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…and here we are hammer factor # 38 ‘Zinke Wins, Real Paddling Porn And Verus Kayaks’.

Sho notez Dec 15th 2017

INTROS:

Well, in the halcyon days before the allegations of impropriety and sexual misconduct cascade in from a dozen ex LVM and amongstit interns (#NoTouchies), we celebrate yet another episode of The Hammer Factor- episode 34 (?) “We’re Huge In Japan”.

Weld is back from overseas, and finds that the boys left the place in a mess. The carpet is covered in smashed cheetohs and empty beer cans, and it looks like Shane Benedict has crashed on the sofa with no signs of leaving. Some smartass has made a crude crayon drawing on the wall of two male stick-figures “in flagrante” on an SUP.

Nonetheless, we push forward. On today’s show we’re going to talk with Josh Pecaric from Verus Kayaks, which if you are not aware, is a whitewater kayak startup based in Richmond VA. From the looks of things, Verus makes just about everything that Jackson does, and a couple things they don’t, without the fun of actually having a Jackson involved. We’ll get to the bottom of how he got started, where he thinks the industry is going, and most importantly, why on earth he decided this was a good idea.

But first, we must catch up a little.

Cue Chopins Funeral March, its time for Louis “Low Point” Geltman to get us up to speed on the state of affairs on the political front. I suppose the big news is the developments on bears ears/ staircase-escallante. A good starting point on this is WAPO’s article on Patagonia suing the Trump admin:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2017/12/12/patagonia-is-suing-the- president-and-drawing-ire-from-republicans-in-congress/?utm_term=.15e8075d04e6

The HNRC, to their credit, issued a zinger, tho, claiming that Patagonia is attempting to “sell more products to wealthy elitist urban dwellers from New York to San Francisco”. Later, Zinke himself said on Fox News that Patagonia is a “ ‘special interest’ that makes its products in China” and that the company “should focus on how to bring manufacturing back into the country instead of lying to the public about losing federal land.” Burn on you, Yvonne.

Anything else this week?

On a lighter note, here’s some viewer mail, or, more accurately, Topics that Will Not Die

We understand that coming to grips with the truth- despite years of misinformation from Big Paddle- wont be easy, so I suppose we’re shouldn’t be surprised that many listeners are struggling with the 60 degree offset. Max Posner and Tyler Houck in particular wrote in and mentioned Jim Snyder’s article on a 40 offset, and that perhaps we should have him on. First of all, if you need to transition to a real paddle with a 40 offest first, thats fine. Second, Weld has talked with Jim about this and asked him if he wanted to come on the show, so that is a possibility.

Bobby ‘Zone Dogg” Miller also wrote in, mentioning that he is a “close gripper”, and has had “success” with it. Well, I think its a triumph that Bobby has done what he has in paddlesports despite what many would consider to be a crippling, hideous handicap. #RealHeros.

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Andrew Palim wrote in this question for Louis:

Previously Louis mentioned his disdain for sickline’s self-appointed moniker of “World Championships”. I was wondering what Louis thinks the world championships of extreme racing should look like. Should it be a series, a rotating course, a whole new event, or does race have the gravitas to permanently be the stage for world championships? Or is a worlds for creek racing even possible to do right, or even a good idea?

This subject was also raised by Andifer F:

You guys have ranted a few times about how the Sickline cannot be considered a ‘World Championship’ because it’s the same class IV rapid every year the same time of year. Since kayaking is a seasonal sport, would you guys think for something to be the world kayak championship should it be the same time of year and different sections of Whitewater or varying times of year at different sections of Whitewater? And if this were hypothetically a fiver year rotation, what five sections should be raced on and what time of year would each race occur whether it be the same time or different seasons.

Jon Crain pointed out an article by Men’s Health that PornHub is now sponsoring an “Extreme sports team”:

https://www.menshealth.com/guy-wisdom/pornhub-sponsored-extreme-sports-pro-team

He writes:

Will BDP be the first whitewater team sponsed by pornhub? Seems that Asheville and Hood River would be buzzing about this opportunity.

