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

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