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oxbow 25th hq from lex dekker on Vimeo.

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Celebration of freedom

This year oxbow celebrates 25 years of freedom, waves, and surfboards.
But its not only waves and water, also wind and snow are some of their priorities.
Oxbow has a great team of riders, legends like Laird Hamilton and Kai Lenny.
For their 25th anniversery, Oxbow has visited some of the world best surfing spots, and as final stop : Scheveningen!
For this weekend I was asked to join the team, I felt proud to be one of them, but on the flip-side I was kind of excited to meet those riders and people within Oxbow. Its not unusual to only speak those interesting people trough email and skype, so its good to meet them for real.
Besides the strong wind we’ve got for this weekend, the weather was “ dutch”. Clouded, chilling and grey. Also we had huge waves, but such a mess. No problem for us though, I could kite just trough it and Kay Lenny was cruizing on a SUP in this mess. It was a spectacle to watch them surf it and I enjoyed my sessions. After our demo sessions we went back to the Oxbow surf village, to have a great bbq followed by a mini concert, by the french, rising band “ The Dukes” , followed by the dutch band Splendid.

Check out the folder “Oxbow 25th” for pictures made by Niels Muller.
The video is filmed by Talitha Huis.

Further on, i went wakeboarding today. I had a blast of a session, with kickers and sliders. I love kickers, today i trained on my 360’s, tantrum and raileys from the kickers.
Check it out in the folder “ wakeboarding 02-juli-010”

This weekend i’m gonna go back to Sardinia, for 3 weeks!
News will follow later..

Sticked 2010 Lexduzit.com from Lex Duzit on Vimeo.

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When temperature goes below 10 degrees I need to get out of Holland to find a warmer place to ride, Tarifa looked kind of warm, at least way better, so off we went.

Together with my girlfriend, two cousins Jut&Juul and my dad  we went down to Spain for 2 weeks, during Christmas and New-year. We have been fortunate with the conditions, except for the rain, which kept going on for days and days, as long as the Poniente wind blowed we had rain, sometimes so much that the streets ran under and the lowest streets of town were having water-damage. The normal lagoon growed huge and some days we could ride literally everywhere.

We booked a morning ticket, hoping for wind during that day, so we could ride after arrival, and we could! A easy going 5bft made my day together with a huge lagoon, perfect to test my new Ozone C4 13m2 and Underground Styx.

The C4 is just perfect, with the new C/hybrid shape the kite is wide open but explosive as  can be, and the re-designed details are awesome. With the longer one-pump hoses you are able to get it pumped up much quicker and also to pack it its way faster. The graphics/color scheme is wicked and there are 3 bar-pressure set ups. The new bar is nice, feels good in the hands joined by more grip by the redesigned stick, the rest is like before, easy, simple, perfect. The re-launch is still quick by pulling your steering line, no worries when waves come over it. The kite gives a lot of pop and keeps dragging when unhooked, real man can handle this. With this little drag you keep feeling the kite, which is lovely to me.

The Styx fits perfect to this. I rode a 133 while I’m used to 128 with straps, but I didn’t feel any difference. The boards gives so much of control and feedback when you hop on to it, and hell yeah its power full. With the channel concave it drives you upwind even with too much or no wind. I love the clean colors, not too busy but definitely a Underground. I went even more extreme when I switched to the booties, of course on a STEEZE. You cant go any harder then this, I haven’t felt any board which goes deeper into wakeboarding. It’s a bit heavier so your run to take off should be a bit longer I noticed. Once you are in the air tricks will go way more power full, just put your C4 in a good position for the perfect flight. The board has a lot of options for your favorite stance, this will make you willing to keep it under you forever.. Underground delivers you small fins as well in case there is any currency on the sea, in lagoons for example you can easily ride it without any, this machine also carries the 4channel concave which should be perfect for kickers & sliders as well.. lets hit those soon and see what happens!

I cant forget my fellow friends from Prolimit, I told em I was cold so they give me their new C2 Steamer, too bad we had around 18 degrees so I sweat every day on the water… its just a 5/3 but with their new productions its super warm, I cant wait to put it on in the Netherlands, which is now below 0 degrees. I also got the new special edition harness, this feels like a Hadlow, and has a great design, bad fish with big teeth, check it out on the new picture map “Tarifa 09”, be quick to buy it!

Its nice and flexible, strong with a lot of protection!

Cabarete life&crash vid from Lex Duzit on Vimeo.

