Another great video from JezJez. This one shows how to break out into an eddy. This is a super important skill that all boaters should master.
How to Kayak – Catching an Eddy from Jez Jez on Vimeo.
Category: Unsponsored (Page 31 of 38)
I received one of these towel systems from Orange Mud a few months ago for review. Since it’s first use it has found a home in my kit bag.
The Seat wrap is a towel with a number of additional features. Firstly it has a fully adjustable belt clip which ensures that the wrap stays securely around your waist or chest. It is super simple to adjust and the wrap stays put! At just over 6ft I have found the wrap to be just long enough.
The Freestyle Kayak Moves is presented by the GB freestyle team with world champs James Bebbington and Claire O’Hara.
An A-Team Christmas from Rogue Compass Media on Vimeo.
The D.C. A-Team headed to Tlapacoyan in Veracruz, Mexico for three weeks to escape the cold and run the shit. The Alseseca River provided numerous sections to keep us busy and never failed to put a smile on your face. This world class whitewater, combined with Aventurec’s awesome lodging and the ability to point at a picture in a guidebook and be dropped off there an hour later soon made it clear why Mexico is a kayaking mecca.
Paddlers: Wyatt Hyndman, Nathan Sass, Julio Danger, Dane Jackson, Kyle Burton, Jordan Poffenberger, Dylan Evans, Patrick Heindel
Unsponsored has had a presence on Instagram for some time. I really like the format and will be making a greater use of the site over the course of 2014.
Weekend Warriors from Erin Savage on Vimeo.
We put this video together to highlight good lines, to promote women in the sport and most importantly, to have fun with our friends! You’re not going to see any huge waterfalls or first descents in this video, but we hope you’ll find something that might motivate you in whatever you’re doing, whether it be work, school, or kayaking. See you on the river.
Sometimes a simple product just blows you away and this has certainly happened with the Threewaves Nose clips. I’ve been so impressed I have brought a few pairs back to the UK. If you fancy a pair give me a shout.
I’ve been using Smiley nose plugs for longer than I care to remember and have never moved away from them. I am a firm believer in the use of nose plugs and each of my helmets has (had) a Smiley nose plug attached and they have served me well. However that may have just changed with the arrival of these new nose plugs from Three Waves.
A couple of months ago I was kindly sent a pair of ThreeWaves nose clips from Germany.
2013 was a huge year for Unsponsored with an exponential growth in new visitors.
There are already number of plans in place to make 2014 even greater. In the meantime here are a few links to some of the most popular Unsponsored posts of 2013.
On the 2nd Jan 2014 Rory Woods ran Cauldron Snout on the River Tees (UK) and ended up taking a bad swim. Having successfully tackled the class V+ Cauldron Snout on several previous occasions Rory broke out of the top eddy and ran the Snout. Here are Rory’s unedited thoughts on what happened when it all went wrong.
Photo: Ben Johnson. Paddler: Rory Woods.
For context, the level is a bit higher than Sam (click to view video) ran it, with overspill on the dam as well as both pipes. I’ve run it a few times before, but always lower. It shook me a bit, and I hope I will learn from it. I’ve always believed in safety coming from the certainty that you will get the moves right, irrespective of the consequences. Of course, if the consequences are bad enough, you need to leave some margin in your level of certainty. Over lots of years of very gradually paddling harder and harder stuff, I really thought that my judgement of what I could definitely do was pretty accurate. I’ve always been a bit proud of my ability to get on and get pressure moves right without headgames getting in the way once I’d made a decision. It shocked me to go back and look at the rapid and think that maybe I’ve been fooling myself for a while in my desire to run stuff.
Paracord is super stuff. Now I am talking about about the full on 7 strand 550lb paracord and not the light duty stuff that is often passed off as the real thing.
Keeping on top of kit repairs is pretty straight forward and a little bit of TLC could prevent the damage getting worse.
Holes in most stuff can be repaired with Stormseal which is a clear flexible glue. I’d avoid the larger tubes as this stuff will go-off once opened. Keeping it in the fridge will help but you can get packs of 3 x 5g tubes which are superb.
I few mates of mine have also had good success using the Stormseal instant patches to repair dry tops. For breathable fabric McNett patches may be worth considering.
Stormseal will work great on most things including neoprene but I have found that black witch works even better on wetsuits and decks.
Once in a while your kit gets to a point where it is no longer safe to use or it simply doesn’t do its job as well as it should. When it does it is time to get rid.
The river is a powerful thing.
When experienced from the seat of a kayak, it teaches us important lessons, many of which apply to our day-to-day lives more than we immediately realize. After spending a lifetime immersed in the river and trying to understand its intricacies, I feel compelled to share few lessons that I’ve taken from the river to find a place in my day-to-day life. I smile when I think about any of these, and I love how often I am reminded of them on the water and in life…
1) Look Positive
When you are paddling through rapids on a river, you always look at where you want to go, and not at where you don’t want to go. You look positive. When you look directly at something, your whole body rotates in that direction, and your boat always follows your body. Your boat goes where you look. This applies to kayaking and any other sport you can imagine. You always look and paddle where you want to go, and you will go there. Continue reading
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