Jump into new outdoor gear for land stream and air
Whether you’re an extreme sport enthusiast or just like getting out in the elements summer recreation is all about locomotion. Fast Forward Weekly examines new and evolving outdoor gear that’ll get you from your front door to fun times in a bounce.
SPRINGTIME IN THE ROCKIES
Shawn Kinley hops around his northwest Calgary backyard on what looks like alien technology. He’s strapped into a pair of jumping stilts — the latest outdoor sport-gear craze sweeping North America. Stilt jumping or Powerbocking as it’s also called catapults wearers into running and jumping like superhumans. “It’s like having a mobile trampoline” says Kinley.
A senior member of the Loose Moose Theatre Company Kinley travels the globe focusing on improvisation and physical performance including mime and masks. He first saw stilts in leaping-and-bounding action at the Beijing Olympic opening ceremonies. Wanting them for their fitness and theatrical potential he purchased a pair online for about $300. Several brand names are available including Powerisers Powerstriders Fly Jumpers and Air-trekkers. Prices range from around $200 to $600 and are available for multiple weight classes.
The units strap onto the lower leg and get their bounce from a single reflexive spring mounted on each boot. Its top end is attached behind the upper calf while the end that contacts the ground is fitted with a small gripping nub. The effect is like a backwards-facing bow and arrow with the foot being the arrow. Users can bounce as high as two metres as far as three metres and run up to 40 km/h.
“I got them in the middle of winter” says Kinley. “I put them on in the house and I’m just hanging onto the ceiling walking around.” Initially he couldn’t stand at all. Slowly with a little support he was up and walking. “Surprisingly you get used to them after 10 minutes or so” he says. First-time users he says initially experience awkward fear followed by a bit of over-confidence and a fall. “It is like walking. As soon as you get used to it you don’t think about it so much.”
Today Kinley is taking small hopping steps on his cement patio balancing himself with a long aluminum pole. His goal is to work them into his theatre repertoire.
Sitting on a picnic table I strap the boots on. Kinley helps me stand. It’s work at first but with some concentration I adopt the necessary knees-bent stance and manage a few springy steps. Kinley describes Powerbocking as a total muscular and aerobic workout that also includes the brain. “The kid comes out. These things drop you back into when you were learning to walk. I haven’t got to the point where I can flip over a car like the guys you see on the Internet” he says referring to stilt stunts on Youtube .
Safety is an obvious concern. Stilt sellers and product reviewers recommend the use of protective gear such as elbow pads wrist guards and helmets.
WHEELING ON COMMUTER TECHNOLOGY
It’s technology that’s been slow to catch on in North America. Big in Europe internal gear bikes with their barrel-like rear-wheel mechanism are well-suited to the demands of commuting. Rather complex in their engineering they’re simple to use having one thumb shifter and no front derailleur. Shifting is smoother than with traditionally geared bikes and riders don’t need to be moving to shift. Mainly the technology is low maintenance and durable year-round standing up especially well in winter conditions. “A normal bike you’d wear through a drive train in a winter especially commuting in Calgary with all the salt and snow” says engineering student and Mountain Equipment Co-op (MEC) bike mechanic Harry Widdowson.
MEC recently launched its own internal gear bike line. Though it’s an adventure sports gear store its focus is on internal-gear commuter bikes like its matte-black eight-speed Hold Steady ($1250).
The store’s employees are some of its best bike customers. Salesman Eric Hsiung owns a hybrid mountain bike for road and rough terrain. He also gets around town on an internal-gear MEC Origami ($800) made by Dahon. Without removing the front wheel the bike compactly folds for bus train and car travel. He says he doesn’t need the 28 gears of a traditional mountain bike for getting to and from work. “And there’s so little maintenance you don’t really have to do anything with it” says Hsiung. “Because the chain doesn’t move constantly from one cog to another it sees very little wear.”
ROLLING AND RIDING AN EDDY
The sport of creek boating made a frothy white-knuckle splash in 2008-09 when kayakers used their “steep-creeking” skills and the country’s Navigable Waters Protection Act (NWPA) to impede the fast-tracking of industrial development on Rocky Mountain waterways. In customized one-person kayaks they navigated the you-know-what out of scary-steep boulder-studded streams. Proving these waters navigable necessitated full environmental assessments for hydro dams and the like. The federal government amended the legislation making these extreme paddlers’ efforts moot but if nothing else the sport of creek boating got a serious profile boost.
Chris McTaggart a competitive slalom kayaker for 12 years and a creek boater for four says creeking’s popularity has grown a lot over the last five years but owes much of its profile to extreme kayaker Tao Berman who conquered the 33-metre Upper Johnson Falls in Banff in 1999.
To get into the sport he explains one needs to first learn basic whitewater kayaking safety and skills — how to roll your kayak and ride an eddy for example. The sport can be dangerous its waters unforgiving. “You have to really calculate what you’re doing” he says. While creeking a river in Yoho National Park last year McTaggart’s friend misjudged the descent of a steep waterfall landing on the rocks. He was airlifted from the scene with a broken back two collapsed lungs and numerous broken bones though he has since recovered.
During spring runoff which lasts until the end of June in Alberta but longer in the B.C. Interior creek boaters take to smaller waterways with big elevation drops surfing three-to 10-metre waterfalls and slides which are like fun-park water slides but made of unforgiving rock. Regional hotspots include the Elbow River Sheep River Highwood River and Cataract Creek.
Peter Morrow of Aquabatics ( aquabatics.com ) paddling shop explains that creek boats like the Dagger Nomad generally cost $1000 to $1300. Getting fully outfitted with helmet personal floatation device (PFD) and paddle costs another $1500 to $2000. The two-metre-long kayaks are built for speed punch and buoyancy. And smaller play boats are built for surfing waves on somewhat more horizontal white water; creek boaters do not want to get caught in broiling water features that may pound them to a pulp. Aquabatics offers a full slate of introductory and advanced kayaking courses including creek boating as does The Bow Valley Kayak Club ( kanpaddle.ca ) of Canmore.
Morrow stresses that bad equipment ill preparedness and poor judgment are the sport’s big dangers. “Don’t bite off more than you can chew. Know your ability level.”
