I was lucky enough to get 5 minuets off yesterday to have a quick play in the new Pyranha Loki, and I’ve got to admit I was a bit skeptical of this boat before I paddled it but now, yeah I got to say I really quite liked it.
The biggest question I have to ask, or I guess try and answer now is where and how dose this boat fit into Pyranha’s range? Well, It’s a bit shorter and not quite voluminous as it bigger brother the Z:One , but like the Z:One it’s easy to paddle, forgiving, easy to learn in and looks pretty cool! I don’t know if it’s an age thing but personally all play moves to me look so much cooler in a longer bigger boat? But then comparing the Loki to the Molan, or more really the Varun yes you can still do most of the same moves, I don’t thing your going to be chucking down any really big flat water loops in the Loki but? Can’t really do them in anything anyway! So how dose this boat line up, If you want a top end play boat your still going to get the Molan, If you want a fast/good all-round, cool play boat, that you can still nip down the upper Dart in, go for the Varun. If you want a fast river runner that you can spin and surf in go for the Z:One, but if you want a real jack of all trades, one boat to bang out the world tour in thing has got it covered, plays really well, in a wave or in a hole, nice and lose and nice and slicey. But for river running it’s got that sorted too, nice and fast keeps it nose up, I’d be happy to paddle some pretty big stuff in it.
Outfitting is the standard Connect 30, I like. Good knee position plenty of foot room, thumbs up from me. Will it steel sales away from the Z:One….???? I don’t think so there quite different boats will it steal sales from the Varun…..???? Probably yes, but the Varun is a better play boat that you can paddle down a river, the Loki a better faster river play boat. Really where do you play? If on a weir or man made course pick the Varun. If you play in the ocean on rivers go Loki. Reckon it’s going to score pretty good retro points down at Hurley tho.
That new Sweet cag is pretty darn cool too. Looks very nice in the sunny weather. Hope you all have a nice weekend and get out for a paddle!
Time to squirt!
With the temperature pushing 20 odd degrees you really cannot question that spring has well and truly sprung. So with the sun shining me and the boy Ashworth set off for Chertsey HOME of squirt boating in the Thames valley, after an 18 month break from the little boats it was a bit of a squeeze but excellent fun, and the sun was Hot! check the short vid below.
Cl icky click here
The weekend concludes…
So waking up after a night rain, that had incidentally washed away the small bridge we had to make to get into the house the night before, it was a nice surprise to find a new batch of scones in the oven! Anyway long story sort, I’ve always wanted to paddle the Mawddach and luckily everyone else wanted to also, so we piled into the van and headed west. The drive over the top of the moor, Is it a moor or just the top of the mountains? Was pretty wet,
On the way Bob pointed out a few interesting lines down a few river in the distance and suggested a few rivers we might like to paddle if we really fancied a mission one day! Errrr maybe, he also made us listen to Radio 2 because Barry white was on! Sunday morning, got a love em…..
But anyway the Mawddach, we got to the car park with the toilet in it and were quite shocked, at a loss, surprised to find the river not that high, it was worth getting on apparently but not mental. So double quick we parked the cars and set off up the road to the put in. As it turns out the put in for the upper is pretty much the bleakest sport on earth! The rain is horizontal and the wind is pushing gale force 10, but what a cracking little river, as soon as you hop on your off and the rapids keep coming at you nothing to full on but just good fun read and run drops and rapids.
After not so long though you come across the first “harder” bit, bit of funky lead into a sweet 10 ish foot drop, really nice soft pool really sweet. After here the river carries on much the same as before, maybe a bit harder but nothing so bad, there are also some cool little play spots few nice waves to surf and a few cracking holes perfect for throwing some creekboat wheels and massive pop outs!
