Entropy Gear, bloody good gear

Check out these awesome sunnys.
Perfect for those sunny boating days in England. Entropy Gear is a new company started by a bloody nice bloke in Australia named Jez, check out these sunnys and all their other products at www.entropygear.com



JB

Happy Christmas

Happy Christmas and have an awesome new year.
Go boating.

JB

Jackson Kayak Team week

Reflections on my time in the states with Jackson Kayak.

The week after the world cup had finished Jackson Kayak set up a JK Team week. This week would include a busy schedule, from a Factory tour to improving your hand roll, with just a week to cover so many aspects of Jackson kayak, we were in for treat.

Team JK

Based in Rock Island National park were a set of cabins, I say cabins these things were more like 4 bedroom houses, with Sky TV, king size beds a full kitchen and a full fridge, this is where the JK team were going to be based for the duration of team week.
The Idea of team week was for EJ and Kristine to get to know the paddlers on the team and to understand our individual goals as paddlers and people. Also for us as team members to gain a better understanding of Jackson Kayak as a company and what they stand for. We were introduced to EJ’s training strategies for competition and general paddling and fitness. We had seminars from EJ on topics including, how to deal with the media, competition, and dealers (shops). We were told more about the kayaks, how they worked and how they were put together, factory tour. And we also had demo days where we would invite the general public to come and try kayaking and ask questions. This was just half of what we covered in the time we were at Tennessee, all team members had a great experience and we all gained greater knowledge of Jackson Kayak the Jackson’s and their many animals.

As time went on I started to realise that being a member of Jackson Kayak was a very special thing. What the Jackson’s put on for us in Tennessee was unreal, I have never heard of any kayak company doing what the Jackson’s did for us out in Tennessee it was a real pleasure to be a part of what they had and am very grateful for the whole experience, thank you guys.

Their ramp

Jackson Kayak sell kayaks yes, but they are also so much more than that. Their goal is to make kayaking more accessible for everyone, from kids to adult’s whitewater to flat water, they want to bring more people to enjoy and experience the sport that we love so much.

To find out more about Jackson Kayak visit jacksonkayak.com

JB

Our own little paradise

It is so great to have this beautiful wave on our doorstep.
Hopefully levels will stay up and OLP will continue to shine.

An evening to remember

Shepperton weir last night was probably at its best level yet. I have paddled on some of the best waves in the world and last night was probably one of the best wave sessions ever.
On far surfers left the wave was steep and green with a nice braking pile on top, setting up was easy and the harder you bounced the bigger you went. Airscrews, Pan ams, Helix’s they all went, a great evening.
Sadly like all the best play sessions, I didn’t have my camera, oh well. The wave now has flattened off and it is very hard to catch, hopefully we will get Shep at that great level again soon, one of the best waves in the world.
Sunbury at the moment is also a nice braking green wave in the middle, looks great but is near impossible to get on, check it out and good luck.

JB

Photo. Pete Scutt

This was Sunbury this morning, great if you can get on, the far left was greening out nicely.

Shepperton is still rocking

So Shepperton is still good to go. It seems mornings are a good level then it gets progessively worse during the day. Not much rain this week so we'll see what happens.

Shepperton is on

With all the rain Shepperton has risen from the ashes.
Im not sure iv seen the weir at this level for about 3 years. The weir pool is still going up so it is turning into more of a hole as you read.
Don't miss it on it's way down.





Shepperton video

A small Hurley film

Due to having to go to work :( the only time to go boating is first thing in the morning.
Check out this small film from the other day.

A Hurley morning start

Palm gear

Thanks to the boys at Palm Equipment Europe for sorting me out with some brand new gear , and just in time for winter.
To find out more about Palm Equipment check out their website.
JB

Water brings the waves

Sunbury weir had been undergoing development for a while and the result is a whole new set of gates similar in size to boulters. With the heavy rain we received a couple of days ago the gates are now open and are forming an awesome braking wave. We paddled hard on Sunday and had some great rides, hopefully with more rain dew the gates will stay open a while longer.
You paddle up the river left eddy and brake out height to catch it. In the middle there is a steep green wave and either side are 2 big wave holes. The green part of the wave is great to surf but can be surge and isn't always as sticky as it looks. It's best to surf just left or just right of the greenest part, you can then set up high, come down fast a throw some really big moves. Some video will be up on the site soon. Check out the pics.
JB

More Pics

Sunbury Teaser

Team JK

Thaks to Sandro from Switzerland for this shot, i think it was taken in West Virginia after eating a Subway.

