a triple podium for Switzerland!!! 1. Martin Siegrist - Switzerland 2. Christoph Batt - Switzerland 3. Ramón Königshausen - Switzerland 4. Mischo Erban - Canada This is my fifth European Champion title after Antibes (2003), Altbüron (2005), Col d'Izoard (2007) and Kozakov (2009). Christoph Batt is vice-champion for the third time in a row. And for the second time Switzerland took all three spots on the podium (Col d'Izoard 2007)! Ramón Königshausen showed a strong performance and placed third closely behind Christoph Batt. Abec11 wheels definitely dominated racing on the 2.5km racecourse in Insul! IGSA report
After Insul we drove to Cologne and visited Donald Campbell at the Pavel workshop. We spent two nights there, Pat and John rode the factory bowl and we found time to visit Concrete Wave Skateshop.
	Kozakov World Cup, 11.08 - 14.08.2010 The European Championship in 2009 was the first race on this really technical racetrack. All riders really liked the course with its steep start, hairpin corners and the fast sweeper towards the end. So for this year, it got upgraded to a IGSA World Cup race. With my victory in 2009, I knew that I have a realistic chance of winning this years edition again. Two practise days were scheduled, rain however made the organizers move all qualification runs to the second day already. I placed third in the first run behind Kevin Reimer and Christoph Batt. In contrast to others, I couldn't improve my time much in my second run and fell back to 6th place. Christoph Batt put in a very fast run which made him top qualifier just like last year. Unfortunately it rained on both Friday and Saturday which made a safe race impossible. We spent a lot of time in the restaurant and enjoyed local applestrudel, blueberry pancakes, cappucino and schnitzel. Qualifying times determined the winner and Christoph Batt (SUI) won his first World Cup, followed by Kevin Reimer (CAN) and Jackson Shapiera from Australia. For full results go to igsaworldcup.com.
Our vehicle left Kozakov shortly after 22:00 and we drove straight to Kaunertal for some freeriding on the world famous Hotheels racetrack! We arrived at 04:00 and slept late the nex morning. Luckily the road was dry and we got some good runs in. During our coffee break in the afternoon it started raining heavily so we extended our short break to a late lunch with delicious omlettes and bacon! Since rain didn't really stop, we decided to drive to Italy. We had dinner at a nice pizzeria, my first real pizza in months... We spent the night in the dry, under a big roof at a trainstation somewhere in between Reschenpass and Bolzano. It was nice weather the next day so we drove up to Passo di Stelvio. The campground in Trafoi was our basecamp for the next two days of big mountain freeriding. Big mountain wouldn't be big mountain without .... snow! Yes it was snowing on the pass! A coffee break was long due. «Tibet» is a authentic 70ies restaurant on top of the pass and overlooks the first few hairpins of the east side - and they make good coffee up there. Oh I nearly forgot about the applestrudel. It's delicious too! After a good beef and pasta dinner we woke up super early the next day and found a completely dry Passo di Stelvio! I got three runs in and started feeling more and more comfortable on the sometimes really crappy pavement. Time for some coffee. We tried our luck at a nice hotel and I must say that was a lot of foam for a cappucino... John brought up the idea to drive to the Dolomites for some late afternoon rides. Everybody agreed and we took off after lunch. We all had some rad runs down Passo di -censored- and definitely lost quite some urethane. The pizza on the way back to Stelvio was delicious. After a short night we woke up before 06:00 the next day again and spent some more time on Passo di Stelvio. Later that day we drove back to Switzerland. I decided to take a train back to Liestal and relax for a bit. In Italy I lost track of what day it was and so I thought it was Friday yest it was Thursday, and you know what happens on Thursdays? Right! Boulders and Barbeque at B2, my local boulder gym in Pratteln Switzerland. It was cool coming back to B2 after being away for nearly 4 months. My arms were pumped quickly and I enjoyed some bratwurst and salad. It was a funny evening. On Friday evening I did some runs on my homespots which are actually really nice runs. It felt slow and boring compared to the last two days in Italy...
	Here's a video from Passo di Stelvio. Thanks to John Barnet, Ramon Königshausen and Patrick Switzer. I think we had some really good action going on in Italy.
	On top of the pass, and it's freazing cold. © P. Switzer
	One of many tight hairpins on Passo di Stelvio. © P. Switzer
	Thanks to Abec11 for sending me to Europe! © P. Switzer
	Beton on Fire - 25. - 29.08.2010 We're at the luge track in Altenberg. The first practise day started with a course walk and I guess everybody was scared after that. Danny Strasser, the luge track downhil skateboard pioneer, decided to show us how it's done. It was really impressive to see him shoot out of corner 9, way up the wall! Danny caught one big wobble at the end of the straight and while he was diving into the 360 corner, all of a sudden he crashed. Long story short, an axle snapped and he lost a wheel. Danny hit his head and had to go to the hospital. In contrast to what the organizers told he media, our crash pilot suffered a heavy concussion loosing e few minutes of his memory and he broke his jaw plus he ripped off some tendons on his shoulder. So does that sound like small injuries? Nevertheless, the track was ours for the day and I was still excited to try it! On my first run I had the trucks way to lose. We realized quickly that in contrast to skateboarding on a road, the lugetrack doesn't require much stearing. Basically the track is guiding you. I'm getting more confident with each run and I start to actually enjoy the ride. Our practise session ends at around 15:00. After a nice meal at the Erzgebirge restaurant we drove to Dresden to visit Danny at the hospital. We made use of the trip and also did some sightseeing. Altenberg was a good experience and for many reasons I won't go there anymore.
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