But and this in IMPORTANT! When you get to a bridge with a bit of a horizon line after it get out and have a look, this is the really very impressive Rhaeadr Mawddach waterfall, it’s pretty burley looking. In lower water levels maybe it’s an option but not for us on that day cheers. So after a quick photo session next to the falls get your self back in your boat and you’re off again. The river Gain flow’s in here too, I had a quick peep up and that looks pretty interesting, next time maybe. But we continued down the Mawddach there’s a couple of really nice wave and a really good ender spot before you arrive at the 3 nasty’s, well worth a look first but so long as you stay upright paddle forward and boof they all go fine. There’s one last slot, shoot droop again keep your nose up, it’s fine and then that’s pretty much it the Eden flows in bit further down on the right, then there is the last big hit from public toilet falls and your done. The Gamlan comes in from the right down here too, we didn’t really have enough water or light to give this a pop. But again I’m pretty keen to back up there to do that again.
And then home, not quite a seasy as you might think when the Dee is all over most of the roads we wanted to drive down? There were some cracking waves on that though down by Chain bridge, maybe we need 3 days next time?
If you would like to have a look at the amazing quality shots we took on the water there is a
FB thing here...
The weekend begins.
With a free weekend and MetCheck suggesting that Wales might be in line for a spot of rain it seamed only fair to make the drive north and see what was running.
Not long after crossing the border into Wales it was pretty obvious, pretty quickly that most were running in Wales.
In fact most of them were running straight out of there banks and all over the fields, roads and really anywhere they fancied! Luckily however unlike the large majority of our paddling trips this time we had local know how to point us in the right direction in the shape of Mr. Chris Evan, Andy Butler and local celebrity Mr. Euro Bob, I do feel a bit embarrassed, 2 day on the river and 1 night in Bobs house and I still have no idea what Bobs sir name is? He is a top chap tho!
So anyway, after a bit of a late start we arrived in the bar at PYB just as every one else did at exactly the same time! It was like we planned it. After a quick hello/good bye we were off, down here up there and across there later we arrived a river, didn’t look much to me but the “locals” were all very excited so I guessed things were looking good.
The river it turns out was the Colwyn, and it was at a good level. Many many trees seamed be in the river and we could only really gain access to said rive via a front garden, but by hec as soon as you were on you were off, and it just don’t really stop. Good rapids lead into some bigger drops then more rapids, drops, so on….top River well worth the effort if you find it running. The Colwyn eventually empties into the Glaslyn, this is a bigger river and a bit flatter so you get a chance to have a bit of a breather and a chin wag to your mate’s before you turn up at the Aberglalyn Gorge.
This gorge really is only about a few hundred meters long, but wow they really managed to pack a fair bit in there. I think we were pretty lucky with the water level. It’s a great continues run with the crux’s in the middle, a drop called the breaker. There’s a fairly fun but stout lead into this drop with a couple of good holes to punch before you rock over this drop, good bit of volume a great day on the river.
(with the light fading the POWER FIST came out!)
After a quick bite to eat in a local pub we then set off to Euro Bob’s house, The rain was now really falling at this point and the river were pretty sporty, the roads were also pretty sporty and after a quite interesting drive across an ever increasingly drowning Wales we made it to Bob house, A truly relaxing retreat, Jen made scones. Cream or Jam first? How do you take your cream tea??? The enormous fire was burning it was lovely. To finish off a great day Bob recommended a film Bubba Ho-Tep it was called, perfectly random it was, top day.
Check it here 
Are leave it there for now and regale you with stories from day 2 tomorrow, massive waterfalls and more high jinks all to come.
L8r all.
The daily commute.
It sounds bad but with Face Book being so fun I had rather forgotten about the blogg. Feel quite bad now, well see here I've done a a little write up about my paddle into work today, hope you enjoy. I think it’s fair to say that the rain we had on Sunday and Monday has now made it into all the rivers around us. Normally the river Wey is a quiet slow moving old hector of a river, but not today! The rain has swollen the river and it’s starting to pop out of its banks all over the place. And the normally quite flat river had some quite nice rapids and 3 mandatory portages today. Following the river down threw ByFleet Village pass Mercedes-Benz world and Brook lands motor museum the river was really flowing well. The Wey eventually pop’s out at Shepperton which weir, this again is pretty chunky at the moment, the pool levels are all super high at the moment so not great for play boating but well worth a visit if your in the area. Bellow are a few pictures showing my commute today, not a bad way of getting to work really?
