Pyranha Team Tour – On a mission – Huningue

After a wonderful few days in Austria, we once again set off on our travels towards Hunigune, France.  We made a short detour to the beautiful old town of Bremgarten just outside of Zurich, Switzerland.  This was a fantastic place to surf and practice our freestyle skills.  The water was 21 degrees that made a welcoming change from the chilling glacial waters of Austria and made it a perfect place for an evening session.

Can Can Shop

On our arrival to Huningue, we met Norbert, our local dealer at Canadian Canoe Shop.  The shop was our base for the weekend whilst we worked on the artificial White Water Course just a stone throw from our location. Our mission was to support Norbert by providing demos and coaching clinics for a wide range of abilities, mainly covering play boating and river skills.  With a large team presence on this year’s tour, it really allowed us to reach a maximum number of paddlers over the weekend.

Barney at the van

Freestyle students

By arriving on the Thursday before the event it allowed us to plan a small mission on the Friday over to the Rues River in Central Switzerland.  This was just a day mission that provided wide a range of excitement for the team.  We  arrived back in time for diner at the shop and catch up with our host.

Barney Prees

Norbert has become somewhat of a celebrity in the local area due to his well-stocked shop and his Canadian can-do attitude.  His shop and courses have done much to foster the development for many local and visiting kayakers.  We always have lots of fun staying onsite due to the welcoming atmosphere, facilities and friendly service.

Norbert and Son

Huningue is an artificial white water course situated on the boarders of Germany, Switzerland and France just outside of Basel and is easily accessible by all modes of transport.  The none-intimidating features on the course allow all river users to comfortably develop their skills.

Hole ride

Matt teaching

After the very successful weekend with Norbert, it was time to head south for the student boater x in L’argentiere.  A great weekend was had by all.

Pyranha Team Tour – On a mission – Huningue

Video link. http://vimeo.com/99177968

Next stop, L’argentiere La Bessee 🙂

CKS Paddle fest

After a 40 hour drive from Canada we made it to Colorado, just in time for the first event of the Colorado tour. CKS Paddle fest.

Taking place in the small town Beunna vista home to an awesome freestyle park, I can’t say I was looking forward to completive hole boating after surfing some awesome waves all spring but with 5 sweet little features to play on all day in the sun and not be scared on the water I quickly found my love for hole boating again.

Levels where constantly changing on the lead up and during to the event and it definitely paid to be practising every day.

Our routine for the days leading up to the event was early morning freestyle, Run the local class 4 section called pine creek and then go for another evening freestyle session. Life went pretty quickly with this schedule and the event quickly advanced upon us and we saw some awesome rides in what proved to be quite a tricky little spot.

I made it into finals in 3rd place but unfortunately I just couldn’t put it together again in the finals and finished in 5th place, although for not having trained in a hole for almost 4 months I was pretty contempt with this result, The thing I was most excited about was consistently landing a crossbow Godzilla entry move linked straight into a tricky whu. The boys both threw down in this trickly little spot with Dave Fuslli finishing in 9th place and Matt Anger in 10th.

Overall, It was an awesome event with some incredible kayaking on display and kicked off the Colorado pro tour nicely! Next stop Steamboat!

See you on the water,
Bren

Idaho can be summed up with a few beautiful statements; big water, very continuous, multi-days and awesome people. This state is very special! We were lucky enough to squeeze in two trips down the South Fork of the Salmon (one combined with a Sesesh) and spend a week on the North Fork of the Payette.

The South Fork is a true multi-day river for the soul. It is mainly soul boating class 4, huge wave trains and punch-able wave holes, although there are a few spicy class 5’s thrown into the mix also! This is the perfect recipe for a fun trip. The beauty of this river is that there are no portages and amazing camp spots, which means you can get very extravagant in the food department! I feel the pictures explain it all. This is a great river to have a big crew on, both trips we rolled with a team of 10.

Well the North Folk of the Payette needs no introduction but for the record this river lives up to its reputation! We were lucky enough to catch it a juicy 3800cfs. Hands down it is one of my top 3 day trip white water runs I have ever done! One statement I heard a lot form the locals “The North Fork don’t give a f@~%” and it is true it does not matter how good/accomplished you think you are this river can and does dish out!

Check out the photos! What a place.

