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Photo by Sandy MacEwan

The Big Magnum has arrived in New Zealand!!!

Check out Andi Url’s Paddle Power on the North Island, or Canoe & Outdoor World on the Mainland to get yer hands on your very own Big Magnum or Big Thunder…both recently imported and stocked for your liquid performance pleasure!

I was lucky enough to receive my Magnum 80 a few weeks before exams, just in-time for a wee summer-break-preview roady. (CLARIFICATION: The trip was wee, and while weeing was performed many times on the trip, it was not the focus of the roady… river ridin’ could be better-described as the focal point of our mission to experience the best of what NZ snowmelt has to offer.) What follows here are a few thoughts and images from the trip.

Photo by Nick Gordon

This boat inspires CONFIDENCE!!! After a rather epic two-day trip on the Upper Waiau, and then driving most of the night south to the Waikaia, I was stoked to finally get my new boat on some steep water. The extra volume of the 80 sat me much higher than my 72, giving me the confidence to run some new lines and rapids on the mighty Waikaia. The beast pictured above, (being one of them) had a tricky entrance which involved riding over a weird curling seam at the lip…needless to say I was glad to finally be in the Big Boy!

Photo by Nick Gordon

The famous “Waterfall of Death.” This two-tiered charge-fest has dished out some interesting lines in the couple trips I’ve made down to it. Sometimes inducing rather frantic paddling, and other-times giving some givers some of that good ol’ fashioned wall love…it’s bound to get yer heart rate up, even if yer just portaging! After seeing two lines produce one of each of the previously mentioned results, I decided to try the river-right-slot entrance to the monster. Boofing in so close to the lip put you in a much more exposed position, however at the same time it looked like if hit correctly the line would set you up much better for a squeaky line off the second drop…

Photo by Nick Gordon

Reaping the rewards of a big drop and a big boat! The 80’s volume kept me on-top of the water upon landing, and its speed helped me accelerate out away from the danger of the nasty pocket on river right of the second drop, (to my right in the picture above). After plugging the second drop my first time running it a few weeks prior, I was stoked to be soaring off it this time with my boat a bit more horizontal!

Photo by Nick Gordon

The Waikaia River is one of New Zealand’s classiest runs. Here I am exiting one of the longer rapids on the run…the link-up contains a very tight entrance, which opens up into a swirling ledge-hole that leads into the run-out, (which is what you can see in the picture above). Even with the increased length and width of the 80, the original hull’s maneuverability was un-touched in the new design, making tight corners smooth, and fine-tuned mid-rapid adjustments to your line intuitively easy to make.

Photo by Nick Gordon

The next classic on the list of rivers was the Nevis River, which we found at quite a solid flow. Here I am dropping into the enduring ‘Freight Train.” Having entered the rapid too far to the right, I was forced to charge down the guts of this rapid, lining up the meat of each hole and feature present. Due to the Big Magnum’s carefully tucked away edges (extending along the back 2/3 of the boat) I wasn’t punished nearly as much as I thought I would be! The edge’s tucked away nature provided the stability to stay upright through some serious meat, at the same time as providing the much-needed speed to get that extra momentum out of one or two quick strokes.

Photo by Nick Gordon

Steep, long, and complex are the three words which come to mind when attempting to describe the character of this river. Here I am coming in hot to the last “section” of one of the steepest, longest and most complex rapids on the river, “Little Brother.” Lucky for me, the Big Magnum was created because of the existence of such rapids like Little Bro.

Photo by Nick Gordon

After ending our day on the Nevis with a bit of an epic (a serious injury and evac to one of our team members) we made our way up the coast in hopes of more widespread water. However, just before Hoki, in the town of Ross, they got word that Riot’s latest and greatest creation was going to bless the town with its presence. They decided to honor the occasion with a fireworks display…it was much appreciated.

Photo by Nick Gordon

The next day we found blue skies, and still a good chunk of water sticking around, so we flew up the Taipo River, a river the guidebook accurately describes as “a must do.” The extremely continuous nature of this run tested the 80’s “On-yer-toes ability’ quite well. Due to the hull of the 80’s unparalleled initial AND secondary stability, along with its quick 0-60 speed, the 80 passed with flying colors. Here’s a shot of me on a rapid named “Showcase.”

If an on-top journey is what ya like, and a little bit o’ speed make ya feel alright. The 80’s got that and a helluva lot more, so get to yo paddle shop and open the door!

Reporting LIVE from Summer Break on the under belly of the world…Where the sun doth shine, the moon doth glow, and the rivers doth flow. This has been Cooper Lambla telling you in all sincerity this time, to go BIG UP YO SELF!!! Peace out girl scout.

