Team Liquidlogic Kayaks - The Kayak Blog » Competition

Brush Creek 2012 for RG

Shon Bollock — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 03:24:06 +0000

My life has been chaos as usual rolling into midterms but last weekend was the Brush Creek race outside Kernville, CA. The race went well with some fast racers laying it down and I ended up taking 6th place in the short boat division off the couch from pushin pencils.

We did a showing of Slippery When Wet Saturday night after the race and overall it was an amazing weekend with all da homies remembering the life of our friend Randolph Green. RG was someone who always loved his Brush Creek laps and it was great to be around so many people ready to celebrate his life. Sunday the 22nd I witnessed my first daytime meteor and out of sheer luck caught it on my GoPro. Enjoy the edit from the weekend of partying, racing, and honoring the life of a good man.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Check out photos and more at at www.shastaboyz.com

Russel Fork Race 2011

Eric Deguil — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 22:05:31 +0000

Vous voyez, même les navettes sont king size ici !? Malgré tout, ça n’a pas été simple d’en trouver une.

N’ayant pu faire qu’une seule et unique descente de reconnaissance de la Russel Fork river. Il n’a pas été simple de se faufiller dans ce labyrinthe pendant un peu moins de 7 minutes.

La photo ci-dessus est le premier rapide de la portion de course (nous avions deux fois le niveau d’eau de la photo pour la compétition).

Avec une première moitié de course sans faute, je fini malgré tout par me tromper de passe en confondant deux rapides ! Du coup j’ai dû improviser pour revenir dans les bonne lignes.

Je fini très content à la troisième place à moins de 6 secondes du premier, Isaac Levinson qui devient le nouveau Lord of the Fork en detronant Andrew Holcomb (deuxième).

Maintenant, ce périple américain se focalise sur la légendaire Green race. La course extrême la plus difficile du monde. Pour ajouter encore un peu de piment, on change de forme de kayak.

Tout comme sur la Russel Fork race, la catégorie reine est le long boat. Des kayaks de plus de 3,50 m de long prototypé exclusivement pour ce genre de course. De la formule un de la haute rivière !

Le plus grand danger étant bien sùr le coincement. Quand par exemple on doit se faufiller dans un rapide où la seule sortie fait 70 cm de large…l’erreur ne pardonne pas.

En bande annonce de cette épreuve hors du commun, un petit montage made in eastern…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Adidas sickline 2011

Eric Deguil — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 19:24:43 +0000

Cette année semble me porter sous l’étoile de: “la guigne” !

Après mes trois mois de corset, me voilà opéré en urgence ce 15 aôut pour un abcès au talon d’Achille… Vive l’eau du gave de Pau et sa pollution. Presque trois semaines plus tard et nombre de séances de musculation pour me calmer les nerfs j’étais de nouveau sur l’eau et au travail. Seulement, c’était sans compter sur les effets indésirables des antibiotiques qui ont fini de perturber mon entrainement et ma préparation pour la Sickline.

Eirc Deguil - Photo by Manuel Arnu

Fortifié par les 17 heures de voiture entre Pau et Oetz un bon groupe de Pyrénéen franco- espagnol était donc dans le Tirol.

Eirc Deguil

Une belle semaine. Un temps plus que radieux, de l’eau dans les rivières en très belle quantité pour nous rafraichir et s’était l’heure de la course.

La guigne semblant m’avoir suivi jusqu’en Autriche, c’est donc à tout juste 20 mètres du débarquement de mon ultime descente d’entrainement, la veille du début des festivités que je me retrouve le corps compréssé entre la falaise et mon kayak poussé par l’eau. Résultat: une côté bien maché et les intercostaux défoncés !

La douleur montant crescendo, je passe le stade de la qualification avec difficulté. 25 ème et vraiment pas sùr de courrir les phases final le lendemain.

Eirc Deguil with the Liquidlogic Remix

Deux solutions: – Faire forfait et me rentrer sagement à la maison récuperer (encore). – Serrer les dents sachant que ma côte n’était pas cassée et que mon intercostable exprimait la sensation d’un coup de couteau.

Fafa avait la solution. Deux tours de buste en bande velpo et scotch “power tape”. Si je pouvais descendre “Vellerbrucke” pour le warm up obligatoire, il y avait des chances pour que je puisse faire la course.

Eirc Deguil with the Liquidlogic Remix

Dans la douleur mais content d’y être je vais courir la Super final ! A chaque descente je me suis appliqué sur ma gestuelle pour limiter la douleur et surtout éviter la sortie de route que je n’aurais pas pû recuperer.

Lors du run de final, la douleur été terrible dès le tiers de la course, juste au milieu du plat. Mais surtout ne rien lacher.

Ce fût ma plus belle descente de la sickline en 4 ans. Isaac mon pote américain est venu m’aider à sortir de mon kayak pour aller faire la dernière interview. J’ai vraiment eu très mal, j’ai fini au mental.5 ème.