Down with Winter

So the Winter season is now upon us, or at least it feels like it.

We need some rain, the Thames is getting lower and there's not much rain forecast, its getting desperate, I might have to start doing something else, like running.
Lets hope it rains soon, start dancing.

White Water The Canoe Centre are going through some changes and are spicing up the shop with a bit of a Hawaiian feel, all we're missing is sand, sun, girls and coconuts.

Photo Shoot

Took a day out with Debs to shoot some life style shots the other day. We spent the day in Bath walking around, snapping away we had a great time.

Thanks to Deb Pinniger for these photos.

British Selection 2006

Just a week after British Champs came the 2006 British Team Selection held at HPP, again another great weekend seeing some awesome rides on the top hole and Muncher, I made 3rd place on the team, an important 2 weeks over and some great results for the record.
Check out UK Freestyle for the full results.

Canada Update

Canada is awesome, at the moment the Ottawa is on level 0 which means the Garb is turning green, its still good to catch but it'’s getting harder to retain moves. Left side is good most moves go and baby face has turned a tad flushy, corner wave is still good. We hope the level will go down soon.
I had a bit of an epic with my kayak the other day, I had tied my boat to a trailer to get to the put in, when we got there I found by boat trapped in between the trailer and the ground when I turned the boat over the I found a hole about 30cm wide in bottom right hand side, the boat had dragged on the road all the way from put in to take out and melted it clean, not good. I'm borrowing an All Star at the moment until I get my new boat, it should be coming this week. The river'’s pretty busy at the moment but I think its only going to get busier as it nears the world cup.

We did an over nighter trip to the Gatineau to surf a wave called High Tention, the wave was at its best we had an awesome time, check out some pics.

Canada and World Cup 06

Jon.

GB Championships

So the Peak Challenge and British Champs are over, a great result for me and also for Jackson Kayak, with the brand new Fun winning the Peak Challenge and the good old All Star winning the British campionships. The whole weekend ran really well seeing some great rides had by some great paddlers. thanks again to Pete Astles for puting on the event. Check out the Peak site for Results.

The World Cup

Rock Island is a beautiful place, a small town of about 300 people, quite and very relaxing, which is great as we had been on the road for a week, it was nice to chill out. The Jacksons set us up with these really smart cabins, showers, kichen and sky tv, awesome.

So on friday we were all assigned training slots and then the competition kicked of with the junior men.
The hole was interesting, a powerful pile and a fast steep geen, it was possible to throw wave moves but then also still be able to throw ends and most of your hole moves.

The whole competition saw domination from the JK team, with the top spots for the men, junior men, women and junior women, some really amazing rides were seen by the locals.


Rock Island Ride


Rock Island Pics


World Cup Medalists!
September 17, 2006
World Cup Final Results- Top 3

Men’s Pro
Eric Jackson- USA
Stephen Wright- USA
Clay Wright- USA

Junior Women
Sara Hunter -USA
Noria Newman- France
Alexandra Shallhorn- Canada

Women’s Pro
Tanya Faux- Australia
Emily Jackson- USA
Ruth Gordon- Canada

Junior Men
Nick Troutman- Canada
Dane Jackson- USA
Sam Sutton- New Zealand

C-1
Guillaume La Rue- Canada
Seth Chapelle- USA
Joe Stumpfel- USA

OC-1
Eli Helbert- USA
Jez Blanchard-Australia
Jeremy Lauks- USA
Dooley Tombras- USA

Squirt women
Devon- USA
Valerie Bertrand- Canada
Kim Gauthier- Canada

Squirt men
Koyo Morita- Japan
Jeremy Lauks- USA
Matt McGuire- Canada

The Black

So the event at the black river is over and overall the top 10 spots were pretty close to the previous event at the Ottawa. There was some confusion over where the event was going to be held, Route 3 wave or Hole Brothers, it was decided the day before that the water level was to high for Route 3 wave to run, so the event moved down stream to Hole Brothers, a shallow but fun hole.

After the comp had finished we got to run the rest of the Black river, which was a fun class ¾ run with some nice pool drops and interesting lines.