-

In Austria there is a “sports-men” election in Klagenfurt, Gerhard Schmid’s home town, and he has been nominated.

Gerhard was quoted asking for your vote, “please vote and tell also your kayak friends to vote for me.”

How could you not vote for this profile?  A vote for Gerhard is a vote for the Magnum 80, his favorite boat.  A vote for Gerhard is a vote for size 8 shoes, Gerhard’s size.  A vote for Gerhard is a vote for Austria, a vote for Europe.  Vote Gerhard Schmid, sportsman of Austria.

If you can decipher the Language on the web site and figure out how to give Gerhard a vote, then please, vote and let your voice be heard.  The country of Austria and the company of Riot is depending on you.
http://www.klagenfurtsport.at/?content=jahressportler

Gerhard says, “Thanks, and greetings from cold Austria.”

So the first big rains made it to the Northwest and what better place to take the the Magnum for a spin then on one of our favorite local creeks! I recieved my Magnum 80 at the end summer and not having the money to travel gave me little option to give it a true testing. Now that the water is back I have had a chance to really see how this boat handles, and handle it does! Wow this things is hands down the sickest and most responsive boat I have ever paddled! Good job to Riot for designing such a awesome boat! Now moving on to the creek. We were all stoked to back on Canyon Creek this is such a high quality run! Thanks Mother Nature.

Scouting Big Falls

Looking Back up at Hammering Spot and Champagne in the Drop Zone.

The rain has arrived in the Northwest so check back to the Team Riot site for more NW updates!

Late

Happy Birthday to EJ Etherington, Northwestern Regional Team Riot Paddler.

Team Riot:
North America, Development, Regional
United States: North-West

Birth Date: 11.10.1980

Home: Portland, Oregon

Favorite Riot boat and size: Magnum 72 & 80, Astro 54

Height, Weight, Shoe Size, Inseam length:
5ft 8in, 155lbs, Mens shoe size 10, 30 inseam

I am a kayaker/photographer in Oregon. For me, rivers are about having fun and doing what I love: the learning progression that kayaking affords me. The only thing better than learning a new move or sticking a hard line is helping some one else along their progression to learning their next move and sticking their own hard lines. You may not see me running the biggest drops or throwing the sickest new moves but you will see me out on the river, a lot, learning what I can from the river and teaching others what I know.

Your web site(s) and or links:

www.ThisRiverLife.com

Happy Birthday to Eli Spiegel, Northwestern USA Regional Riot paddler!

Team Riot:
North America
United States: North-West, Development

Birth Date: 11.08.1990

Home: Woodinville, Washington

Favorite Riot boat and size: Magnum 80, Astro 58

Height, Weight, Shoe Size, Inseam length:
6ft 1in, 200lbs, 12 shoe, 32 inseam

A few years ago I did a summer camp with The New River Academy of Huge Experiences, and Team Riot paddler Spencer Cooke was one of the leaders of it. As he could tell you, the first day of paddling he wasn’t teaching me to throw down but just teaching me to get in the hole without window shading. Eventually I was able to start throwing some moves on that trip. Somehow I missed being able to spin. After that trip my paddling has improved due to the confidence I gained by being pushed by a group of my friends. This last year I attended The New River Academy all year long, once again improving my paddling as well as my group skills.

One of the most important things to me is too be a well-rounded paddler. To me that doesn’t mean just creeking and play boating, but it also means just being stoked whenever you are one the river.

Social Networks:

myspace

facebook

Your web site(s) and or links:

http://kayakschool.org/
.

.

Check out Jon Angermeier, USA Regional team paddler for Riot.  Happy Birthday Jon!

Team Riot:
North America, United States: South-East,
Development

Birth Date: 11/05/88

Home: US, NC, Brevard/Charlotte

Favorite Riot boat and size: Magnum 80 and Astro 58

Height, Weight, Shoe Size, Inseam length:
Height, Weight, Shoe Size, Inseam length: 6′2″, 170lbs, 11.5, 33

Kayaking is an awesome mechanism through which to see some the coolest places on earth as well as meet some of the most interesting and coolest people. I have spent the majority of my life here in the Southeast and have been able to paddle many of the awesome rivers here. This next year I’m taking a year off of school and am planning on doing a lot of traveling. Chile, Canada, Colorado and California are going to hopefully be the main stops for this next year. Kayaking has been a big part of my life so far and will be for a long time.