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HI Folks!

still waiting on Vimeo for publishing my dominican republic holiday video, meanwhile im editing the china stuff.. Read on for our China Adventure! \\\\\\\\\\\\

Weifangs Binhai 1th international invitational kiteboarding competition tournament.

Live from Hongkong airport, where im sharing the free internet with Jalou Langeree!

We were invited to come all the way up to china for his first international kitesurfcompetition, has been so different to everywhere I’ve been so far!

After a long flight we got introduced to our personal assistants, got our stuff moved by them we were not allowed to do it by ourself as we had to be fit for the competition haha! We had another 3hours by bus left, here I met Hugh Pinfold, the Ozone Sales Manager, and head judge of the event.

When we finally arrived at the 5star seaside hotel without any sea around there were 100more assistents ready to get us confused and to the room, there were just so many.. we got our strict schedules and had to go to dinner fast, were we met the real Chinese food.. not to say that it is bad food, but I prefer chinees in the chinees restaurant in Holland then the food here.. in the restaurant you know what you order, here we had a walking-buffet with mostly seafood and strange Chinese things, we just went for it and survived these for days. Breakfast wasn’t any better though..

Here we had some time with our assistants, it was so good to have them around all day, they supply everything you need and help you as a translator, they all speak decent English!

Time for a nap-grande, next morning 8 o on the bus to the beach! When we got down there another big surprise, big tour busses and police escort! How well organized! Sharing the busses with riders from all over the globe and our assistants was good fun and the Chinese rock-n-roll is awesome!  Its has been such an experience just driving trough the towns, everything is build out enormous and 5lane roads everywhere. You expect it to be busy but no, empty! 20minutes later we drove to this industrial area as far as you can see just industrial nothingness.. do we need to kite here?? All of a sudden 2 red dragon kites welcome us to the beach, actually  a harbor  which is build into a beach. They dried 1km2 for our kites, got boats in the harbor and market areas. Also space for 3000 people including the Chinese government who were about to watch us on the second event day.

As we had no wind in the morning we could get used to the spot and just chill out, got our kites on the beach and we had to practice for the Opening Ceremony. All riders including judges were brought to a huge boat with red carpet and to many models with big signs with our country on it. Through the eyes of the Chinese government you see us coming out of a building on the boat lead by our model, national flag, one by one. We make a round, smile a bit and then the Chinese government will have some speeches. When we were practicing this the wind picked up a bit, and when we had lunch (chicken and rice everyday) the wind picked up enough for the race competition. This was just one big mess. I laughed my ass of although I ended up somewhere on the bottom of result list. Besides, who expects me to be a fast one

When the red flag was down we started and immediately 3 riders hit my kite and I got tangled up with on of them as he start to panic. Got it fixed, time to take over some the rest. I had 5 already though I was underpowered with 11, and then the firework started. No Chinese firework, just 2 kites in the powerlines far out on the shore! Big blue fireball and some nice sounds way to go dudes! I was just passing by when it happened my laugh kick just continued..  what actually happened was 2 kites got tangled up and one of them was a PeterLynn. Peter Lynn is proud to have their kites so stabile and always going back up to 12. When this guy pulled his safety the kite remained stabile, got back to 12 and flew straight into the poweline, this is where you buy the kite for don’t you? Meanwhile I round the flag and speed up back to the finish where I was pretty done with racing for this year already.

Finally the wind really got better and I stole murphies (ozone) 13 to have a nice sessions on the unbelievable flat water! These were 20 good minutes! Ready for the freestyle for the next day!

Unfortunately we didn’t get any wind for the rest of the days, some rain and some hot temperatures and a amazing ceremony with real Chinese fireworks.

On the beach just everyone wants to take picture as we were not Chinese. And there were a lot, I mean really a lot pictures taken.. I had to hide Jalou sometimes she was most photographed with the blond curls.   One night we had a Opera night, we went downtown to this theatre falling a sleep after some drinking competitions with the government at dinner. Me and Hugh raising the fists and banging the head on some piano loops, Jalou and Jo Wilson far out in bore-land.

At the end I am so glad I’ve been there meeting a lot of nice people, see china and life their culture.

Big up for the organization, this is the best organized event ever! Hopefully next year next trip!

We’re gonna hit the burgerking again, im out! 15more hours of traveling to go..

After a broken thumb and a surfers-ear infection my girlfriend and I decided to go to Cabarete.

