Extreme Ironing

This fascinating sport originally comes from Leceister, UK where on the return from work in the summer of 1997 a man known as Steam (aka Phil Shaw) wanted to go rock climbing but also had a lot of ironing to do. Using his wisdom the decision was made to combine both of these tasks and from that point forward EI was born.

The sport did not take off straight away. Steam and his partner Starch found it hard to gain support and eventually the pair split. However all was not lost. In 1999 Steam (armed with his iron, ironing board and clothes) set out on a tour of America, Fiji, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa. Whilst on this tour Steam met a bunch of German thrill seekers and from this Extreme Ironing International. The Germans returned to their mother land and set-up a sister office.

With Starch back at Steams side the pair continued to promote the sport and found a new hardcore, dedicated set of fans.

With the public eye now on EI, the German sister office of EIB organised and held the first World Championship for EI in the village of Valley, near Munich in 2002.

Since this point in time the sport has rapidly spread throughout the World and in 2003 there was an estimated 1000 extreme ironers of all nationalities now involved in the sport.

My story of EI is quite a simple one and has no dark stories about it. One day our rowing training was canceled. Me, Hayden and Duncan did not want to just go straight home and sit around doing nothing so Duncan suggested we went extreme ironing. He had done it before and had his own equipment. It seemed like a good idea so I drove both of them to Duncan's house to collect the equipment and then headed off to Ilkley Moors, Cow and Calf to be exact.

We then proceeded to climb the really big rock or the "Cow" as the locals refer it as. This was a laugh especially when acting as if carrying an ironing board was a normal thing. We did our ironing and from that moment on I have been a follower of the sport.

In time I gathered my own ironing board and iron. From this I was able to go out on my own instead of having to rely on Duncan. I managed to get fellow friends involved (can be seen on the team section of my site) and also get it recognised in the local community.

I have since been ironing around the Leeds area and even venturing into town on several occasions. However this is more known as Urban Ironing but again is rather enjoyable - mainly due to the fact that there is more people around which adds to the fun of it all.

So how do you extreme iron? Well it really is not that hard at all when it comes down to it. You will probably need the following things though.

A friend
An ironing board
An iron
A piece of un-ironed clothing
A camera (or picture taking device)
A car (optional)
Rope (optional)
Sense of direction (optional)

With these items you set off into the big wide World in search of somewhere you can do your ironing. Once you have found your spot you should set up the ironing board, place the clothing on it and proceed to iron whilst your friend gathers photographic evidence.

Once this is done you should now switch roles and allow your friend to do some extreme ironing.

The rope was only on the list in case you need to climb up something and need to hoist the equipment behind yourself - safety first people.

This is my website which is relatd to Extreme Ironing. You will probably find several references to it on this page but I felt I should make a module for it.

This site started off as Wharfedale Extreme Ironing but later diversed to The Hardcorelife due to the amount of material being created by my friends and all the stuff people were getting up to that I felt it should be published on the Internet.

On the Extreme Ironing section you should find quite a few photos of me and my friends ironing in different locations as well as profiles on each of them.

Hopefully you will enjoy the site and will have a look at it.