Stomper testing on the Green with Brown Claw

Brown Claw wants a Cracker

 Last season seemed to be the, thankfully, climax of the brown claw epidemic.  However I didn't enter my video into the Brown Claw archives so here it is.  You will see your basic Claw, The Spinning Claw, Under Over Claw, Double Claws of Fury, The Clap On Claw, The Clap on WTF, The Double Shocker Claw, The Claw of Terror, The Claw Your Way out of a Hole, The Preemptive Claw, The Claw Your Friend, and the Claw Your Way Up Out of the Water.

They Wander Downstream...I Claw My Way

Enjoy and May The Claw Be With You.
Shane

The Green River at 16"

Its not that different just a little more padding

Well now that I found this little nest of forgotten footage I might as well keep going.  Adriene and I got out on the river last winter at 16".  I was testing out one of the early protos of the Stomper 80.  It was a fun day just the two of us out there.  We didn't see a soul.

To me the river is actually easier and more fun at this level, except Gorilla of course.  The whole thing is just softer.  The boney rocks and slides that beat you up daily at normal flows are well padded and the extra juice makes it more splashy and bouncy.  Yes there are a few holes that become a bit more disconcerting but over all it makes the river easier.  The best examples of that are Go Left, Zwicks, and Sunshine.  At Go Left you can start to run down the entire left side of the whole rapid which makes it a direct line rather than having to paddle out on the dome and turn hard to run the slots at the bottom of the rapid.  In this video I run the sneak and Adriene comes down the Left Left line.  Just watch the log its pretty exposed at 16 and gets better as you go up.  At Zwicks you can run right of the top hole which takes this one from being one of the tougher rapids to being one of the easier.  You can't help but run out over the shallow slide.   At Sunshine as the levels get over 16 inches you can just run straight off the middle and pretty much clear the center rock.  Adriene ran straight and I ran the right line.  I should have run the straight line because I did flip over.   Gorilla is a beast and it gets really beastly as the water goes up.  We walked it.

Going Direct at Go Left

The down side to the river being this high or higher is that when things do go wrong they go wrong really quickly and in a much worse way.  Its going to be a long time before you can pull your boat out of the river if you swim and it may be a rapid or two before you can swim yourself to shore if you aren't aggressively swimming.  So if you are thinking about running this river at higher flows make sure you know the lines well and know you can deal with the issues that can arise.  If you have that covered this can be some of the best runs on the river you will ever have.

Oh and don't forget about Hammer Factor.  When the water levels rise the bad ass paddlers that are on this river at hi flows aren't worried about Go Left or Sunshine.  They are pinching a loaf about Hammer Factor.  Its big, nasty, and it gives grown boys and girls nightmares.

The Pit in Hammer Factor

Here is the video from the day.

Adventures from found footage: Testing the Stomper on Yellow Creek

I was sifting through my hard drive and stumbled across a few extra morsels of Stomper prototype goodness.  These tidbits came from a day when we were doing the classic chase the rain around looking at rivers that were too high or in the case of the Santeetlah the gate was locked and we couldn't get near the put in or take out so we had to opt for something that none of us had done and as always happens on these types of days we had 45 minutes of daylight.  Yellow Creek flows into the Cheoah River.  Its the last river on the American Whitewater database of rivers for North Carolina.  However we had no idea what we were getting into. We didn't know what the level should be but it looked paddleable.   We had no idea how long it would take but we did know that it was short and worst case we would be able to walk out in the dark if all hell broke loose.   As it turned out it was a fun short run that takes about 45 minutes.  The top 2/3rds is easy peasy, fun and cheesy.  The part from the falls down to the Cheoah River is pretty juicy with a nasty sieve and some fun read and run.  The Stomper rocked it in this tight and technical environment.  Mefford, Adriene, Snowy, and I had a great time.  Enjoy the flick. Fast and furious helmet cam love.

