Northern Hemi Season Trip Report thingy - Sälen, Sweden
wait til you see pics of the superpark when its finished. It actually looked like they were finishing off shaping it tonight so should have some pics in the next few days.
Today was the best and the worst day of the season so far. Bluebird and minus 15….but we had to work!
Weather prediction for tomorrow - bluebird and minus 15 - guess what we’re doing? (Insert many expletives here!)
Looks like it should be good weather all week though, but we need more snow. Its pretty hard and icy at the moment.
Took our new GP3 out for the first time yesterday and as usual captured some of our average riding.
I’ll leave you with two pics of weird things in Sweden.
Random stuffed bear in the local petrol station:
In Aus the traffic authorities don’t release number plates with words like WEE and BUM on them. Luckily Sweden has no such issue with English words:
I don’t think it is any kind of coincidence that the plate is attached to a Kia!
I did my part. Talked to my boss who said the opportunity for a job is there if he wants it (pretty sure season pass is included - it was for us) as well as a place to live in the staff housing (2800kr/mth) & all the skistar staff discounts on stuff.
Also said to dec he could live with us for 1750kr/mth if he didn’t feel keen or ready to live with 7 other swedish strangers & might feel more ready to live with two old farts.Work would be 3 days a week, maybe with some other shifts thrown in every now and then. He could ride every single other day pretty much.
Told all this and more on the phone to dec and then told it to tom later. Dec said he might need to come home to sort stuff out (he mentioned this a few times) and tom said it is something to do with his teeth. he talked about doing it next year instead & I said he’d have to defer uni again…he said he might go home just before uni starts (e.g. just when the good part of the season begins??!?!?)
I tried! I think he’s too dreamy to see how good an opportunity for an amazing experience he has in front of him (but I don’t know the ins and outs of how important or re-arrangeable the teeth thing is)
and yes, those jumps are fun, very, very fun.
I would do it if I was him. How far from the slopes is the staff accom? If he could get to the slopes on his days off Id just take up the offer to live at yours if I was him. Although it would be good to get out and meet babes (I mean swedes).
According to google maps its about 2km walk from the staff accomm to the lifts. Further than I’d want to walk with my gear but he’s used to walking places I think…maybe not in -20 degree weather though.
If he lived with us he’d have a lift to work all the time and to the slopes, but if he had other shifts we didn’t have it would be much harder to get there as we live 14km away, but he could bus it I spose or we’d figure something out.
I have no idea what he’d prefer, I just tried to tell him the pros and cons of each situation so he could hopefully decide for himself. One of the girls who is leaving left today. If he wants to do it he’ll have to apply for his working holiday visa toot-sweet.
Best trying to get an answer out of tom or your parentals, I think!
That bear looks a little thin !!!
Been a few weeks since I posted last. All I can say is - I feel so old!
Compared to when we did our last season 4 years ago, being nearly 31 instead of nearly 27 is a much bigger difference than I thought. Working and riding tires us both out. Freddy is struggling with his body a bit more than me at the moment, particularly from his bad knees. He said today he thinks he might have to have a whole week off from riding to rest up, soon.
The weather the last few days has been perfect - minus and bluebird, and we can already feel the days getting longer, and the sun getting slightly higher in the sky. We’ve made friends with some people from work who snowboard, so its fun to see some other nice faces around the mountain a bit. Most of them aren’t really park rats like we are, but there are one or two who are keen to learn - and I’m always keen to play around on the smaller features.
Here’s a pic of workmate Nils, with a nice, stylish shifty on the red line jumps.
When we ride in Lindvallen, its just awful - we park ages from the chairlift and it is a super long walk:
We go up the chairlift, then 1/3 of the way down the mountain we’re greeted with this sight….hardly any park features!
In all seriousness, the Family Park easy section is the two lines to the left (one of boxes, one of 5 green jumps) and to the right of the fence is the Pink Park, at the moment with 4 different lines of all different varieties of boxes and jumps…
We normally start with a warm up. One run in the easy boxes, then one run of the 5 easy jumps, before heading over to the pink park. After some runs in the pink park today, we went back to the family park.
I’ve been trying nose and tail grabs there (never even tried them before) and back 180s and a few switch front 180s. I could already do back1s a little bit, but am pretty hopeless with the switch front1s, so I’ll be in the family park a lot!
Freddy warming up in the family park box section:
You can go back down to the chairlift, or you can get a t-bar that directly services the park.
They’ve built two black sized jumps. This is the biggest one (pic taken from chairlift) - its 18 metres from the edge of the kick to the knuckle. The jump before it is 16 metres. Its so damn big!
For the last riding pic, here is freddy on the same jump as the pic of Nils. The first in the red line. I’m not ready to try these just yet (if I ever will be!)