Pour visioner la course de final cliquez sur la photo.

Eirc Deguil with the Liquidlogic Remix

Tales from Teva: Part 2 Homestake

Ross Herr — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 11:06:07 +0000

Homestake Creek race attracts people from all over the world. It’s the opportunity to gauge yourself with the best paddlers in the sport. Olympians, future Olympians, World Champs, world cup slalom kayakers, and even the locals all show up to put down their best two runs. Racers come for the $2,000 cash prize, the fame, the american women, or just for the love of competition. This year was some of the tightest competition I’ve ever seen in kayak racing. No one person stood out as the obvious choice for the leader. The flow was around 100 cfs making it just pushy enough to bounce off some rocks and not enough to make it any cleaner. Keeping your kayak up to speed was key with so many direction changes and places to accelerate all over the course.

Teva and the Vail Valley Foundation really know what’s going on when it comes to timing as well. They had on location the exact same timing system used for the Birds of Prey World Cup Ski races in November. So, when Honza Lasko and Mike Dawson tied for first place down to the hundredth of a second there was no questioning it and they fairly split the winnings between themselves, each taking home $1,500. Local transplant Jakub Nemec also crushed his way down finishing 3rd place for the men. On the ladies side it was Adrienne Levknecht holding the top spot for Team Liquidlogic. She killed it on both her runs with her first run good enough to put her in the top 10 of the men!

Brianne Horton was on the camera again capturing some awesome moments from the event. Check them out below.

Mike Dawson, tied for 1st.

Honza Lasko, tied for 1st.

Jakub Nemec, 3rd.

Adrienne, stomping her way to 1st.

Isaac Levinson, with a strong 6th.

Me, Liquidlogic Black Ops style, 12th place.

Nicole Mansfield, representing for Demshitz women.

Till next year, start training hard ‘cus you know the competition is.

SYOTR

Tales from Teva: Part 1

Ross Herr — Tue, 31 May 2011 18:47:36 +0000

After the PaddleFest weekend we grabbed Ted Keyes, the Liquidlogic rep for the western U.S. and routed a lap down Pine Creek to cool down from our first weekend of Colorado sun. I grabbed a Remix 79 from his truck and we all followed down in close Team Liquidlogic style. Such a beautiful river and great way to end the weekend of fun.

Another beautiful pic from Brianne:

The crew in close comfort:

Of course, enjoying the sun in Colorado is never too good to be true. Monday morning we woke to 40 degree temperatures that quickly dropped as we climbed up the pass for some training runs on Homestake creek. I was pumped to put some scratches on my brand-new Black Ops Jefe Grande and get a feel for my local run again. Here are some scenes from the high water training laps on Monday morning.

Isaac flying down his first training run of the season:

Mike Dawson, another strong contender about to take his Leap of Faith on the bottom drop. Definitely trickier at the higher flows:

Honza Lasko, the Czech representation:

And we finished up just in time for the strong storm to swing in. Snow in the end of May, only in CO:

Here is a quick video clip that Team Liquidlogic Isaac Levinson put together from one of his training laps. Enjoy:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Whitewater Grand Prix Updates 11-14 BFTV

Evan Garcia — Mon, 30 May 2011 08:35:44 +0000

Here are the last 4 videos of the BFTV Grand Prix saga! They took us a lot of work to put together and we are proud of them….NOT. It was pure good times, a lot of work, but its what we love doin’. Hope you guys all enjoyed the content, music, and style we put forth here on these edits. The Grand Prix was one of the best and most fun things me and my kayak have ever been a part of…Millions of thanks top Pat Cambin and Julie who made this event possible. All the people who came together and competed or helped out…it was a huge team effort and all in all we killed it! Hopefully I will be invited back for next years comp and hopefully I will bring some more heat in my play boat. I guess that means I need to actually go play boating. I was throughly impressed with what I saw coming from the top guys in the play world…crazy air and control! They are really taking it to the next level out there…

For now I’m back in Montana, my homeland kayaking bit getting ready for the summer of madness that is about to ensue. The west coast is so packed with snow that the run off has barely started. So there is gonna be some serious potential for some huckings and surfings. Enjoy the last 4 updates…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Big Water on the Misstasini River…

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The downriver freestyle event and more big water brownings…

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The sickest “rodeo” of all times!

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The stout ass Giant Slalom race!

Some photo updates coming soon!!!!

Later E.G.

Whitewater Grand Prix days 6-10 videos

Evan Garcia — Sun, 29 May 2011 08:27:17 +0000

Coming at ya hot…day 6-10 from the Whitewater Grand Prix. Tyler Bradt and I put these videos together everyday to show all the people back home how things were going up there in Quebec. Continue to enjoy the videos and make sure to keep your eyes on egcreekin and bombflow.com for more exciting updates and stories to come…I’m back in Montana and it’s raining harder than I have ever seen before.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Gladiator Big Trick Competition!

