Jason Smith's The Ed

Bon Voyage to The Muss

CKUK Test Teamer and great friend Lee 'The Shylock' Musson has taken a brave step and jumped off the greasy pole of the Coventry business world and bagged himself a new role as the Centre Director at ROCK Outdoor Centre in bonny Scotland. As well as being a tidy boater 'The Muss' is also a bit of a mountain man all ice axes and crampons and pretty nifty on a mountain bike too. We're sure the team at ROCK will be inspired to great things with the site of Musso in his purple fleece salopttes everyday (he now has no reason to ever take them off). To send him on his way in style an evening of paddling at HPP Whitewater was in order followed by a Ruby Murray in nearby West Bridgeford. Much fun was had on the water with some good paddling on display on the water and a fine Jalfrezi finished things off nicely. In attendance were Dicky Mott, Steve 'Blackdog' Butller and Colin 'Wiggy' Fisher. Absent but there in spirit were Cheese and AlpJim Evans. We'll no doubt be heading 'up the road' on a more regular basis now to join the Muss on his local rivers and burns (and to make sure he's washed those purple nasties).

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The Race

Something a bit different. Headed over to Peterborough last night with cousin Anna to check out a city bike race. It's part of a series run by Halfords and featured some of the UK's best road riding talent. A short course is marked out within a city centre and the competitors then literally sprint for ten laps. Having spent a bit of time on a road bike recently getting ready for the London to Brighton I had new found respect for them. They went so fast and were so close together. It was scary just watching them as they thundered past milimetres from the crowd barriers. Bit like Boater-X, but faster and with tighter shorts!

Posted by Jason Smith

All Decked Out

That's it, with the addition of the new decking veranda (for summer time tea breaks) the office is done! As you can see from the pic even the dog approves ; )

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The New Canoe & Kayak Remote Office

Moved my gear in to the new office first thing this morning. Monitor, printer, phone and lap-top all installed and working great. It's all a bit bare at the mo' but once I get a few pics on the wall, year planner , book shelves etc it'll be looking like a home from home. Been a big job, but can't quite believe that I now have my very own office at the bottom of the garden. Even got decking outside for fitting boats out on, and 'al fresco' lunches of the BBQ kind. Brilliant. Big thanks to Brother-In-Law Dan and Jamie for all their hard work and skill in making it happen. Just need to install a kettle and coffee machine now and a sofa for when the rest of the CK Team come to visit and it'll be perfect ; )

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Paint Stops Play

Despite a fair mix of rain and shine this weekend all paddling plans had to be shelved in favour of... Painting the new CK office! God I hate painting but it needed to be done. After many hours of sploshing on the paint it was finally done and I emerged slightly spattered. It was then off to the carpet warehouse to bag an off cut, really the excitement was almost to much. After a few more hours with a Stanley knife it was laid and the new remote CK office was ready to move in to the following day.

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Shedding Blood For the Cause

Our mate Pete Holgate is bonkers about surf kayaking and on a recent trip to the South West to test out a clutch of Mega Surf Kayaks he literally shed blood for the wave riding cause. The surf was fairly heavy and conditions wern't great but we were having a blast, along with Phillip from Skern Lodge and Robyn from Mega. Pete was ripping it up in his Mega Boost when he managed to whallop himself on the conk with his paddle - Ouch! It was only a wee nick but with the water it looked gruesome. Didn't stop him catching a few more waves though. We'll be adding the full reviews of the surf kayaks to the 'Surf' area in the Features section ASAP.

Posted by Jason Smith