Their “big goal” is to participate at the X-Games in both skateboarding and snowboarding. And with some great results this year it is already looking highly achievable. Just recently, Tobi, aged 12, and Max, aged 10, both achieved first places at the THE ART OF SKATEBOARDING in Kaprun. What is so remarkable is that because they are so young there is often no category for their ages and they are frequently competing against kids many years older than themselves.

At 12 years of age Tobi is the youngest member of the German National Snowboarding Team.

Both Tobi and Max love Icebreaker because, “We can go skateboarding for 6 hours and still won’t have smelly feet in our skateboard shoes!” plus “We are the only young snowboarders who are warm and look cool. The others look cool but they are not so warm!”

And to top it off, Tobi and Max think, “Icebreaker is the only brand which makes great fitting and looking snowboard clothing.” Thanks guys!

We think these kids are absolutely awesome and can’t wait to hear more updates on their progress in the world of snowboarding and skateboarding. Check out some of their great pics…

Unsere neuen Mitglieder im Kids Alpine Team – Tobi & Max

Icebreaker freut sich riesig, Tobi und Max als neue Mitglieder in unserem Kids Alpine Team willkommen zu heißen.  Aus Deutschland kommend sind diese zwei Jungs über-talentierte Snowboarder, Skater und Surfer.

Ihr “großes Ziel” ist es, an den X-Games teilzunehmen – sowohl beim Skateboarden als auch beim Snowboarden. Und mit einigen wirklichen guten Ergebnissen dieses Jahr sieht es schon jetzt sehr realistisch aus. Erst vor kurzem haben die beiden – Tobi, 12 Jahre, und Max, 10 Jahre alt – erste Plätze bei THE ART OF SKATEBOARDING in Kaprun erzielt. Das bemerkenswerte ist, dass beide so jung sind, dass es oftmals keine eigene Kategorie für ihr Alter gibt und sie somit regelmäßig gegen Kids antreten, die viel älter sind als sie selbst.

Mit 12 Jahren ist Tobi das jüngste Mitglied des Nationalen Deutschen Snowboarding Teams und wir sind uns sicher, dass Max schon bald dazukommen wird.

Tobi und Max lieben beide Icebreaker, weil sie “für 6 Stunden skateboarden gehen können und immernoch keine stinkenden Füße in unseren Skateboardschuhen haben!”. Plus: “Wir sind die einzigen jungen Snowboarder, denen warm ist und die cool aussehen. Die anderen sehen zwar cool aus, aber ihnen ist einfach nicht so warm.“

Und, um noch einen draufzusetzen: Tobi und Max denken, dass “Icebreaker die einzige Marke ist, bei denen die Passform und der Look von Snowboardklamotten stimmt.“

Wir denken, dass diese Jungs absolut großartig sind und können es kaum erwarten, neue Updates von ihren Fortschritten in der Welt von Snowboarden und Skateboarden zu hören.

Our sponsored Icebreaker gear was such an awesome treat too. To get logoed running tees (Rush Crewe for women and Ace Crewe for men) and a hoodie (GT260 Quantum Hood) really cemented the Team, we could spot each other in the hotel (even if not on the road with 47,000 other runners!) and they are so warm – essential in a New York winter! We were really proud to be showcasing fantastic NZ merino quality clothing on the international stage.

Of course New Yorkers know all about Icebreaker because of the phenomenal TouchLab store there. As we discovered on our second night in NYC, it’s also a great place for a party! We had a great night meeting other like minded runners and getting excited about the big event. The cute ‘Ram’ mascot was an added bonus to the evening!

Running a marathon for a worthy cause combines a trip to one of the greatest cities in the world with a ‘bucket list’ tick and a high feel good factor for the Team CatWalk members. Knowing a world class company like Icebreaker is also supporting us gives us that bit more energy to keep going when we are wondering what we signed ourselves up for. We will get spinal cord injured people out of wheelchairs and back on their feet, and Icebreaker will have helped. Everyone’s a winner (except possibly the odd toenail!)

www.catwalk.org.nz

Nicola Holmwood, Team Manager for Team CatWalk 2011

We know you care about where the things you buy come from, want to know about the ethical commitment of the companies you buy from, and what impact your purchases will have on the planet. That’s why we’re committed to a sustainable business model that doesn’t put profits ahead of the environment.

Each year, sheep in New Zealand’s Southern Alps grow thick merino wool, and each spring the coat is shorn. From this fibre, Icebreaker creates beautiful merino clothing. Our merino clothing combines the best qualities of traditional wool, synthetics and cotton. It’s soft and non-itch, it’s warm in the cold and cool in the heat, it breathes to prevent clamminess, and it has a miraculous ability to warn off stinkiness – you can run a marathon and still smell as sweet as if you’ve spent the day on the sofa.

