Review of the Naish One iSUP

After a month or so of ownership and 2 weeks of intensive use, I feel about qualified to give my thoughts on this piece of kit. Thanks heaps to the gang at Wetspot for getting the package together for me before the trip. You really can't beat the service and industry knowledge provided by Scotty and the gang.

So what you are looking at is a 12'6 hunk of inflatable love in the sun.
This baby holds a comfortable 30" width and wears it well. Looking sleek and sexy. With 6" of depth it means that it's not just for the feint hearted. Recommended for passengers up to 104kg or 230lbs. One of the nice things about an inflato is that they don't damage easily. Great for the kids to play on and the parents to enjoy as well.

My experiences with this board might be a little different from most, so I thought they might be worth sharing.
Some of the advantages to an inflatable SUP are storage and transport. They roll up relatively small and you can fit them most places. This included as checked luggage on my flights both internationally and internally in Australia and USA. Much easier than paying for and worrying about a hard board. Hiring a car on my travels was no problem as this will fit in anything.

The One comes with a handy back pack style bag which is comfortable to wear and you don't need to be some sort of origami expert to fit the board back in the bag after the first use. In fact it fits so easily in the bag that also fitted my Naish 3 piece paddle, PFD (full vest), the pump which comes with the board and booties, as well  as a towel. Total weight at weigh in at the airport was 16.4 kg. Well under my allowable, and well within the range of carrying on my back comfortably. The board itself is a handy 11kg. Very easy to carry when inflated.

The pump
The pump that comes with the board is completely adequate if you have a little bit of weight behind you. Total pump up time from 0- 14PSI is 5min. With the caveat that I have seen smaller framed females struggle when it gets to the higher pressures. I weigh about 80Kg and happily use my weight in the final stages. I can certainly see this being a limiting factor for some. There are certainly a range of 12v pumps that can help with this, although most will only be for the low pressure part of the workout.


Touring
I spent a considerable amount of time paddling casually around lakes, so have a pretty good feel for the touring style. This board is comfortable, stable and forgiving in a range of conditions. My initial thoughts were that it would be hard work to drag an inflato through the water, Not so. It glides and feels pretty good and with the width is fine should you encounter the wake of a water ski boat or the like.

Racing
I've tested it in two different scenarios here, and yes, it is slower than a hard board. To give you an indication of how much slower, a course that takes me about 24:30 on my NSP Cocomat 14' flatwater race board, the One goes around in 27:30. Certainly no disgrace there. This is on a flat water course with 2 turns.
Racing it down river on the Bow in Calgary, I found the hard boards getting away from me when the flow was fast and the water smooth. When it got a little lumpy the inflato held its own quite nicely in smoothing out some of the bumps.
You will never go as fast as a hard board, but your frustration will be limited by the fact that you can actually generate some speed.

Transportability
So you've got a board that fits in a backpack. Is it simply storage and no roof racks that are its only attraction? hell no! spending around 6 hours with this thing on my back over 3 days I felt none the worse for it. Yes you will find back packs made for trekking more comfortable, and there are probably ways that this one could be made moreso, but given what it is and what it is designed for, I think they do a pretty good job. The straps are nice and thick and padded and positioned quite well for where the weight sits in the pack. The ability to do a hike in and paddle is a feature that I encourage everyone to take advantage of.

Paddle - Makani 8.0 Vario RDS 3 piece
If you are going to get a board for the specific purpose of ease of transport, it is worth considering a paddle that will match it. This carbon/glass fusion from Naish performed beautifully. Fitting inside the board backpack it traveled well. It is quick to assemble, lightweight and strong. Performance was as good as any 2 piece paddle that I have used with the usual extra bit of flex, but comfortable and tireless to paddle with.

Price
Just because it is inflatable, doesn't mean it is a toy. In fact the opposite. When you buy an inflatable of this quality, you are getting a serious bit of kit. As such, it comes with a price tag that reflects what you get in some respects. The Makani paddle comes in at $400, which quite frankly is a bargain in my books for a light weight travel friendly paddle that performs as well as this one does. It is race ready.
The Naish One comes in at $1650 RRP. If you take off price of roof racks and storage headaches, it actually works out very affordable. Can you find cheaper iSUPs? absolutely. Why are they cheaper? because you get what you pay for. If I'm going to invest in this sort of equipment, I want good quality and I want to buy it from someone that can back up what they sell. Wetspot

Bottom line. Great package. Facilitated some awesome paddling. This is a versatile board for every level of paddler. 

fun, fun, fun

Arriving back in Canberra after a trip home that saw all the right planes having delays to allow me to move seamlessly from one to the other without missing any, it is great to be home.
Two weeks seemed like so much longer simply because of all the amazing things that I was able to experience whilst away.
Here is just a snapshot of some of them..

Some amazing lakes and great race:

Bow River Calgary

Bow River Calgary, Race Day

Moraine Lake

Having a dip in Lake Louise

Chestermere Lake

Moraine Lake

lake Louise

Moraine Lake

Moraine Lake

Emerald Lake

Emerald Lake

Lake Minnewanka (With a silent n)

Johnson Lake

The trek to Rawson

SnowSUP at Rawson Lake

Rawson Lake

Upper Lake Kananaskis

Crazy Calgarians:
Who would think to put clam juice in a drink??? luckily they thought that bacon and a burger would also go well and enticed me into more than one of these puppies..