I’ll point out that right off the bat, Men’s Health refers to this kind of activity as the “wide, wild, whacky world of extreme sports sponsorship”, which kinda says it all. Is this really the kind of branding “opportunities” our sport needs? But the article does make some points about the financial wasteland of extreme sports when compared to other team sports.

We also heard from George Younger at Dope Kayaks. Me mentioned them (him) 2 shows ago, and he wrote us to fill us in a little bit:

So I’ll try to give you a little background of who we are… DOPE Kayaks are an online kayak shop. I got the idea for the business whilst safety kayaking in Ladakh. Things are pretty tough at 4000m altitude so when we are not on the river we spend most of the days sleeping, eating rice or watching movies. So my body’s pretty broken, super tired and I’m thinking I want to be on the river but I can’t keep going like this. The last few days I’m watching the gangsta rap trilogy, Notorious B.I.G., 50 Cent, N.W.A., and that’s when the idea hits me. I can’t sell dope, but maybe I can sell kayaks… DOPE Kayaks. Emails start pinging out, the process gets going, I quit safety kayaking at the rafting company and catch the bus to Nepal for some feel good boating again. The bus from Ladakh to Nepal is long, 3 and a half days and I share the journey with a Nepali trekking group heading home. I make friends with the guy I’m sat next to for 3 days and we meet again a few weeks later in Kathmandu. He’s a Buddhist monk right, and very highly regarded. The better I get to know him and see the work he’s doing, the more I think I’ve

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got to do something to help also. I’ve started this business so I can help myself and I’m seeing all these people that need way more help than I ever need…Inspired by the likes of ‘Patagonia’ and ‘1% for the Planet’, DOPE Kayaks pledges to give to people in need 10% from all sales with our ‘10% for the People’ initiative

Hey Hammer Factor,

Finally done with finals, so I have a chance to ask this question (which may have been covered in previous shows, but I have not had the chance to listen to every episode).

I recently got into an interesting discussion with a much better paddler than myself who has been kayaking for probably close to 20 years. Both of us are from Idaho originally, but now living in Oregon/Washington. What that means is that we’ve both made the transition from “Idaho big water” to “PNW creeking”. Well, he has at least. I’m still working on it — basically re-learning how to kayak on this completely different style of whitewater. While running shuttle, we talked about how paddlers from Idaho routinely come out to the Gorge and get humbled by the demanding creeking conditions. On the other hand, paddlers from the Gorge come out to Idaho and just absolutely crush it on big water, and particularly, the North Fork. Simply put, their skills easily transfer to our environment, while our skills do not.

With all that said, I have two questions for you guys:

1) Why is it that creeking skills transfer to big-water, but not vice-versa?

2) Is the style of paddling found in the Gorge the best place to hone your paddling skills for all styles of whitewater? Is there anywhere (i.e. Norway?) that might mold even better paddlers?

Thanks for putting on a great show! I really liked the discussion on “style” in episode 19, and the roundtable discussion on environmental impacts of gear somewhere around episode 23.

Cheers,
Matthias Fostvedt

Lastly, our “design a Hammer Factor t-shirt’ contest is going along as expected. We have 1 (One) entry from Eliza Carver. To repeat, IR will give away a free dry top to anyone who can design us a good shirt design.

We had some other VW that we didn’t have time for, but I think we’ll keep on the docket- for one Corey Lilly wrote in asking about the “Kayaking Films Era VS Kayaking Social Media Era”, which given our connection to LVM is interesting. LVM in and of itself is interesting..perhaps grace and weld could have a 30 minute argument on this subject. Also- we’re still sitting on Kevin Kennedy’s Yellowstone email. Thoughts?

OK. On to the special guest.

Some background- Ben Szurek wrote us a couple of weeks ago, mentioning that we should get Verus kayaks on the show, which to be honest, I had not heard of. Which is kinda sad and surprising, but also made it a great topic for the program. It got us thinking about the fact that there are people out there, for better or worse, still starting new kayak companies.

[Interview]

Lets start wrapping things up

Coming Soon- the Ladies Show! ha ha. Also more from the ABRG. We know you loved him, but we also know that he represented a new low for audio quality on the HF. I’m pushing for a “best and worst” of 2017. We also have some exciting guests lining up.

And then RANTS AND RAVES bitches….