UNREAL!!! Is the best way to describe the time that was had at the RIP Cup, a Red Bull sponsored Extreme Race held near Quebec City, Canada. I was fortunate enough to be one of the competitors invited to stay at the Red Bull accommodations just outside of Quebec City near the Basse Cashe river where the race was to be held. What they didn't tell us was how much they were going to hook us up! We drive the 7 hrs to Quebec, rock up to this place to find its a chalet mansion, it has a mass amount of rooms, a 12 seater hot tub, they stock the fridge with food, beer and of course another Fridge of Red Bull every day, they have a girl there to cook & clean for us and they have two massive trucks for us to drive round in. Best part is that the seven of us staying here are already good mates....Party time!!! We arrived (on my birthday) and so began the first house bender, Red Bull had given us vodka and of course we knew what to do with it. The next day, one of the organisers took us to the Basse Cache river where the race was to be held. It was quite a lot lower than last year so we set out for a scrape down. It was a nice fun creek, only about 2km long, some sweet drops but super shallow. The first run saw quite a few pitons and Pat managed to put his teeth through his face and take a chunk out of his tongue which had to be stitched up...youch! On my second run, I managed to cave in the front of the MAC1 I was paddling so that was my day over and I was bush bashing out of there. So it was back to the house for another night of festivities and some boat surgery. The next morning (the day before the race) the organisers made the call to change the river we would race on because the Basse Cache was still dropping. We were now to race on the Neilson River which is about 1 1/2hrs out of Quebec City. Those that weren't suffering too hard the next day headed to the Neilson to check it out. I went along but didn't paddle cause I had pretty wicked whiplash from the day before and no amount of boiling water would restore my boat to its original condition so I didn't want to risk banging it up again before the race. Fortunately my partner paddled down so I could get the low down. Race Day!!! So the event was a teams race. Two people per team and you race down together at three minute intervals, its a time trial that ends when you both cross the finish line. You get to race twice and each run takes about 8 minutes. The highlight, for the spectators especially is the finish line. The final rapid is a double drop with a real sticky hole at the bottom of the second drop with the finish line about 20 feet down from there in flat water. The rules were that you just had to cross the line, boat or no boat so as soon as you hit the hole you had very little chance of getting out so your best bet was to pull and swim and they did, there were 24 competitors and about 12 swims...wow! very entertaining. My runs were pretty fun especially since I was running the first one blind. The river is about grade 4+, there are 5 major rapids with some sweet drops. It was awesome racing without knowing what was coming up, you often couldn't see a drop until you were almost at the lip and horizon lines where I just boofed and hoped for the best. All good though, styled the last rapid both times which was sweet cause the water was too freakin cold to be swimming! The best thing about the event was first prize! The winners got to choose an airfare each to either Africa, Norway or New Zealand! and Dave Nieuwenhuis and Ben Marr took it out. Me and my partner Tyler Fox ended up 8th which was pretty good considering I was the only girl in the competition. It was an awesome event that attracted a lot of spectators and had a real fun atmosphere. The after party was of course a great night as well, they hired out a bar with a band, dinner and the Red Bull rep. JP was handing us out a heap of beers. The whole thing was a fantastic experience, Quebec is a beautiful city and its wicked being emersed in the french-canadian culture, I even picked up a few new french sayings. I would reccommend this event to anyone, it surpasses anything I've competed in before and they're planning something even bigger for next year!! So now I'm back at the Ottawa, the temperature has risen to the thirties and the river level is pretty nice right now. It won't be long before Garberator wave will be in hopefully, the river just has to drop another couple of feet. We're also watching the water levels around the area waiting for a few creeks to come in which should be real soon so its all go :) For more RIP Cup info & pics check out: RIP CUP 2007Rip%20Cup.htmlshapeimage_2_link_0
Red Bull RIP CUP
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