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08
Mar

National Student Rodeo 2010

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Unsurprisingly, quite a few of us at Team Pyranha were keen to volunteer to help out at the biggest kayaking competition of the year – the National Student Rodeo at HPP in Nottingham, UK. It is a superb event, with freestyle competitions for all ability levels – as long as you’re a student! There were also lots of other fun events going on, like the inflatable sofa race, the topo duo race, the “old school” rodeo – which saw a lot of schlegels and ribbed BA’s being dug out of the back of the canoe stores at many unirversities!
 
We had a huge amount of demo boats at the Pyranha stand – and some really comfortable bean bags so we could provide some respite for all those hung over students who started the party on Friday night (which didn’t really finish until at least Sunday evening!). Lots of people came to chat to us and demo the new molan – we had the small and the medium size for all to try. Lots of people were keen to get into the small 2010 burn as well which is now also available.
  

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On Saturday night the evening was started off with a showing of the amazing new kayaking film “Dream Result” – with Rush Sturges and Tyler Bradt on hand to personally introduce the film – show us some of their rapping skills and even sign a few autographs. The film was all that it had been hyped up to be and 900 students gave it a standing ovation – what more can you ask for!
 
Then the party really got started and the theme of “Ancient Worlds” was taken very seriously with a HUGE range of different inventive costumes – I saw people dressed as vikings, greek gods, a castle, the easter island heads, cavemen, mummys, egyptian gods – although my “greek goddess” costume was obviously a bit lacking as everyone thought I had come as wonder-woman!
 

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Hugh Graham ripping it in the Molan at the men’s expert final.

 

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The Pyranha Stand

Sunday morning certainly saw a few hang overs – some universities resorting to megaphones to get their student compeititors out of bed. (I was unfortunately camped near Leeds Uni’s “uptime” megaphone!)
 
Sunday saw all the finalists showing some great moves in the novice and expert categories alike.
 
Thanks to the organisers – what a great event, I hope I will be there again next year! Cheers everyone.

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02
Mar

Green narrow race 2009 video.

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Yes !!!

Stephanie cooked a long time.
It’s just out of kitchen.

Green Race 2009 from stephanie augras on Vimeo.

Thanks a lot Dinver for the boats.

I wish you a good viewing, like Nicolas and me in the Green river.

Cheers,

Eric

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02
Mar

Finally back from Chile

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After three month of kayaking in Chile I am finally back home. I am glad I made it back before the earthquake and feel really sorry for all the aggrieved people.

I must admit three month of paddling was exactly what I needed, day after day with nothing else to do apart from kayaking. Isn’t that great?! 😉

Best friends

During my first month some german friends and I ran the rivers from Santiago down to Pucon. One big highlight was for sure the Rio Claro, we jumped down the ventidos saltos about 5 times – the last run took us only 19 minutes from the putin to the final drop – germans like the autobahn.

Not as lucky was I after my run down the caracol in the Entre Saltos section, I landed flat and ended up with a broken paddle, a broken nose and two blue eyes … at least I kept my smile.

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Entre Saltos Section Rio Claro

Entre Saltos Section Rio Claro

After my german friends left, I met two kiwis, we rented a nice camioneta and were ready for new adventures. This time to Argentinia and South Chile. One of my favorite runs was the Los Alerces Section on the Rio Manso, but at the same time it was a bit scary as we were just the two of us, had a lot of water and not much information about the river. So we ended up being in a canyon infront of a rapid which looked pretty big, but was impossible to scout and to portage. That was an explosion of emotions after we two made it through the big hole at the bottom.  😉

It was a really rainy season in Chile, so we encountered high waterlevels on the Futa and further down south. One thing remains obvious, it was for sure not my last time on this incredible beautiful rivers of Patagonia.

What a wonderful playwave ...... unfortunately it is situated just infront of the Petrohue waterfall

What a wonderful playwave …… unfortunately it is situated just infront of the Petrohue waterfall
Gymnastics on the Rio Palguin

Gymnastics on the Rio Palguin

Pancakes for breakfast

Pancakes for breakfast
Park Nacional Rio Laja

Park Nacional Rio Laja

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22
Feb

Portugal: A European Winter Treat!

