On sunday overnight rain had brought up some of the local rivers, and we couldn’t resist the opportunity to go ‘Yorkshire stouting’. Leaving fellow team member Ben to nurse his hangover and take charge of the stand, we met up with Sam Ellis and Greame Benson at Aysgarth Falls. The sun had come out and we had a great morning lapping this cool set of drops!

Written by Louise Fingleton, many thanks to Dan Bradley for kindly letting us use your photos and to the tourists who sent us some photos from Aysgarth Falls!

Hi folks,

Just a quick update of a recent trip! I took my girlfriend (Jenni) out sea kayaking for her first over night trip. I’m not a sea kayaking guru but wow we had an amazing time. It opened my eyes to a new side of our amazing sport. Pyranha were kind enough to let us use the new Venture Jura sea kayak. It was great, Jenni has only been kayaking for hand full of times and she did great. She loved the kayak! We did over 25km the first day, she was flying. We saw some beautiful wildlife, countless seals both in the water and sunbathing, plus a bunch of stunning eagles! I always like to cook to impress on multi-days and this was no exception, fresh veggies cooked up to make a delicious Mexican dish. Take a peek at the photos.

Cheers team, keep having fun!

When I first heard that Pyranha was coming out with a race boat, to say I was excited was an understatement! For me having the option to up the pace on a rapid, charging and flowing dynamically and seamlessly through the moves is one of the best feelings you can get in a kayak. In this area the 9r doesn’t disappoint at all and it really is one of the smoothest boats Ive paddled. Before getting in the 9r I was certainly ready for it to be a fast hard charging machine, what I wasn’t ready for was how good it would be in so many other areas too.

As soon as you sit in the 9r it feels narrower around the hips and this narrowness goes for the length of the boat. The knee position is the best I have ever had in a boat, finding it easy to get a snug fit and you get the feeling of being in contact and control with the boat really quickly. As you look down the boat, you will see that the boat is a little longer than what you might be used to, but it doesn’t seem like there is a mountain of plastic beyond your knees like some boats can. Behind you, the back of the boat looks well shaped, with the widest point being behind your hips and the boat narrowing towards the very back. This boat looks like when it hits a hole, the back end is just going to keep on moving through rather than get caught in the recirculation.

On the water the boat sits with a high bow rocker and pretty quickly you can confirm what you probably already thought, that the boat is going to be light and nimble on the rapids. From the vey first time you generate speed up the eddy and break into the flow you can clearly feel the boats lift at the front, the bow wants to stay dry and has no problem rising up and over tricky boil lines. As soon as you start throwing it around into eddies and behind rocks, its pretty clear that Pyranha have developed something pretty special here, the edge to edge transitions are fast, it turns really quickly on the spot and it also holds an edge and its momentum and speed too. Throughout all of this you have probably forgotten that its longer than what you normally paddle!

The boat doesn’t actually feel long in the water, but when you line up in the eddy against some of the shorter boats, its pretty obvious who is going to win in a race here! Charging straight down the river, the boat rides high up and over the waves, with the bow consistently staying dry and the narrowness of the boat gives the feeling that you are slithering down the river like some kind of racing snake. Any time that you get moved off course, or simply want to change direction, the boat responds well, feeling like a very maneuverable river boat. It really is no surprise that so many of the Pyranha athletes did so well at the Addidas Sickline in this boat.

What really surprised me about the 9r is that I really wasn’t intending to use it so regularly on the river as my normal boat. My intention was to try and use it for training and racing, but it hasn’t been phased by anything that Ive asked of it at all. I can easily get my two piece splits in the back of the boat and my river leader kit and equipment and the boat still feels light enough on the water, although I don’t think Ill win any races with this much kit in the back! Will I paddle this as my main creek and river boat in the future, only time will tell. If you’re constantly falling off steeper stuff or scratching down rocking creeks then there are better suited boats from the range, or if you are in huge water all the time, then you may want a bit more volume (Is there a 9rXL on the cards???) You also don’t need to be a superhero racer to get something from this boat either, many people will appreciate its features on grade 2 and 3 and for some of the more old school paddlers, the length and narrowness may feel quite familiar.  Those people coming from a slalom background will find a familiar feeling when they paddle the 9r

Pyranha have genuinely designed an absolute gem here and it’s a pleasure to be representing the team in this boat. This is inevitably going to be popular with racers, river runners, paddlers with a slalom background, smaller paddlers and of course anyone who wants to charge fast.

Smooth, dynamic, nimble and fast. Im impressed with it, stay tuned for some more updates!

Special thanks go to Manuel Arnu, Rachel Burke, Michael Harper, Peter Harper and Lukas Tomsa for the photograhs

Below, Adam Goshorn takes flight off his favorite boof in Little River Canyon, photo by Joey Jarrell

I know… I know… it is fall and yet, here I am finally putting up the last of my media from the winter and spring, but better late than never.  Unlike the spring of 2013, which was unusually wet (see video HERE), north Alabama experienced only average rainfall in the spring of 2014.  Luckily for those of us that call the region home, average rainfall is still enough to provide plenty of consistent paddling opportunities from Dec-May… albeit with a bit less variety.  We did have the opportunity to explore McWhorter Gulf in April, which had been on my wish list for years (see pictures and video HERE).  However, with that exception, this year most of the Alabama paddling season had us sticking to the classics that have large watersheds and run most consistently.

Below, my wife Shannon Goshorn choosing a creative way shorten a portage in Little River Canyon (photo by Joey Jarrell).

Little River Canyon is the bread and butter for the north Alabama paddling scene and keeps our addictions fed for much of the year.  With a variety of sections suitable for paddlers of every skill level and a watershed that keeps it running for about six months out of the year, it is hard to beat… being ten minutes from my house doesn’t hurt either!  My video, This is the LRC, that was posed earlier this year, showed a variety of lines on Little River Canyon at low and medium flows (if you missed it, you can find it HERE).

Below, Pat Smith taking the boof line on Bottleneck in Little River Canyon, photo by Adam Goshorn

Town Creek is another classic for the north Alabama paddling community.  It has a large drainage and cuts a canyon into the side of Sand Mountain as it makes its way down to Lake Guntersville.  Town Creek is known mostly for being a good introduction to creeking for the class III crowd, but that reputation really only references paddling the lower section at low flows.  If you add more water (anything around 1000 CFS or more) and/or either of the large bedrock features upstream of the normal put-in… Town Creek becomes a fun run for more advanced paddlers too.  At the put-in for the upper section is a long bedrock slide that was once the site of an old mill and develops quite a stomping hole at high water.  At the put-in for the lower is a 30-foot cascade that occasionally gets run at high water.

Below, my wife Shannon Goshorn running the mill slide on the Town Creek, photo by Adam Goshorn

Read the rest of this entry »