Check out some pics
The Black NY




The Black river

A few Pommies back from Lyon

Adam Norfolk and Pringle have just returned from Lyon. Sounds like they've had an awesome time, check out this link to read more.
Pommie News

Update

So the summer has started and the Thames weirs are now closed till the winter. I took a trip down to Chertsey today for a quick splash, might take up Squirt boating for the summer.
I'm looking forward to my next trip which is going to be to the Lyon festival and Plattling rodeo then back home for the European Champs. Adam Norfolk and Pringle are heading out to Lyon for a week and at the moment the water levels are high so they should have a good time. Ed Smith has just arrived back from Uganda and is back up in Scotland, but i'm sure you'll see him soon ripping at your local play spot.
I'll update soon and leave you with this pic, wish i was there.
Welcome back Pas.
JB
Hairy Lemon, Uganda

Emily Wall wins Student rodeo

I went up to HPP on Saturday morning after a great session at Hurley on four. It was the student rodeo that weekend and I went up to support Em and maybe go for a paddle myself. As it happens I didn't paddle, but instead took some photos and watched the carnage. Em was competing in the senior women's pro event and she proved to be very consistent in all her runs, that payed off very well and she came on top winning the event. Dicky also won the men's event so Loughboro uni were very pleased. Im back down south now and Hurley has turned into a nice three gates, enjoy.
Em, space godzilla

Uganda Film

Iv just finished making a small movie of my trip to Uganda, click on the link to check it out.

Uganda The Nile

My trip to Uganda

So iv just returned from the mighty white nile and trying very hard to adjust to the cold weather and water. I had an awesome time, Africa is an amazing place, the people are so friendly and welcoming the food was great and plenty and the paddling was second to none. Me and Ed went out on the 8th of Feb and iv just got back, Ed's out there for a another 5 weeks im very jealous.
So we arrived in Uganda and got taxi from Entebbe airport to NRE which is at the very top of the raft run. We then got a matartu down to the Hairy Lemon island where we would base ourselves for about 2 weeks.
When we arrived we were told that the river was very low and that the Nile Special wave was not as good as usual and they were right, in fact the river was the lowest its been for ten years and still is, i think it’ll be a while before it goes back up.
We chose to make up our own decision about the wave and that evening we paddled up stream for about 10 mins and had a n evening session on the special. The wave was nowhere near as big as usual and it was quite hard to retain the bigger moves. The Canadian boys who had been staying on the island for a while had set up a tow rope so that you could catch the wave from the eddy. Despite the wave not being as good as usual we still had great fun and got big air. We based ourselves on the Lemon for a while and got loads of wave boating done plus video footage and loads of photos. While at the bar at the Lemon we over heard Steve Fisher talking about a new wave that he’d found down on the left channel at Malalu. So a couple of days later we tripped down there and sure enough there was a nice wave on the left channel. The original Malalu wave at these low levels had changed into a big nasty hole so we spent our time on the new wave that we named mu2. All the current wave moves could be done and you could evan pull of a few ends in the pit, very cool.

While we at the Lemon Steve Fisher had his birthday and so as you could imagine there was no need for an excuse to have a massive party. So we did party and also invented the Waragi Cup which we think was possible the biggest volleyball competition ever held in Uganda, with 7 teams and 40 drunk kayakers and raft guides we played some very bad volleyball, but awesome fun. Also i had my birthday outhere and the arrival of an overland truck made for a good party.
We ran the day 2 section a few times and then headed up to NRE on the way there we stopped at Kalagalla and did a park and huck session, a first for me. We ran Kalagalla a few times and then carried on to the top.

We based our selves at Eden Rock and from there ran the Silverback run everyday. Because of the low levels the rapids had slightly changed and so it was great fun exploring. A cool left line on Bujigali falls and a very nice wave on the ugly sisters rapid. Total Gunga rapid was good fun but the g-spot hole is now a very big pit of doom, im not sure you would want to be there at this level.

I think one of the scariest experiences of my life was when when we decided to run the river in the evening after it had been raining very very hard, bad idea. Top tip, if its wet do not run the river. The boda ride took 3 times as long as it should, we were sliding out all over the place, we had to walk a lot of it, it started to rain and then got dark, we all got split up and then i smashed some guy in the face with the end of my kayak while doing about 20 mph, to this day i still don't know if he was ok, ooops.
In the evenings we spent our time eating in the famous Green Light Restaurant and chilling out at Edan Rock. After a while up at the top we decided to finnish of back down at the Lemon for some more surfing. Some big moves were going off, pan ams, pistol flips, helixes, it was a good way to end the trip.
Thank you to Rob, Erin and Austin for making our stay on the Lemon a memorable one.
Africa has made a big impression on my life and has opened my eyes to another lifestyle and way of living. The people are very content and happy with what they have. I will never forget there waves and smiles.

Jon B