I'm not so sure about their concept restaurants though.... a 'rare' steak house with a big statue of a horse outside???

Colorado water ways and watering holes:

Chatfield Lake

Platte River

Grand lake

Shadow Mountain Lake

Lake Dillon

Frisco

Hangin with John at the Tiki Bar

Colorado River White Water SUPing

Mountain Toad Brewery

Star Cast to kick off the ENHANCE Running wekend

Nick Studholme sharing some clinical pearls

An amazing night Red Rocks seeing Jack Johnson

The list at the end...
12ft of inflatable beauty
11 Lakes
10:1 ratio of Elk signs to live Elk
9 Song titles for Blogs
8 New adjustments
7 Flights
6 Hotels
5 Wild animals eaten
4 Breweries
3 Rivers
2 Seminars
1 Live concert
1 Flight upgrade
1 hell of an outstanding time

home, home on the plane...

The weekend over and time to head home.
The ENHANCE Running seminar went well with some great new friends made and some awesome material presented.

Kicking the weekend off with a panel discussion from some of the world's best triathletes was pretty amazing. Then following that up with some fun with running technique, great taping techniques and a boat load of wisdom from Nick Studholme and some of the best adjusting I've ever seen from  Dan McClure.

The weekend saw another brewery crossed off the list and even a revisit to GCB. All in all an outstanding success!

Let the river run...

White water SUPing... what a blast.

An early start, leaving the hotel at 0630, which proved to be the perfect amount of time for my GPS to send me to the wrong place and still find the right place eventually up along the Colorado River.
As fortune would have it, I was able to extend my single run booking into a double run and had a ball. There was some falling, some getting wet and a whole heap of fun. Also good that I was in a small group of 3 people. It would appear that I'm not quite ready to take on any sort of white water craziness, but am a lot happier with the grade 1 and 2 rapids. Certainly one of my SUPing highlights of the trip.

Lessons learnt:
1. Rocks are hard
2. Watching other people fall in is fun.
3. Bend your knees!!!

Taking in the Golden City Brewery on the way back to Denver, I managed to get another day of SUPing and Brewery testing done. The out @ 2nd beer the best that the USA has been able offer up, but quite an offering.
Just a short one for today as it was a thoroughly enjoyable yet a long day :)

Home, home on the range, where the deer and the elk signs roam

2 days to fill in....

What an incredible 2 days. I drove to Grand Lake up through the Rocky Mountain National Park. What an incredible drive. Hitting over 12,000 ft and some amazing views.

Got to Grand Lake and had a wonderful paddle on Grand Lake and Shadow Mountain Lake.

Grand Lake is a lovely place. It seems to be caught in some sort of time warp which gives it a certain serenity.

As you walk along the boardwalk of  downtown Grand Lake, you find that about 80% of the stores are gift shops of some description. The rest are some sort of eatery. I saw some tourists there, but surely not enough to support that town. I have concluded that they are a very friendly bunch, and maintain their town by buying one another gifts. Although one person that won't be getting a gift was the lady behind me at breakfast this morning. The conversation went something like this....
Lady: " I'll have the Grand Lake special breakfast thank you"
Waitress: " Certainly ma'am, will that be our home made fries or fruit with that?"
Lady: " I'll have the fries, and make sure the eggs are well done"
Waitress: " The eggs are scrambled ma'am"
Lady: "Yes, I know that. Make sure they are well done"
Wow, I'd hate to see how she has her steak!!!
The drive both to Grand Lake and now to Dillon Lake were very scenic, however I harbour some concerns about the wildlife here in Colorado. You see there have been innumerable signs warning of wildlife ahead and even a flashing sign warning of elk. The only conclusion that I can come to was that the Elk warning sign was warning of more elk signs as it would appear that the signs out number the elk by about 10-1. I did have the pleasure of sighting  a herd of elk high in the mountains, but that was about it. I looked fervently, but to no avail. I even stopped at a wildlife sighting place...

All I managed there was some wet and dirty shoes, access to the river, and some local habitations, from which I also saw no wildlife.

About as wild as it gets here it would seem is a couple of feisty cows and  a moderately annoyed horse who may have just been brushing flies away. At least in Australia if you are not able to see the wildlife hopping, crawling or running by, we have sufficient roadkill by the side of the road to suggest that there was live wildlife there sometime recently. The most I've managed to see here was a small red skidmark which was most likely a wayward squirrel.

Arriving in Dillon I headed straight to the water and enjoyed a beer at the Tiki bar.
This was a great prelude to a paddle down the other end of the lake to Frisco, which fortuitously also had a waterside bar.

 A couple of beers there and a solid paddle back with a constant cross wind.
 Being a significant work out, it was time for another beer at the Tiki bar and a shot with John the bartender.

The Tiki bar is an extension of the Pugg Ryan's Brewery, just up the hill. The destination for dinner and a couple more beers and sadly my first Colorado brewery of the trip...