(The classic bins in a river.)
(The road bridge @ Brooklands)
(the first Portage, low flying bridge!)
(Mercedes-Benz world, great family day out. And really good for works Christmas Doo's)
(The second portage @ Brooklands motor museum, another fantastic day out and they now have a Concord you can have a look in! it's a cool place)
(The road bridge @ Weybridge. This is also where the Wey canal re joins the river, but that a whole other paddle...)
The last portage. The last lock on the Wey, down from here it all Thames baby)
(Back on Old father Thames, with a lot of water! it is shifting today.)
(and back to Shepperton Marina, 58 minuets of interesting commute.)
(It's cold today again too. The freezing fog is pretty nippy on the hands.)
(And a little map of the route, the canal to the left and the river "this trip" on the right.)
If you would like to paddle and explorer this section this is the Map to get, the map in the picture above. shows the area well, it's pretty easy to work out where to get in and out, all the pubs are marked on it too.
This One Look Here!
2011 - Palm the next fronter
Palm have just released a digital version of there 2011 work book. I think it's fair to say Palm probably have the most exciting and largest change of new kit of any company for 2011.
Check it out here!My personal favourite!
Nice to see that Palm have taken time and effort to produce an entire range of new kit for ladies and men, touring and Whitewater there really is something for everyone.
Retro!
August
Well that really is quite a while ago! and you can be sure that we really have been very busy since then. What has been going on since then though, I can't really remember! August, apart from numerous breaking down cars was a pretty quiet mounts new's wise, the shop was busy, Mike was busy training for slalom so was Pete, although he was also doing a fair few other extra sessions trying to get ready for the Etive race and SickLine (more on them later)September came on the 18/19 we had the McConkey race at HPP, this race went rather bad for Mike..... Pete came 4th! (bit poor really!) as a whole Shepperton did really well, and Joel had maybe the pinning of the year, if we can get the video on here you will very impressed, good skills! you can check the results and rankings from the slalom year
hereon the freestyle side of things....well there's not really been any water so nothing really great! Chertsey has been going off all summer long as is the norm. We did have a very funny incident with a very big and brightly coloured snake! Matt nearly met his maker. Seth has been squirt boating all summer long and has just finished 4th at the latest selection event you can read more about that
here . As the summer starts to draw to a close though the Xtream season draws in starting with the new iconic Etive river race, the race had been changed this year a little and now included a team and single's race. Even though the water was a bit low this year the race still went on and was a huge success, unfortunately Pete and Graham the winners of the team race for the last two year's could not make it 3 in a row, finishing in a close second this year! T Bomb Tom romped to first place in the solo run however, good sporting fun all-round, Dave has done a good write up of the event
here, well worth a read with a cup of tea!And then came the big one the Adidas SickLine, officially the unofficial world cup of the Xtream down river racing....Dose that make sense??? UKRGB would love me. It's fair to say this is an amazing event and rightly deserves it world status, it a great section of water, with the best paddlers in the world all meeting there to battle it out, and it is the finest of lines between success and failure, it's hard... I will sort out a better write up for this one, it deserves it's own. And then, just keeps coming today doesn't it. We then rolled onto Kanummesse, if you don't know this is a really big trade show for canoe kayaks and all in between. It a great show to catch up see what is new, see what is coming and do good business and have a smashing party, this included large amounts of free beer and more pork than most mortal people could probably ever imagine. Bit of a break here i've just relized all my pictures for this are at home! Bugger.... hay ho pictures to follow then...
What's next. well this weekend Pyranha host the 3rd annual Pyranha Fest in North Wales a top event see more info
here.....And last of all, we have had a great summer, so to top it all off we have a
END OF SUMMER SALE for you all to enjoy. We have a blanket 15% discount on all (most)items in here, only books DVD's and magazines are exempt. Come on in say hi and bag your self a bargain. If your at Pyranha Fest Pete, Graham, Tom will all be there come along and say hello.
