In the spring of 1997, Riot Kayaks set out to design a kayak that would enable them to win the world rodeo championships: the ultimate wave-surfing, hole-riding, rodeo kayak.
From Riot:
We succeeded in creating just that a boat so far ahead of any other kayak at the 1997 championships, that athletes who felt disadvantaged lobbied for a last minute change in the scoring rules to prevent the Glide from achieving high scores on the moves it had been designed to do, and in which it excelled. That was prototype number one. Thirty-three completely vertical ends in twenty four seconds, multiple blunt splitwheels on totally green waves, airborne six point wave wheels, super blunts, freewheels, rockwheels, super clean cartwheels, clean shuvvits and more. The list is endless, the limits are undefined. If all-out rodeo is your thing, then this is the only possible choice.
The Glide was the “boat that changed the rules”. I picked up a dark green Riot Glide with was termed the surf seat, which was a deeper fitting seat that raised your knees tight into the underside of the deck. The deck formed the thigh braces. This created a superb fit that allowed better for control of the boat. Only now are we staring to see manufacturers putting seats with the ability to raise the front edge into their boats. Some Glides were also available with the power seat which was a surf seat taken to the extreme! No fancy backrests and no fancy footrests.
By todays standards the Glide is pretty long but importantly featured a few innovations that appeared again in the Riot Disco. This included the planning hull, textured hull, sharp edges and for the later models even fins.
On any size wave the Glide was a dream to both surf and spin. But take it out in big water or in the surf and the Glide was absolutely amazing.
Your edge control had to be pretty good as mistakes were not forgiven.
Lower volume (squashed) Glides were also developed and named the Slice, but were essentially the same. I owned a Glide and a Disco for a number of years. I sold the Glide on but even now would love to get another. A great kayak from the days when Unsponsored sprung into life.
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