So today is the last day of the year... but it will also be my first of many days shredding in the new medium sized Biscuit.A few days ago my friend Pat Keller came up from NC to visit and paddle a bunch of rivers in the Western Maryland/West Virginia region with me and my roomate Issac Levinson. The exciting part of this story is that Pat was also playing delivery driver for my shiny new Ice Blue Biscut!
When he arrived, many of the creeks were still raging, so I had to relax my excitement of hopping in this new playboat to instead show Pat down some of the area's finest creeks. Today was my first opportunity to paddle the Biscut, and despite the fact that it
Now I don't want anyone to think this is a comprehensive review of the Biscut's playboating abilities because after about 30 seconds in a hole I couldn't feel my eyeballs. But what I will tell you is that this boat feels really good so far. I am leaving for China in 12 days where I will be playboating the big water rivers for the next 3 months so stay tuned because I will be posting a lot of photos and feedback about the Biscut.
As far as today goes, this is my impression:
River Running:
Everyone knows that tiny playboats are not ideal for serious river running, but some definately perform better than others. The Biscut was suprisingly easy to paddle on the turbulent waters of the Upper Yough. The boat is very stable due to the flat hull and, fortunately, the edges were not as catchy as I expected. The Biscut also feels more narrow than it is due to the tapered design of the area around the body. I like this improvement over the Ronin because the boat does
not feel bulky and allows for more torso mobility when performing many of the new tricks. Paddling down river, I had an absolute blast auto-boofing every little lip I came across. The edges on the Biscut are super usable and I had a lot of fun slicing across diagonals and skimming over holes. I never once felt out of control and, actually, had a great time just using the water as my kayak's skate-park. Suckhole wasn't even a problem as I dropped an edge and let the Biscut plane right over the big holes in the meat of the rapid. This little sucker gets a thumbs up from me on the water. Can't wait to get it to China!!Playboating:
Catching waves and holes on the fly was the name of the game today. Too cold to stay and play. The first feature I got to play on was a fast wave with a little bit of backwash to keep you in. Front surfing was automatic, the rocker on the bow had the Biscut itching to pop into the air but I wanted to keep it on the ground to see how it handled carving back and forth. Once again, the chines on this boat were designed very well and I had no problem keeping control of the boat while spinnig and carving on command. While back-surfing, I tested out a few pops to feel how the hull would release on a McNasty. It was just too darn cold to go for it, but i feel its not going be a problem.
Next stop was a small but retentive hole. I threw about 16 ends in a row and hit the freezing point. The Biscut felt stable on its ends and come around quick. Switching edges mid rotation was easy, and I really just can't wait to get it on a good wave to see the full potential.
Keep checking the Liquid Logic forum for more updates on the Biscut as we go to China in just 2 short weeks.
Cheers
No comments:
Post a Comment