Social Networks:

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=719356440

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October 30, 2008, Rapid Transit Video and Lunch Video Magazine held a kayak video Grindhouse called Green-o-Ween in anticipation of the annual Green River Narrows Race and the beginning of our winter creeking season here in the Southeastern US.

poster design by daniel windham, team riot

Both video brands showed abridged versions of their soon to come films.  You may view the trailer of the new Rapid Transit Feature length film at this LINK and you may visit LVM’s site HERE.

Festivities of the evening included a costume contest in which contestants were to dress as their favorite rapid on the Green.

Winning 1st place and taking home the Riot Thunder was a bold lad dressed as Toilet Bowl.

2nd place, The Gorilla himself, with a battered Jackson Kayak wrapped around himself took home an H2o Audio housing and headset.

3rd… perhaps turd place after standing beside captain Toilet Bowl, was THE Flying Squirrel.

Congrats to all who participated and to those who won.  Come back here to find out how our team faired in the 13th annual Green Race.  Hopefully team Riot has some placers…

Alright! Part Three of Three on outfitting your big boat.

This last part covers your hips and back.

At this point, you’ve probably gotten so comfortable in the boat that you forgot about hip pads but they are still important. In my creek boat I like a looser hip fit and rely on my other outfitting for control. I don’t want to have to jimmy with the back band or wiggle into tight hip pads while teetering on the edge of some slippery seal launch. I just want to be able to sit down, pop my skirt on and go. In play boats, a tighter fit is nice.

Just how tight a fit is up to you but some things to keep in mind:

• Make sure to position them so they don’t interfere with you back band.
• If you go for a tight fit, keep it on your hips, not on your thighs or chances are you won’t be feeling your legs much longer.
• If you do find your legs going numb, chances are you are getting pressure on your sciatic nerve on the outsides of your thighs just below your butt. Move your hip pads back towards your butt or trim the front edge back till you can feel your legs again.

Most stock hip pads or store bought foam hip pads have a hook at the top that you may like though it’s probably not necessary. Use a knife, a “Dragon Skin”, “SureForm” or even a hacksaw blade to trim out the foam till its comfortable. You can cut away too much, but you can always glue another ¼” sheet on to start again Generally, I prefer to hold myself in with my legs than have the foam hooks hold me in. Either way, it’s your preference. Make sure whatever you use is comfortable and secure.

Different styles of hips pads I use

That last piece of outfitting to be address is the back band. All boats come with a pretty solid back band these days but chances are, in the bigger boat, it will be wider and higher than you may be used to. Part of that will be taken care of by the seat lift and width probably isn’t going to be a big issue. The height of the back band is a point of contention. I know folks who like them on their lower backs, over their hips. I like it low on your pelvis so when you ratchet yourself in tight, you aren’t tweaking out your back. That being said, I like to keep the outfitting in my creeker a bit looser, as I said before, for easy in, easy out in tight spots.

As with anything about outfitting, where you place your back band is about preference and comfort. (Just make sure it doesn’t become a “back rest”)

SO, once you are feeling more comfortable than ever and you think are done you may want to glue your boats cloth seat bad back down to keep the stylish good looks of your boat.

If you aren’t sure about where to put your outfitting duct tape is a great way to test it but glue is going to give you the most secure fit. Make sure you are comfortable in your boat and feeling secure. A boat you can control without thinking about will really help your progression and make you a better and safer boater.

The final step is the easiest and the most fun. Get out, enjoy your new big boat and Go Boating!!

Hope you enjoyed and found this helpful!Cheers!

EJ

Hey all-

This is part two of the three part blog on outfitting you new BIG BOAT when you maybe aren’t so big.

So if everything went well last time, you got a nice seat lift to raise your center of gravity for more control and comfort. Next step are knee blocks. These keep your knee caps off the plastic and allow you to make more comfortable contact with the boat, straighten your legs a little bit and not have to be in a permanent straddle sit in the extra wide boat. I use knee block in my play boat too for the same reasons.

Foams blocks for knees

Knees block in my Magnum 72

and in Astro 54

Many boats come with thigh hooks that function well for keeping your knees of the boat deck and they serve very much like knee blocks in that way. My size means that the knee braces that come with the Magnum will never see any action so I preferred to pad out the deck and use that for my thigh contact instead. A sheet of ¼” foam over the knee block to the underside of the cockpit rim gives me comfortable thigh contact and plenty of control and helps anchor it in place.

Gluing foam on the knee blocks

Spend some time on these and you’ll appreciate it. Here is where you engineers, and anal-retentives are really going to hate what I have to say: Boats are rarely symmetrical. Let me repeat: boats are rarely symmetrical. Don’t think that you can dial in one side, take some measurements and know where to put the other. It will never come out quite right so instead sit in your newly padded seat and mess around till you find a comfortable spot. Then sit there for a while… Is it still comfortable? Good, now take a sharpie and trace around enough of the block to be able to put in back in place when you are ready to glue them back in. If you are planning to ever to move your seat forward or back for carrying heavy loads etc. , be sure to anticipate and position the knee block accordingly.