I want to give a big shout out to the banks crew for making us feel so welcome and for Brian Ward and Colby in McCall, you guys are awesome. Cheers for everything! Hope to see you in Whistler.

Ye old faithful 2010 Burn did a magnificent job. I can’t wait to use the start using a new Burn. The word on the street is that it is awesome!

This spring myself (Ric Moxon) and Maxi Kniewasser were presented with the opportunity to film a short segment portraying life as a kayaker. We were lucky enough to work with Anthill Films one on North Americas leading mountain bike production companies. With a budget of $25,000, red cams, phantom cams, drones and cranes the cinematography is quite something. Take a peek…

We might not have much money but we are able to sustain a very special lifestyle!

With a large watershed and a stream bed that channelizes well at lower levels, Little River Canyon (LRC) can have enough water for paddling after local rain any time of the year.  However, it is almost always above the minimum water level (for at least some section of the canyon) from Dec-May, making it a staple for local paddlers and a destination for boaters from everywhere.  Of the runs of similar difficulty in the southeastern United States, only the Russell Fork and the Green are runnable more days per year and no other natural flowing river of similar difficulty runs as often.  This video was filmed during the relatively dry Spring of 2014, but still showcases a variety of lines at low and medium water levels.

This is home.  This is the LRC.

Until next time…

-adam goshorn

Pyranha Team Tour – On a mission – Slovenia

 It was an exiting time driving across Europe destined for the emerald valley of the Soča.  Our mission was to meet our local dealer and friend at Positive Sport, Blaž Lunik, paddle the river and help him arrange the Soča river festival.  Blaž runs a kayaking, rafting and biking operation from Kobarid, located close to the commercial take out of the river.

View of Kobarid

As soon as we arrived, we caught a glimpse of the Bombay gin coloured waters of the river, levels were perfect for our mission.

Ariel bliss

On board the team van we had myself, Captain Cookie, David Bain and Barney Prees.  What I truly love about travelling in Europe is that there is never a shortage of familiar faces.  It is always a delight to meet up with friends in these types of places to share memorable experiences on such beautiful rivers.  Greer Mac and Jana Joressen joined us for the week and was a nice surprise to bump into James Weir and Rob Hind during the festival.

David being artistic

After a few days paddling, filming and getting the most from the area, it was time to head to the racecourse and set up shop.  During most of Saturday we took it in turns to run the syphon canyon with the local paddlers.  This section has class 4 lines with class 6 consequences if deviated from the beaten path.  Best to get advice from the local guys or take time to scout the rapids.  The whole canyon is just 1.5 km.  After the canyon you are back into one of the most beautiful multi fun move sections in Europe until you meet the classic high stone bridge just before the take out.  After this bridge the river becomes slow moving class 1.

Day time Kobarid

Our festival race took place a few hundred metres above the iconic stone bridge marking the white water take out.  A ramp was constructed that sent the kayakers plunging into the turquoise waters having then to negotiate inflatables and banners before a quick dash to the finish line.  The race is always held in the evening for maximum effect.  This year we decided to light up the ramp with some fire breathing that went down a treat for the crowd.

Cookie cruising with Greer Mac and the team

Cookie adding some heat to the race

The prize giving and ceremony was the best we have seen yet.  In previous years, it was rained off but this year the weather was perfect and fuelled by Limerick University, it was a pumping party until the early hours.  A huge thank you has to go to our local Pyranha dealer Blaž Lužnik and his crew from Positive Sport for organising the event on such a beautiful section of river.

Event prize giving

Tel: +38640654475 
 Email:info@positive-sport.com – video link http://vimeo.com/98168762

Skype: positive.sport

Pyranha Team Van – On a mission – Italy

 The Van arrived at the il Gatto e la Volpe campsite in Campertogno for the Valsesia River festival organized by Simon Westgarth’s Gene17 with support from Palm and Pyranha.

Festival Day

Valsesia is famous for some of the best steep, low volume creeking in the world, the quaint traditional mountain villages, pizza and ice cream.  Water levels were low on arrival causing the team to head to the Ayasse in Aosta.  The move, prompted by Jamie Wright was certainly the best one.  The crew including Jamie, Tom Brown, Scotty Robinson and the team van made the most of the stunning Ayasse valley, paddling both the upper and lower sections.  It was certainly an adrenaline pumped few days, not for the faint hearted.   This all changed however following a heavy rainstorm bringing the rivers up to huge levels in Valsesia for the first day of the festival.  This meant that whilst the classic steep runs were too high, the Sesia, which flows right past the campsite, was great fun.  By the afternoon, the levels were beginning to return to normal so people headed up to the Gronda and Sorba slides for some sporty classic park and huck creeking.