I’ve been here twice before, once for a PKRA in 2006, this time I stayed at Hooked Cabarete, which was so good I definitely preferred this to come back to instead of for example a all-in down at the beach in Cabarete. Here in Hooked Cabarete its so quit and relaxed with a lot of space for kites to dry ready and  pack, excellent services and fun scooters which will drive you downtown in 10 minutes, where its busy, loud and even warmer at day. That was perfect for us, we were on holiday so no rush to be somewhere at some time to do something. Florian (from hooked) made sure everything was around what we needed it was just the wind we were missing when we arrived. 3days of bad weather and some rain showed us the wet Cabarete from above the water, and finally when the sky got cleared up we were able to check out Cabarete from within the water! From here we could every single day in the Dominicans great conditions, nice and warm water, friendly people and stable wind as soon as more people got off the water at the end of the day. Not us, we continued tricking and cruising around in the beautiful sundown just in front of us, which made our one of those kitesurfingdays complete! Quickly pack, hit the Jacuzzi in another hotel and speed back to Hooked to see what’s for dinner, either we cook some of just go out for dinners, it was all the same price, difficult decisions..

I noticed everyday on the water that I haven’t lost the skills yet with those highly irritating injuries I kept on going trough but I just needed something like this 2 weeks to get full sure of every trick. Switch tricks are going better and singles are back to 100procent guarantee of a landing. Cabarete made it so easy with the waves and easy winds, good vibes and the perfect gear to rely on. If the board gives such a boost when you take off you are half way there. The harnass will give you all movement you need to bust a trick and the kite smoothly pulls you all the way up there, give you the time you want for the trick and just waits for you to be landed and ready to go for the next one. Just us doing it!

Check out some pictures  in the folder “Cabarete “ and keep watching the ozone and lexduzit site for the new video which will come up soon!

Next on the schedule, CHINA!

These months have been quite relaxed and been busy on small things. According to the last Sardinia Kitexperience I was able to get some pages and pictures in the next Kitesurfmagazine Holland, and also i have been working with a dutch filming school, which was fun and also good promotion for me and my sponsors! Soon i will recieve the dvd. Also i was on a poster format with a picture shooted by my friend and photographer Pascal Boulgakow, this picture was from last year Sardinia Kitexperience, it was also on the cover last year. Wednesday i will fly to France for the OXBOW Massilia Freestyle Cup, i have been training for this kiteloop contest, lets see what i can get out there! The event sounds awesome anyway, a huge 4days event with different sports like windsurfing, kitesurfing skateboarding etc!

Will update later from there!

be mellow

The Sardinia Kitexperience has increased a lot since last years succes.

This time also Kari joined the gang and the Italian love her.

These months Kari was making a program for the Norwegian television, and she also introduced me to the cameraman, so from the first day we’ve been doing a lot for this show, which was good fun and difficult sometimes.

Seeing the old friends again is great fun and when we are on the road we have 12 cars following the big boss Stefano Gigli (and me), beware, the ozone bangers are coming!

So far we’ve been not too lucky with the wind and temperature, its a bit colder compared to last year and the wind has been 30 knots or nothing. Though we had big waves and some nice freestyle and kitelooping sessions. One day Kari complained about the spots we went 3hours west for her, but no wind.. wasting the whole day made Pascal, Alex and me decide that is was time to get our cover shots somewhere else, so we drove back up towards Porto Pollo, where it was still 35 knots. On the way we found this amazing spot with huge waves, the perfect vieuw and no other kites, which was perfect for our pictures. Here we stopped, quickly pomped my gear and ran down to the beach and waves, where i noticed that this bay was covered in jellyfish, but I had to go in, this was the shot we needed. So I launched the 7 Sport and tried to have less contact with the water as possible, but I already felt this creatures banging on my feet and when i jumped on the board they were already on my board and pads, grose, horrible! Even worse was the wind who dropped down to 20 knots so it has been all for nothing. This was pissing me and the photographers off so we continued the road to Porto Pollo, for a kiteloop session to make us feel satisfied for this wasted day. Out there we got our pictures, and at the end Big Boss Stefano was happy that we took these decisions that day. Besides this adventure all other days were more succesfull and fun while im writing this the sun is shining, the pictures are coming trough and i have only one day left here in Sardinia.. Loads of fun we’ve had, and some nice parties as well. One Redbull party which was crazy and too short, and I dropped 2 parties by myself on the decks till 5′0 in the morning.

Once again Stefano has done a amazing job organizing this 10days event, it has been 2 great weeks down here!

check out some pictures on the map “Sardinia kitexperience 09″

just some lifestyle and random pictures, the better quality and better pictures we have are going to be used for other things.

Sardinia Rocks!!!