The new blocks in the Magnum 80

Next up, the foot block / bulkhead: I’ve seen lots of different ideas about bulkheads and foot blocks. Everything from 4” or more of foam, to creating a honeycomb, or gluing little cubes of foam between two sheets. All these ideas are aimed at absorbing shock in case of a piton. For my creek boat, I’m usually pretty happy with the provided 1” thick sheets usually provided with the outfitting kit but then I’ve never pitoned of anything big and broken myself. If you find yourself without, and no way to trace another one, you can use a piece of cardboard to make a template of the inside of the boat and trace it on a block of foam.

I do take a little from my play boat outfitting and like to put in a little heel contact. This is probably the hardest part of the outfitting to create since you probably won’t have a template to work with. I cut the edges off an old play boat foot block and glued them to the bulkhead. If you are sure you won’t ever move it again you can glue them down to the hull with a little heel padding to boot. Otherwise, I’ve had good luck gluing them to the bulkhead foam. Also, having a pile of scrap foam sitting around to play with is a good thing here. Best advice I can give her is play around and come up with something comfortable.

That’s it for this installment. Check back for the third and final installment: Hip pads and Back Band

Till then!

EJ

As a guy, saying you’re too small is never a good thing. But sometimes, when you want, or need, to paddle an extra large boat, it has to be admitted to yourself “It just wasn’t designed for someone my size.” Big guys need big boats and sometime, little guys like me (and gals), want to paddle big boats too. There’s just no accounting for it but whether you’re looking to be a macho man, just paddle the biggest and best creeker out there, or you want to carry lots and lots of stuff, if you the boats bigger than you are, either grow, or make the boat fit you.

Everyone has their own opinions about how to outfit boats; what the best thing is to put where. If you ask 10 boaters about how to outfit your boat, you’ll get at least 15 opinions. This one is mine:

All you need is:

some tool….

some random foam

and a really big boat

I like to outfit in a specific order, keeps me from having to back track and move things around after gluing them in place:

Seat Lift

Knee block

Bulk Head

Hip Pads.

The height of the seat controls where your knees and hips go. The position of your knees changes your effective leg length and the angle of your thighs affects where you should put the hip pads.

This is the first in a three parter which will cover each step of my version of outfitting.

Today: Seat Lift and Knee Blocks.

Magnum 80 stock outfitting

The stock outfitting in most of the new big boats out there is pretty slick for the big boys. Usually, with a little pushing around of the hip pads and some peel and stick foam included in the outfitting kit, you can get a pretty nice fit. The new Magnum 80 is no exception. For shorter guys like me, you need to get up and out of the seat and bring in the hip pads a bit more. I’m also a big fan of the knee blocks that come with the Riot outfitting kit.

But if you’re a little guy or gal the first thing you need to do is to get down to the bare plastic seat so you can set some foam down. For me in Magnum 80 I used a full inch. In my play boat, I generally go with a ¼” to ½” of foam. Raising your butt out of the seat does at least three things. It frees up your torso to move a little more easily, set up for rolling, change edges, etc. (Ever catch a cockpit rim in the chest?) It gets you out of the seat so you don’t bang your thumbs on the deck so much and it give you more leverage on the boat for edging a wide boat. This can also come in especially handy for women, who generally have a lower center of gravity, throwing more dynamic moves. Unfortunately it can also give the boat more leverage over you so be careful about putting down too much. About as high as I ever go is where the points of my hips are even with the cockpit rim.

With the seat lift glued down

If you don’t have a handy sheet of foam, you can buy butt shaped pads at your local paddling shop but the shape doesn’t really matter as long as its comfortable and you can get it to stick. Just make sure to round off the corners so the edges don’t get caught as easily peeled up your carefully glued butt pad.

When gluing down foam, I use a high strength spray contact cement type adhesive though there are plenty of other options. Spray contact cement is not the strongest option, but I’ve found it to be strong enough for most applications and by far the easiest to work with. If you REALLY need it to stick, the brush on stuff “H2Glue” is extra strong when used properly. Follow the instructions! With contact cement, more isn’t always better and make sure not to try and make the bond to early. You’ll just end up with a sticky mess, but your foam will never stick right. When gluing to plastic, I sand the surface and wipe it down with some denatured alcohol or other fairly mellow solvent to clean the surface

That’s it for the first installment.

Look for Part two: Knee Blocks and Bulkhead outfitting.

EJ