I don’t wanna grow old
Bring me all the toys you can find
– sia

So if you are into paddling and you have kids you have or WILL be here. You know the spot. It’s the one where your child has grown out of kid gear and is not ready for adult gear. This is the point where almost nothing made is the right size for them. It’s also the point where their interest in the sport is cemented or lost. There has got to be something wrong with that.

Thursday we head up to Kayak Week at Point Beach State Park by Two Rivers, Wisconsin. This is a club event where everyone is welcome but there is no real official itinerary. You just camp, hang out and paddle. Gryphon seems to found new enthusiasm for paddling and wants take his kayak along which is great. The down side is  that he’s outgrown everything but his hydro skins and his kayak. A few years back we bought him an Epi-Sea which was a great find and totally under promoted kid’s kayak that will last through him to the next generation. When in Grand Marais last year, Gryphon was fitted with new NRS hydroskins so he’s up to date there. But he is desperately in need of a new paddle and PFD. Yesterday we drove down to Rutabaga in Madison, WI to solve that problem. We knew there may be more options online but frankly we were out of time and Rutabaga normally does have a good selection. The hard part is that there simply are not many choices for kids his age.

When we arrived we could see that we really only had two paddle choices. The Werner Sprite 190, or a Bending Branches Splash. No contest. The Splash is like a cheap dime-store toy compared to the Werner Sprite. Of course I remembered that last year Gryphon had tried the sprite and hated it. Luckily this year his kid fickle mind changed and he loved the Sprite. Good. Being a 190 it’s a bit long. But he’s growing. In all honesty though I would have bought him a whitewater paddle if I could have found one even at 180. (By the way, I did run his particulars through the Werner Fit Guide just for fun. Answer: “We’re sorry….” ) So Gryphon Paddles with the Sprite.

Next was the PFD. Children’s PFDs are rated by weight ranges and top out at 90lbs. Adult PFDs are sized by chest circumference and pretty much ignore the average sizes of a pre-teen. Rutabaga has a huge selection of PFDs, NRS, Kokatat, Astral, MTI and others. We simply had to pull the smalls and extra smalls and see what we could come up with. I knew even if we got lucky we would end up with something he would grow out of before it started to fade. Such is life. In the end most were obviously just not designed with kids in mind. They were too thick, or designed for longer torsos, or for female body shapes. Great adult vests, but not pre-adult vests. After working our way through the “names” we came to an MTI Riptide. The Riptide offers almost 17lbs buoyancy and the small is sized for a 30″-40″ chest. It offers plenty of adjustment points so we could get it to fit him comfortably. The flotation on the back was spread out evenly so it does not seem too bulky for his size. There is plenty of room around his shoulders so he does not feel like he’s wearing a flak jacket. That’s the important stuff. The vest has lots of nice pockets but honestly he’ll probably never use them. In the end we were just happy to find one that fit well and that he found comfortable. Thanks MTI. Even if you didn’t intend to make a pre-teen vest.. you did.

Gryphon Demonstrates 8 year old, Blue Belt bravado….

So Gryphon, age 8, is ready to go for another year…

Epi-Sea Kayak
NRS Hydro Skins
MTI Riptide PFD
Werner Sprite Paddle

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2. Sunset On Grand Marais
3. Episea Revisited
4. curse of one pinyan
5. Kid Bike – Trek 220