And because it was made in the mountains, rather than a lab, merino wool is renewable, recyclable and biodegradable. Plus, your unique Baacode will let you trace the merino fibre from your Icebreaker garment back to its source. You can see the living conditions of the high country sheep that produced the wool, meet the farmers who are custodians of this astonishing landscape, and follow every step of the supply chain.

So along with The Nature Conservancy we’re celebrating the second year of Green Gift Monday! And encouraging you to give green this holiday season with responsible, meaningful holiday gifts.

Green Gift Monday coincides with Cyber Monday, November 28, the biggest online shopping day of the year.

They are currently “Calling All Poles” – a campaign aimed to collect gently used or surplus tent poles from retailers, manufacturers, and the general public. The campaign seeks to outfit more than 70 of Gear to Grow’s beneficiary groups across the country with full tent sets.

After recently receiving a generous donation of tents that did not include poles, Gear to Grow have reached out to retailers across the US to serve as official collection sites for the “Calling All Poles” tent pole drive. Those interested in donating may drop off poles at participating retail locations, ship poles directly to the Gear to Grow warehouse, or provide a monetary donation of $10 securely through Gear to Grow’s web site that will be used to purchase new pole sets.

“With this generous donation comes a great opportunity for our program and our beneficiary groups,” said JT VonLunen, co-founder of Gear to Grow. “Through this campaign, not only will we be recycling and reusing tent poles, we’ll help give people the resources to get outdoors.”

The “Calling All Poles” campaign will be open for 60 days from 3 October. Gear to Grow requests pole sets that are either 13′ 6’’ long or between 11.5 and 12 feet. For more information on participating retail locations, please visit www.geartogrow.org or find Gear to Grow on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/DonateGear. To ship directly to Gear to Grow, please send shipping inquiries to contact@geartogrow.org.

So anyone in the US, who can help – go, hunt out those poles!

The journey started in 2006; to cycle 12,000km from Japan to England was the plan. Somewhere in the depths of Central Asia, however, I got the idea stuck in my head that travelling by skateboard would be not only more unique, but also potentially more convenient; my daily budget was around $5 a day, and wild camping with a bike was a hassle at times.

I made it to Switzerland on my bike, and there I switched to the longboard and never looked back. The remaining 1,500km from Switzerland to England was awesome; smooth separated cycleways along the scenic Rhine river. Keen for more adventure, I headed to the US (crossing the Atlantic as crew on a sailboat) to skate across that continent.

I broke the Guinness World Record half-way across the US, but still hungered for more. No one had ever skateboarded across China, so that, along with the knowledge that it was home to plenty of fresh new tarmac, made it the obvious choice. China did not disappoint; 5,000km of the most buttery, divine pavement on earth, wild deserts, high passes, and diversity of culture made it the highlight of the trip.

All up, I travelled a shade over 25,000km over 2.5 years before arriving back home in New Zealand. I bought my first set of Icebreaker garments for the original bike trip (GT320 zip top, 280 weight midlayer, and a few sets of 200 and 150 weight base layers), and they managed to last me those 2.5 years of abuse and sweat and heat and frigid cold. 21 days without washing was my record for anti-hygiene, and the Icebreaker merino-wool goodness lived up to the hype. Thanks Icebreaker for your commitment to great design and functionality.

- Rob Thomson (www.14degrees.org), Guinness World Record Holder and Icebreaker fan.

Olympic mountain bike champion Bart Brentjens  stated after this years Leadville 100 mountain bike race, “This is the hardest one-day race that I have ever ridden in my whole career.”

At  6:30 am August  13^th 2011, 1900 people crowded the main street of Leadville, Colorado, which at 3,100 metres is the highest incorporated city in North America, for the infamous Leadville 100 race. This race has pushed Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong to the limit and led ordinary people into realms of physical discovery they had never dreamed of, this is truly one epic bike race.

Two of the biggest factors for finishing this race is 1^st, your fitness level, and 2^nd your equipment and nutrition. I can’t thank Icebreaker enough. With a time of 11 hours and 4 min, I sat in the Icebreaker bib shorts for a very long time! The temperature ranged from 1 degree celsius to 30 degree celsius in that time and without proper shorts it can be a very unpleasent experience and really get in the way of your mental focus.

The Icebreaker bib shorts kept me warm when they needed to, and they breathed for me when I was at the 80 km mark at 3780 metres high with the sun pouring down on me as I climbed a mountain. I won’t ride without them.

