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

Well it has taken me a while but I finally put the finishing touches on my edit from Chile and Argentina this year. You can see a trip report of the whole adventure that I posted on this blog a few weeks ago here: https://www.pyranha.com/blog/?p=16069.  I have to give a massive shout out to everyone who filmed and contributed footage after my camera got stolen, thanks to Hayley, Colin, Kris, Matt, Logan, John and Sean!

Here is the link to the edit  South America Highlights ’13/’14  <—— Click Here!

Hope y’all enjoy, Cheers!

– Clay

Each Spring the entire paddlesports industry (or at least it feels like it anyway) descends on the small town of Old Forge, New York for a weekend full of all things paddling.  The event is Mountain Man Outdoor Supply Company’s Adirondack Paddlefest.  Myself and fellow Team Pyranha paddler Tony Gianfagna held down the fort for Pyranha at the event.  We got people psyched on the new Burn, and answered every question under the sun about whitewater paddling.  On Saturday afternoon Tony and I teamed up to teach a very well attended rolling clinic for paddlefest participants.  We showed different types of rolls, got some cheers with hand rolls, and then someone asked the question, “what do you do if you can’t roll up?”  I lost the rock paper scissor decision had to demonstrate the wet exit.  We had a lot of fun with the folks who were watching.  There were certainly a few new whitewater paddlers in the crowd.

Friday of Paddlefest was almost a total “wash” due to the torrents of rain falling from the sky.  We got up really early on Saturday morning to see beautiful blue skies and the gauges on Tug Hill Plateau sky high.  We rushed out the door, loaded up the truck, and we were in the water before 8:00 AM.  Our good friend Eric Adsit provided us the necessary local knowledge to make a run of the seldom paddled “BrokeBack Gorge” (yes that is what it’s really called).  This unique gorge is a shale/limestone crack in the middle of dairy farms as far as the eye can see.  It is a dreamy steep-walled canyon smack in the middle of farmland.  It is a bizarre geological anomaly that makes for some really fun paddling.  We made a quick run  of the multiple small drops and slides all the down to the super committing 35-footer that signifies the end of the gorge.  It was an unbelievable way to start the day.

Supporting Pyranha and Mountain Man Outdoor Supply Company at this year’s Paddelfest was probably the most fun yet.  It is always a good time getting to hang out with paddlers from other parts of the industry, getting people psyched on Pyranha, and  getting to do some awesome paddling at the same time.

Arrival to the Mountains- Team Tour in Innsbruck

After the Markkleeberg festival we began the drive across to Innsbruck stopping in Augsburg for a good nights sleep.  We arrived at Source 2 Sea HQ late afternoon and left immediately for the river with our host Bernie and brother Dan.  We had been told it was a mission to take trees out of the river prior to the race on Saturday, so laden with multiple saws and ropes we set off down the river clearing all the trees from the winter.

After a cool night at the campsite we left for Oetz. Described as paradise by the many paddlers, climbers and bikers that have moved there never fails to disappoint with evening SUP trips down the Inn, Wellebrucke laps and even a bit of downhill biking to spice things up! It really is a super full on area, and definitely a place that should be on everyone’s trip list.

On Friday morning we headed back over to the S2S camp where we paddled the river Sill, which was a little on the low side but we had a successful run non-the less.  Saturday brought the start of the festival along with some better weather!! Both Matt and I played on the lake in the morning doing some polo, and then in the afternoon I left Matt running his extremely popular ‘come and try it’ sessions on the lake, and went to do the Melach Race.

The race was rocky and narrow but fairly fast with the team event times coming in around the 15-minute mark, and individual races at 4 minutes. I came in second place behind Daniel Haller with Daniel Klotzner coming just behind in third place.  This race really got me fired up and can’t wait until our next show down in Val Sessia.

Sunday came around and everyone headed off for a days paddling before driving back home.

The van has now come back to Augsburg in preparation for our event on Wednesday evening.

Stay tuned – Pyranha Team Van on FB

Video link – http://vimeo.com/95655957

Author – David Bain

Reno, being the wonderfully weird place it is, inspired Demshitz to try out some new tricks in the Reno River Festival’s freestyle competition. Dave arrived in Reno a day before my self, and managed to slip a quick practice session into his fully loaded schedule. I came flying into Reno the next day, and then boogied down to the competition feature to get in a little practice before the event. After spending a bit of time shaving down the ends of our Jed on the bottom of the feature, we felt like we’d really gotten the feature dialed in.

The next day started off pretty chilly, and the horizon wasn’t looking particularly friendly. Once it was time for the men class to go it had gone from chilly to flat out cold. That didn’t slow us down, though, and we ended up heading into finals with Dave in 4^th and myself in 2^nd . But, as we were finishing semi’s, we got hit with cold dirt rain mixed with what looked like snow. Faced with such a situation we decided the only reasonable course of action was hit the hot tub and have a beer while we waited for the rain to stop before finals.

Demshitz came out swinging in finals, and laid down some big rides with real weird tricks all while sharing the same boat in the same heat. After the first round Jacen Craig put together a huge 1300 point ride, and Dave and I decided that we’d have to get real weird to match that number. Dave, on his second ride, put together one of the strangest combos that I’d ever seen, a back phonix to mcnasty, and then proceeded to stick the shit out of it. He salted that ride with a space godzilla to loop and few other tricks to rack up an 1100 point ride which was enough to secure him solidly in second. I managed to put together a few tricky tricks like tricky loops and back loops to mcnasty’s, but never managed to put link everything up enough to move past 3^rd.

The next day, while recovering from celebratory night, we took part in the boater cross. I ended up getting knocked out in the semi’s, but Dave managed to come back from the losers bracket to take 3^rd.

Overall, Reno puts on a pretty awesome festival!

Demshitz on the podium

After a week and a half of training, the GB rafting teams were fired up and ready to race!

The GB ladies laid down an awesome time to win Gold in the Sprint!

With a great crowd cheering them on, the ladies team gave their all in the Head-to-Head races but were knocked out by the eventual winners, Slovakia.

Whilst the rafting teams were preparing for their next races, Team Fluffer (the boyfriends and husbands) managed to find time to paddle the lesser known Awesome and Smokey Gorges of the Kaituna.

Next up was the Slalom where an easy section of river was made much harder by an extremely challenging course. Both teams posted great times with the ladies narrowly missing out on a medal.

Last of all was the Endurance race where the teams paddled flat out for nearly an hour down the beautiful Rangiteiki river. Again both GB teams paddled well but weren’t quite fast enough to get on the podium.

The fluffers took it at a far more leisurely pace.

With the competition over, the group split up to do some exploring, making plans to meet back up on the South Island. We headed first to the Tongariro national park to hike up some volcanoes, but it chucked it down with rain so we went boating instead!

After that we got our geek on, went to see Frodo’s house and had a pint in the Green Dragon!

With heavy rain filling up the rivers we went for a high water paddle on the Mohaka with the locals…

then headed across to the Rangitikei for a blast down the river with the local rafting company…

After a brief encounter with Bert the Troll, we made it to the ferry for the next leg of our adventure in the South Island!