Italian landscape over looking the Sorba

Boofing into a rainbow on the Upper Ayasse

Saturday brought us some sunshine to accompany the days racing.  The racecourse was brought down stream a little to the sweet rumble site due to the high levels but even this was an exciting racecourse for the teams and individuals.  The team race commenced first with teams of three sprinting down the section off the ramp having to hit the Pyranha Mk3 Burn hanging from the bridge.  The Individual race was next and also had some very tight racing.

Race briefing

Chris Eastarbrook Racing

All of team Pyranha qualified, with David Bain taking the second spot in the individual.  During breaks in the racing, spectators were challenged to carve the best ‘foamy’ burn 3 with all entrants to be judged by the crowd at the after race party and presentations.

Sweet Rumble

The Sweet rumble was the spectator’s highlight of the festival.  Four paddlers lined up on the start ramp for each heat with the first two competitors to touch the Burn hanging in the eddy going through to the next heat.

Birthday and rumble champion celebrations

A crowd gathered along the roadside to watch the carnage below with commentary from Britain’s Matt Cooke and Italy’s Michele Ramazza.  Team Pyranha’s Dave Brown was knocked out in the quarter final, whilst Barny Prees was knocked out in semi final.  David Bain stole the show, storming through to win the competition.  The team then headed for pizza to celebrate David’s 21^st birthday and then onwards to the festival party.

Middle Sermenza classic

The next day a large crew headed to the picturesque Sermenza River to nurse sore heads from the night before.  This was followed by a visit to the best ice cream shop in the area as recommended by Simon. He was right…  All too soon it was time to leave Italy so the lads packed up the van and said goodbye to Dave Brown who was headed home.  All that was left was to get on the road to Slovenia but not before Barny and Dave had done another quick blast of the middle and lower Sermenza.

David Lower Ayasse

 Pyranha Team Van – On a mission – Italy

 Words by Barnaby Prees – Team Pyranha – http://vimeo.com/97817680

http://gene17kayaking.com/kayaking-events/valsesia-river-festival/

We just got back from Glenwood Springs, CO which has one of the best waves I have ever paddled. The wave was on a great level running at 18,000 CFS, What can I say about the the JED! Words can not explain how much I love this boat. super fast hull, releases with ease and so loose it feels like your gliding!

Here are some pictures from a session.

The Van arrived in Lyon at the Kayak Session HQ to see some of the latest magazines and have a chat with Phillipe Doux.  It was great to see how the content and layouts are put together before being read by the masses.  In the afternoon we took a visit to our local dealer, Bruno from KWA, located just outside of town.  After our shop visit, we headed off to St Pierre de Boeuf to paddle the Espace Eaux Vives white water course and set up shop for the weekend.

 Lyon is privileged to have lots of great courses in the area as well as its famous freestyle wave, Hawaii-Sur-Rhone that definitely helps support France’s strong kayaking community.

Espace Eaux Vives is based just an hour south of Lyon and provides a great center for paddlers, rafters and hydro speeders alike.

We spent a few days at the course and it was fantastic to see so many paddlers’ young and old enjoying their time on the water.  We saw everything from up and coming slalom paddlers doing their morning training to young freestyle rippers shredding on the numerous holes and waves running down the 750-meter white water course.

KWA, the main kayak retailer in Lyon also came down for the event bringing their recreational and SUP demo fleet down to join the white water boats we had brought with us for people to demo.

We had a great time going paddling and enjoying time on the water with the locals.  There are definitely a few young paddlers to watch as they progress over the next few years.  This place really is a hub of progression.

For people from the UK, visiting this area is a great idea.  For the more reserved paddlers who wish to do a warm weather paddling trip then Lyon is great due to the amount and variety of courses close by and just a stone’s throw from the Mountains.

For the paddlers who are making their annual trip to the French Alps these sites also work perfectly for University Clubs to warm up on before hitting the cold alpine flows.

To see where the van is at, and if it will be passing you, check out our Facebook Page. 

Pyranha Team Van – On a mission

Video link – http://vimeo.com/96730334