In other news, I’ve started at my Swedish For Immigrants classes (2x3hr lessons a week) and I’m really enjoying it - but I tell you, if you wanted to write a comedy sketch, one of those classes would be a great place to collect material. Not everyone speaks or understands english well, so there are some hilarious moments of people trying to communicate in the limited swedish they have. So far I’ve met people from Tunisia, Tanzania, Thailand, Poland, Russia and Lithuania. The teacher is a retiree lady doing it for some extra pocket money.
She speaks in Swedish 98% of the time and we get homework. Of course no one cares if you don’t do it, but I’m pretty keen so I’ve been doing it all the time. The other day I had to write a letter in Swedish to the teacher about what I like to do in my free time.
One of the perks of our cleaning job is that when people leave unopened food and other stuff behind, we get to claim it. We won’t have to buy toilet paper, shower gel, handwash again for the rest of the season in our place. Also have found 1.5kilos of mince (made about 5 meals for me and freddy out of it), spaghetti, pasta sauce, 2 min noodles, heaps of coffee, tea bags, microwave popcorn, goon and some firecrackers.
I had found nothing in the first few hours of working last week and then I opened a fridge to clean it and found this:
was happy with that for sure!
and the other week a mate we work with found some super-long straws and I found a bottle of Dr Pepper. I hate Dr Pepper but Freddy said he’d drink it because it was free.
Enjoying the spoils:
“You call that a straw? THIS is a straw.” - Freddy 2013
Loving the blog, cords. Thanks for all the updates.
I hear you on the 30 doesn’t feel like 26 thing. The body doesn’t recover in the same way. Do you do much stretching? I find it helps a lot. That said, I am a year younger than you hehe. 
Just got up to date with this blog again - great work, cords, keep it up!
The new boards look really sweet. I’ve always liked the look of the Arbor boards. Have you got them yet?
re: body, wait ‘til you hit your 40’s haha!
Just had a full read again as well, some awesome photos, that park is sick! Been watching some bike videos lately as well, and apparently they have some sweet riding there in summer.
That fridge caught my attention, especially on a Friday arvo! 
Can’t go wrong with some free bevs! haha.
The park looks awesome! Maybe i could even learn to snowboard while im there haha
@Dork - I’m pretty sure we’ll be able to arrange that, actually. Now we just have to organise board, boots, bindings and clothes for you. Boots will be the hardest part, I think? I think one of those packages I told you about would be the best, actually!
@Koper - yes can never go wrong with free anything - particularly bevvies! My eyes definitely lit up when I saw the cider!...and yeah, they have a cool bike park in the summer, the some of the features you can see when you’re going up the T-bar at pink park.
@Mud - thanks, mate. Haven’t got the boards yet. We had a hitch with the order for Fred’s board which delayed it, but now he’s getting the 2013 model instead. Should have them next week, hopefully! Totally agree about Arbor - its brand that really appeals to me. Fred loves his Draft and considered getting another one, but thought it was a bit boring to get another, seeing as there are so many different boards out there. I think he’ll enjoy the PLY.
Also, I totally hear you on the body thing, that is one of the reasons I was keen to do another season (before I got too old - turns out I was too late haha!)
@Jez - I see you’ve played knifey-spooney before.
We do stretch a bit, especially Freddy. His knee pain is from instability in the joint caused by tight muscles. When he stretches them a lot, it improves. I have a back condition (spondylolisthesis) which is ok most of the time but when it flares up I stretch my hammies out and it helps a lot. I’m too lazy to stretch every day though. I think something like Pilates that you have been going to or Bikram or whatnot would be really good for me, but its an expense that I can’t imagine myself shelling out for while I’m earning the pittance I currently do! We have a sauna in our place here, so I suppose stretching in the sauna is pretty much the same as bikram, isn’t it?
Yeh even though i am not that old (26) i find that i have to stretch/ go pyhsio once a week other wise my body locks up. I guess its from years of abuse due to Snowboarding/wakeboarding/footy/rep footy/gym etc.
I find even just 10-15 mins of stretching a night or morning will make the world of difference
I dont take it easy on my body haha
That park looks amazing. you will progress so fast dork faced killer. I will get back to you about boots in Uppsala asap. I have a vague feeling I threw them over a power line in Are though. but ill let you know. plus I am stuck in a cyclone so dont have net that often and the phones are working so not sure when ill know exactly.
that park 
@Cords: If by clothes you mean snowboarding gear i have pants, thermals, jacket, gloves. i only need the boots, board, bindings and a helmet if im not feeling lucky
I only stretch when I’m tight, sore, before/after extreme activity and if I want to wake up (or not fall asleep).
But in everyday activities, like drying myself with a towel after a shower, I keep my knees straight to dry my feet - same when doing up my shoe laces.
Just doing the basic check everyday that I have full mobility (ear to each shoulder, both hands can reach over my head etc) is enough.