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Ruins Wave session followed by hot tub fiasco!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Rouge River big water boater cross!

Click here to view the embedded video.

White Dog section of the Rouge river!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Steep Creek Race in La tuque, Quebec!

Hope you guys are digging the videos…more to come!

Later E.G.

Oh Spring, How I Love You.

Liquidlogic Ladies Lounge — Thu, 19 May 2011 17:05:10 +0000

So this year has been a pretty slow start for my paddling. Im not paddling as much as I normally do since I am now back in Paramedic school here in Asheville full time. I still do paddle more than the average weekend warrior. Above is Mark Zwick. Of Zwick’s Backender, on the Green River right here in North Carolina. Which, to clear it up, he really told me it was a forward ender because he was backwards once he hit the hole at the bottom. Hes living over by the NOC where we were for the first annual Cascades Race!

This race was awesome. Its all road side and we had bout 22 people come out for it. Check out that coverage on www.shaneslogic.blogspot.com . Just gonna say for the record, Liquid Logic swept the field by taking 5 out of the first 6 places…. including myself.

have also been “training” on the side for a 26 mile road bike race that goes up the notorious 17 switchbacks of Green River Cove Rd. Jerrys Baddle is a race down the whole Green River Narrows and then jump on a bike and head around a 26 mile loop that goes through historic Saluda NC , up and down some huge hills, and finishes next to the river. Its also a fundraiser for ALS so the entrance fee goes to a good cause! P.S. the river was a bit higher that usual so there was definately a pucker effect going on prior to the race., as you can see from the photo above.

Since the Green River is my home river I am out there a lot. Especially lately with school really cramping my style. So one day last weekend Shane surprized me with this awesome BRIGHT PINK Jefe. I was so excited! It even matches my fingernail polish. Immediately, my style came back.

Riding high on the Flying Squirrel above Gorilla, spotting my landing for a hopefully clean run through the Notch.

All of us here in the Southeast are enjoying the sun and the warm weather. We are already wearing shorties on the river and almost too hot! Woody is wearing his spring cotton by now.

Sunshine! Airing it out.

Releived I made it through one more day on the Green River in my awesome Pink boat.

So now the question is, how do ya’ll like it? Would you paddle one? Give us your feedback and also at the same time check out the awesome black ops colors that we are doing coming in June!!!

www.liquidlogickayaks.com

Now that its warm here and I am on a short break from school I went to the Ocoee over the weekend and I also started this new thing, called “mountain biking” its really fun.

Hope its warm where you all are!! Happy paddles.

I leave you all with this awesome photo of the breakfast that I ate the day of the Green Race last year. Breakfast of champions clearly.

All photos by Shane Benedict himself.

1-5 BFTV Grand Prix Updates

Evan Garcia — Thu, 19 May 2011 17:00:40 +0000

Ok egcreekin hommies sorry about the scares updates the last two week, but priorities were towards the bombflow.com site and getting hits and traffic for our new project…bombflow TV! These videos have been up for about 10 days or so depending on the day, but if you haven’t seen them they are all epic, all time, brown, awesome-ness! This is day 1-day 5 and there is plenty more from where this came from…enjoy the sick cinematography, edits, tunes, and kayaking!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Days 6-10 edits coming soon and tons of photos to go along with them! Insane amounts of epic content came from this event make sure to check out everybody’s sites to get the full picture and all the stories.

Later E.G.

The First Official Nantahala Cascades Race

Shane Benedict — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 06:44:34 +0000

John, Toby, Adriene, Biscuit, Tater, and I loaded up the van and hauled a bunch of boats over to the First Annual Cascades Race on the Nantahala river Wednesday night. Last week the call went out over the Facebook airwaves that there was going to be a race on Cascades. We love us some extreme racing down here in the south so we knew we wanted to support this event on one of the classic southeastern sections of creek boating. The race had a 5pm start, I love day light savings time so we had time to work most of the day then head over for a couple practice runs before it all went down.

As is per usual Toby “honey badger” MacDermott was faster, smoother, and in better shape than all of us so he took the top honors. He was so fast I never got a picture of him. Note the stylie medals made by Candice. Thanks Candice!

Adriene laid down a scorching time as the only female entrant into the race. In fact she hurt a lot of boys feelings by coming in 5th! However the highlight of her night was meeting the infamous Mark Zwick. If you have ever run the Green you will remember the rapid called Zwick’s and you thought why in the world is this rapid called Zwick’s? Well its because Mark Zwick had that rapid named after him, and I will let him tell you that story.

The top 5 results as I understand them are:

1. Toby Macdermott
2. John Grace
3. Some asshole named Shane Benedict
4. Jon Clark / Tommy Yon tied
5. Adriene Levknecht

Here is a video I put together of my race run with a gopro and some other shots at Big Kahuna (the biggest rapid on the run)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Cheers Shane