Cheers
Shane

2009 Jerry's Baddle

Jerry with friends


This past weekend was as nice as we have seen yet this year. Clear skies and 80 degree weather made a great weekend for Jerry's Baddle. The first thing most folks ask is, "Whats Jerry's Battle"? First its a Baddle Bike/Paddle and here is the description of what Jerry's Baddle is from the JB Website. "Jerry's Baddle is a dual sport race that began in 2006 to honor a good friend, Jerry Beckwith, who had been diagnosed with ALS. The race was born out of a desire to keep his spirit and passion alive by raising money to help fight the disease that took his life and to foster the community he loved.

Daniel slicking Go Left during the paddling segment

From that comes an event that is at the core of the paddling community around the Green River.
The Baddle is a very unique event because it combines two very different events, road biking, and class 5 kayaking. I am not sure how many entrants there were but the fact that there were somewhere around 50 people that could both paddle the narrows and ride a bike 26 miles is a pretty cool combination of skills.

Adam Herzog has been the reigning champion of this event for a while and he came into this one no different. The man is a living endurance machine. He has done things that I want to do in a lifetime in a single day. He has run across the Sahara desert and paddled the across the ocean as far as I am concerned and it didn't look any different at the beginning of this race. Adam was charging right away as was evident in his duel with Green Race Champ Andrew Holcombe. The two traded places a few times during the paddling section. So that meant that Zog was ripping down the paddling course.


Zog making the pass on Holcombe at Sunshine

Mefford Williams had been training tough on the bike for the last several months to get ready for this race and it showed as he powered up the switch backs of the Green Take Out road. Most folks don't know that he actually used to compete on the road bike before he was famous for floundering around in the mud for Vacation to Hell commercials. He is a regular for the Green Race so his paddling was solid as well. There was also another fast competitor Paul Stamilio. Let me just say that Paul f%$&*#@ flew on the bike and was chasing Mefford down the entire paddling course.



Mefford taking the "Glass Elevator"


Meff powering up the switchbacks

After the paddle everyone had kept their places. Zog was first off the beach, Holcombe was looking good in second but the bike was not a strong point, Mefford had held off Stamilio and they were headed into the heinous climb up the 18 switchbacks of Green River Road. This is where things started to change drastically.


The amphibian transition

This was shaping up to be a good Baddle. Nate and I jumped on my motorcycle to follow the bike action and we were thirsty by the time we got to the top of the hill I can't imagine what these guys were feeling. Things were changing quickly on the hill.
Zog the dominator was taken down by a flat tire that he changed quickly, Holcombe said mid climb, "I am dying", but Stamilio was still going hard, as was Mefford. While these guys were giving their all Nate and I stopped for a Gatorade, stalled my bike, and then couldn't get it started so we had to roll start it. I actually started to sweat after that.



Zog didn't want to chat


Uh Yeah the Roll Start

After the switch backs up the hill its a long down hill that was scarier than the Green to me. I dropped the bike back a gear and watched as Stamilio passed me like I was standing still. It was a little embarrassing but he was fricking flying. This is where his luck ended and his chain jumped gears, snapped, and broke. Then he threw his bike into the woods.

Stamilio passing me on my motorcycle during the race

Mefford pulling away

To the winner comes the spoils PBR on the head

Here is a link to an interview by LVM with Mefford Williams 2009 Jerry's Baddle Champ
Click Here

In the end Liquidlogic had an awesome day winning all three categories.
Mefford Williams winning the Solo Baddle
Jennifer Cribbs winning the women's Solo Baddle
Clayton Gar and Jed Hinkley Winning the Team Baddle
and Adriene Levknecht and Bob High taking third in the Team Baddle.

Here is a link to all the results.
2009 Jerry's Baddle Results


Jerry's Baddle, this year has raised more than $5000 dollars and still counting for the fight against ALS.

Congratulations ya'll!

After a great day of racing we had a few beverages listened to live music at the festival and then went up to The Purple Onion in Saluda for more music and dancing. A good time was had by all.
Thanks again to everyone that helped put on the Baddle. Its an awesome event.

Oh heres the video.

Jerry's Baddle 2009 from Shaneslogic on Vimeo.


The music from the video was all recorded live.

Thanks to:

The Scoot Pittman Trio
Red Dirt Floor
and
M.C. Suntan Lotion

Take it easy folks

Shane