Highlights from the Open Air Demo – Outdoor Retailer Show 2011

This was our first year at the Open Air Demo part of the Outdoor Retailer Show.   It was held at Jordanelle Reservoir near Park City and it is more focused on water based sports.   Here are some of the neat things we saw.

Stand Up Paddleboards (SUP’s)

These were the hit of the show and there were lots of them.   Seeing about a hundred people demoing SUP’s was more of a sight than all of the colorful tents and easy-ups.   Hardly anybody was demoing kayaks, guess we’re all over that.   The SUP’s came in three main categories.   Inflatable SUP’s are for travel, whitewater, and general use. There are other general use ones made of plastic and fiberglass. There are also racing SUP’s that are skinnier and made of fiberglass.   All of the general use ones were easy to use, but the racing one was quite tippy and difficult to turn.   I fell off of it twice and decided I should return it before I caused further embarrassment to myself.

SUP Shoes

What would any sport be without it’s specialty gear.   Yes, you too can own your very own SUP shoes.   I didn’t try them because I have far too many shoes already. These shoes shown are made by Chaco.

Go Pro 3D Camera

Although I’m not a big fan of 3D movies in general as too often they end up more gimmick than guts.   This camera did however seem pretty neat, and the tech geek in me made me change course and go talk to the Go Pro guys.   I look forward to seeing some real sports action in 3D made with these. They also go 180 feet underwater which is pretty sweet too.     The ones with the two lens’ is the 3D one.

Whitewater River Board

These didn’t seem too popular as I only saw one of them at the show, but the idea of boogie boarding through class 4 or 5 whitewater seems pretty rad.   Maybe I’m crazy?   I’m jazzed though.   Sign me up for one of these.   This particular one is made by NRS.

Kayaks

Yup, these are kayaks. We’ve all seen them and we all know what they do.   Moving on…

Land Paddle

Kicking for propulsion on a long board is old news.   Now you can push.   Kind of makes a long board into a land version of the Stand Up Paddleboard.   Wanna get your teenager out of the house? Buy them one of these!   It worked for us 🙂 This one was made by Kahuna Creations.