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Inspired by some previous winter trips to Portugal on the Pyranha Blog, in 2007 and 2008 a group of friends and I headed out there to see what we could find…

Beautiful scenery, kind people, good food, wine oh and lots of steep granite fun!

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Portugal Creeking 085

Read the full article for more on the rivers… for just the pictures here are galleries of some of the different rivers we paddled: Vez, Castro, Cavado.

Read the rest of this entry »

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06
Feb

Pyranha Promo Trailer

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Here is the start to the Pyranha Promo.  A little teaser here, enjoy and paddle hard folks.

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01
Feb

Dartfest and Small 2010 Burn Prototype!

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With low water and freezing weather, we didn’t have the ideal conditions for paddling on Dartmoor at the weekend – but lure of a great party won the day, and this weekend – paddlers from all over the UK filled the River Dart Country Park, as Pyranha hosted their first ever Dartfest there. Mitchell paddles and Peak UK also supported the event.
 
There were a number of courses running through the Pyranhafest program and in the evening Mark Rainsley entertained with a slide show and talk about taking your local club a bit further afield than the alps – with Indian and Californian trips being showcased. Max Bilbow wowed the crowd with his adventures in the little known territories of Russia. After all this inspiration for our boating adventures, Dave Hazell hit the decks and we all hit the dance floor. The amount of water in the rivers was probably doubled by the beer that flowed at the party – it was an epic night  – what great party. Thanks Pyranha!!!
 
Pyranha had brought along a huge number of exciting demo boats: the new Molans, the new large 2010 burn and even the very first prototype small 2010 Burn. Despite the low levels I was able to get out on the river – and really put the first prototype of the small 2010 Burn though her paces on the Upper Dart. Here are some pictures of her in action. I really do love the new 2010 design. The boat is much nippier and whilst retaining the forward speed of the previous Burn – I found it much easier to nip around in, more rocker means that it is easier to boof as well. As one of the smaller paddlers around, I also found the slightly narrower design suited me down to a T. I am eagerly awaiting the small production version which will be around in shops very soon. For all you lucky people who are bigger than me, the Large and Medium 2010 Burns are available in the shops now…
 
Thanks for a great Dartfest weekend to Pyranha for hosting and everyone who came along for making it into a great party!  

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01
Feb

AZ’s Perfect Storm

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Finished up filming and boating in Hawaii and raced back to AZ to catch the tail end of a massive storm.  Flows reaching record flows a couple days earlier, there was just enough left to get some boofs in the desert.  Photos by Paul Wackowski

Cody Howard kayaking Arizona

Cody Howard Boofing waterfall in Arizona

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30
Jan

Serving the Storm

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For the past few weeks, we’ve only had one Molan in the US.  As a result, it’s been getting passed around from team member to team member.  I finally got my chance to try it out this week.  I met up with Matt and Graham at Scudders to see how the boat performed in a hole.  Since we were all sharing the boat, I didn’t get a great chance to figure out how it works, but I’ll say it loops big!

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27
Jan

Demshitz Checking in from Pucon again…

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Laying Treats on the Turbio
Check out the Demshitz Blog for a bad ass update from Pucon Chile!

Here is a Teaser for our Next Demshitz Movie ¨Dashboard Empanada¨

Run the Shitz! Looking forward to the NEW BURN and the NEW PLAYBOAT ¨THE MOLAN¨!!! PYRANHA WORLD DOMINATION!!! DEMSHITZ!!!

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21
Jan

“Volcano ride” is online!

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2010 start very well in Pyrenees.

Happy new year bro!

First, happy new year everybody !!! I wish you a lot of  rivers steep, big, in a wild nature.

Second. After a long and hard work, my friend Stephanie Augras finished my last crazy trip movie in Cap Verde.

You should never seen it….

Volcano Ride from stephanie augras on Vimeo.

Have a good time.

Eric.


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