What an amazing weekend it was! We were fortunate to be greeted with a hefty breeze all weekend for the 8th Annual Columbia Gorge Paddle Challenge, creating epic downwind conditions and a very technical course race!
In just a few short weeks the world’s best paddle racers and surfers will be headed to New York to compete in the highly anticipated New York SUP Open put on by the APP (Association of Paddleboard Professionals) World Tour. The week-long event will host everything from distance and sprint races to surf contests, charity paddles and more. Here is everything you need to know about the upcoming event.
The highly anticipated Columbia Gorge Paddle Challenge returned to the infamous Hood River over the weekend and the excitement from the weekend has the industry buzzing. The biggest takeaway from the event: the SUP youth is a force to be reckoned with.
After more than six weeks of deliberations and intense evaluations we are pleased to announce the winners of the 2018 Supconnect Awards. After nominating 30 or so men, women, groms and blogs per category, and an abundance of brands and shops in the stand up paddle industry we've finally narrowed down the extremely talented pool of nominees to the final chosen winners.
After 6 weeks of deliberation the staff here at Supconnect is excited announced the 2018 Gear of the Year Awards winners from our 9th Annual Supconnect Awards. As a brief background of the Gear of the Year awards, there were 9 categories for products to be nominated and an additional Overall gear winner.
The Yukon 1000 is the world’s longest canoe race and takes place every other year. The Yukon 1000 is a 1,000 mile, self-supported race from Canada into the Alaskan backcountry and finishes in the Arctic circle. This year Bart de Zwart and his teammate Ike Frans finished the race in first on their stand up paddle boards. Here, Bart recaps the race and what it was like to paddle for 18 hours a day, 8-days straight.
On December 8th & 9th, the APP World Tour finishes its racing season with the World's Largest Participatory Race in Paris. This third and final stop on the 2018 World Tour will be where the 2018 APP World Champions for SUP racing will be crowned.
Red Bull Heavy Water, quite possibly the most intense stand up paddling event in the world, will showcase top performing athletes in the ~12km (7.5 mile) course, with an event window from October 15th – November 2nd and prize money totaling $75,000.
In its first ever summer show in Denver, the Outdoor Retailer annual tradeshow brought a lot of changes to the to experience of the show for the SUP (stand up paddle board) industry. Changes were both good and bad but the overall change in venue seemed to be a positive one. Here are a few takeaways from the show.
Starboard’s race boards are known for being some of the best in the business. The All Star and Sprint models are just two of the many race models that are known to be populated on the race start line. For 2019, Starboard’s race range is faster and again more stable, breaking new boundaries in our sport.
Cat Friend (British) and Valerie Bisbal (Mallorcan) have become the first people to circumnavigate the Spanish Island of Mallorca (Majorca) on Stand Up Paddle boards (SUPs). Previous attempts in 2015 failed.
The first stop on the 2018 APP World Tour exploded out of the gates in the iconic city of London on July 7-8, 2018. This multi-tiered event, featuring Pro, Pro AM and Amateur racing for all levels of paddlers was showcased in two iconic locations around the city, including a 4km course on the historic Thames River, 200 meter sprint races and an 11km distance course held on the Royal Victoria Docks in East London.