Jason Smith's The Ed

Keep Creaking!

Right that's issue 76 off to the printers and I'm just sat in the office editing through the images from our recent jaunt to Corsica. I've been moaning about the ol' office chair giving me back ache recently and generally making out that sitting at a desk is a very bad thing for your health and well being, especially the poor old back and making my excuses to dissapear outdoors at every opportunity. Then I came across the image above, of yours truly, from that trip .. Doh! Busted! Almost literally in this case, maybe it's not the chairs fault after all. Could be just me but I'm sure the water at the bottom of the big ones gets harder as I get older. CK Teamster Wiggs was hobbling for a week after banging this 10mtr sneak line on the Rizzanese. As the saying goes: Old creek boaters don't fade away, they just get shorter... B-ooooooof!

Posted by Jay

Shouldn't You Lot be Paddling...

Blimey... Another weekend, another biking mission! Yep that's biking not boating. As the rivers were dry and we'd had an invite from long term CK Test Teamer, and good buddy, Wiggs to go and ride at a private Mountain Bike trail near the Peaks, it seemed like a good idea. Wiggs had been busy on the phone and e-mail and it was a pretty impressive turn out of two-wheeled paddling types that descended upon Valley-X on Sat Morning. Cheesey Robertson from Palm /Dagger, Bob Campbell from Pyranha. Hard boatin', hard biking lady Ali Collet. Tim Sadler (formerly of the Pyranha parish now big in the skate/snow world), Wiggs, new World Squirt Boating Champion Ben White.com and yours truly. The trails were totally sick and we all had a blast haring about and flying through the air. As usual Cheese was scary, Bob was smooth and Ali went hard. Tim and Ben were clipped in, so big props to them, and a big thanks to Wiggs for sorting it and to John for letting us ride. Mud and rock are a lot harder on the wipeouts though than water, so it’ll be back to the boats for the next mission. Ben says that Wednesday night squirt sessions are going off at HP, so I think a spot of green room action is on the cards for this coming week. For Tim's mini-movie go here: http://vic-tim-project.blogspot.com/2007/05/valley-x-mountain-biking-movie.html

Posted by Jay

The Need for Speed

The Test Team have had one of the new Pyranha Speeders out on test for a while now. It'd been getting plenty of action in the fast touring, fitness training and even sea paddling departments, but somehow it found itself on the roof-rack for a recent trip to the whitewater course at Nottingham. The first few runs were straight down no messing affairs. Then the eddy hopping started then it just got silly. Should've expected it with Jim Evans and Blackdog Butler in attendance. It all started by attempts to loop and pirouette the Speeder in the Looping pool feature. Next Jim managed to pull a 360, but then as he paddled through the Muncher he flipped against the wall and despite several roll attempts he made like a guppy and swam. I was up next and with the other goons yelling advice from the side gave it a good shot in the hole. A flip saw me take two attempts to roll and I came up spluttering and gasping. Blackdog was next and after some fannying around in the hole he too flipped and then also did a pretty good impression of having gills as he swam off downstream... Much to the amusement of old school rodeo dude Ray Hudspith and a bunch of junior slalomists! We had an absolute scream in the Speeder. For the full review check out the forthcoming issue of CK (76) on sale 5th of June

Posted by Jay

Shaken Not Stirred

It's a strange old game running a mag. One day I'm stuck in front of the keyboard for 12 hours and the next I'm buying plastic toy guns, bow ties and nearly being run over by a monster 4 x4 on the banks of HP! With the release of the new Dagger Agent freestyle boat it seemed like a good excuse for some photo-shoot fun. Mr Gear Jim Evans was recruited as James Pond CK007, a Bowler racing 4 x 4 was somehow procured, gadgets were gathered, henchmen recruited, arms dealt, a Pond girl charmed and it was off to the whitewater centre at Nottingham for a wet and wild secret Agent adventure. Make mine a martini!

Posted by Jay

Sweet Jumps!

Rain, Rain, Rain... Dartmoor in flood, Wales kicking off and what do we do this weekend? Go biking of course! Talk about missing the window of opportunity. While the rest of the paddling world probably loaded up the roof rack and headed for the nearest torrent. I drove down the stream masquerading as the A1 to Chicksands in Bedford to meet up with fellow ‘bad planner’ Paul 'Cheesey' Robertson. It wasn't all doom and gloom though as we made up for missing out on some epic paddling by scaring ourselves silly on the freeride, north shore, dual slalom and 4X tracks. Cheese bikes like he boats, which is both impressive and scary at the same time. Still it was fun watching the poor fellow twitch as he watched the weather that evening... Ah well next time. For info: www.bedsfattrax.org

Posted by Jay