- Blake Wood, Icebreaker Ambassador

This year so far I’ve been to three Rock Islands in the world: an ancient rock in the middle of the Wimmera Plains, Victoria, Australia; Kalymnos, Greece in the Agean Sea; and Mt Kilimanjaro, the highest peak in Afrcia and the highest free standing mountain in the world.

Re-training, up-skilling, is the thing these days, and I wanted to re-begin to rock climb (again). So, whilst my partner Deano climbed Everest for the 7th time I slipped away to the ancient of Mt Arapiles. Over decades, this beautiful orange rock has become a world destination for traditional rock climbing, famous for overhanging multi-pitch routes at almost every grade.

The next Rock Island was exotic, and truly an island. Kalymnos is Greek island near the Turkish that has developed into a sport climbing destination non par. All over the island are cliffs ranging from 30m to 250m of climbing, and rock that varies from white quartz seacliffs, to pocketed limestone, hanging tufas (stalagtites), deep orange walls and fearsomely sharp gouttes d’eau (water pockets). The Kalymnians have committed to creating the safest rock climbing destination in the world, and every little studio apartment and every restaurant hang pictures of climbers. It is so incredibly welcoming. The island absolutely hums with climbers, half of them women, many people climbing well into their 60s and even 70s, and lots of couples with children (and they are climbing too). Climbers zip around on scooters to the further crags. In the afternoons when it is too hot to climb, the beaches and little beach cafes around the island sport the greatest number of six-packs ever to be seen on a European coastline – and certainly not all on the men!

One of the best rock climbing holidays ever, bikini tanning, muscle building, wine drinking…slipping into the Icebreaker Zephyr Hood only to protect from the wind on the local ferries island hopping.

I returned from Greece to New Zealand to speak at the Mountain Film Festival in Wanaka, and just five days later flew to Tanzania.

Both Dean and I guided on different expeditions with two families up Mt Kilimanjaro, 5895m, the highest mountain in Africa, and the fourth highest of the Seven Summits. We climbed the peak over 7 days travelling through rocky moonscapes and camping under the Dr Seuss–like Senecia trees. My team, Ashley and his son Findlay Heppenstall, were fully into the local singing passion, and on summit day, starting in the dark, we sang all the way to the summit! The sun rose as we stood there on the summit, taking in the beauty of that ancient mountain.

- Lydia Bradey – Mountaineer, Mountain Guide and Motivational Speaker

The unsupported expedition was pedaled and entirely powered by calf muscles, by the sun and of course Icebreaker bike shorts!

Check out Julie’s website to find out more about her adventures in West Africa.

Icebreaker was very proud to co-sponsor Ö TILL Ö in Sweden a week or so ago, on 5 September 2011. It’s a great fit as this event is really something different…

Teams of two race together from island to island (Ö TILL Ö). The teams swim between the 19 islands and run on them. The total distance is 64 kilometres of which 10 km are swimming and 54 km are running.

The running sections are beautiful. At times they go though the wood without a trail but most of the time the course is on trail or gravelled roads. The swim sections are between 100 and 1600 metres long.

To manage to finish the course from dawn to dusk demands that the competitors are fit and that they have practiced a good technique to be quick in and out of the water as there are as many as 38 in and outs.

59 of the 96 teams that started finished the course within the time limits.

“Huge respect to all racers from near and far to venture into our waters and for the mega effort you all put into the day. It is inspiring to see how much you want to finish. We have three new winners in all categories and we would particularly like to congratulate Björn & Antti – Team Ekonomianalys – for setting a new course record in such tough conditions. I hope somebody bet on them on Betsafe as those bets payed 8 times the money ☺

We are also so pleased that more and more women are entering ÖTILLÖ and finishing ÖTILLÖ, often in better shape than their male partners in the mixed category.

One thing is clear ÖTILLÖ is not multisport and it is not triathlon, it is simply ÖTILLÖ.”

Check out ÖTILLÖ TV for coverage.

As we shear the ewes when it’s still quite cool at night we use a special comb on the shearing machine called a ‘cover comb’ or snow comb’ this lifts the shearing machine off the skin and leaves a thin layer of wool on the sheep for warmth (much like they are still wearing their icebreaker base layer!) so they don’t get too chilly.

Shearing is a great time of year as we get to see the results of all the year’s work in looking after the sheep in the quality of the fleeces that they are producing, I’m pleased to report that the wool’s looking great so we’ll have plenty to send on to Icebreaker! I’ve included some photos of just before the sheep are shorn, during shearing in the shed and after shearing with them just wearing their base layer!

- Kate Cocks, Mt Nicholas Station, New Zealand