Soul/Mega Firefly XS Kid's Slalom Kayak

 

 So, we've got out for a little paddle in the Soul/Mega Firefly XS, and here are some first impressions.

It's being marketed as a slalom trainer for kids, but it doesn't look much like a slalom boat. Since Soul also make a plastic kids slalom boat that looks exactly like a slalom boat (the Angel), we asked the designer Corran what his thinking was.

“The Angel, I was still thinking slalom boat, shrunk down. The Firefly I’ve come at from another angle. Make a boat that will allow kids to paddle slalom. Most kids are coming out of modern plastic kayaks and those are all planing hull. So this is a planing hull so it paddles the same way. It’s a familiar feel, making the transition back and forth from plastic to slalom easy. For its width it’s shorter and has more rocker than a normal boat, and ironically that’s what the new rule change coming in 2 years will effectively do. Shorter and more rocker makes it predictable and easy to put where you want it to be.”

So... it doesn't look like a slalom boat and it isn't a slalom boat; it's a whitewater boat that's great for learning slalom skills in, but probably also a bunch of other stuff as well. I thought the Firefly looked very like the Particle Accelerator, a fast adult kayak predominantly designed for kayakcross and extreme racing, but also a super playful and sporty boat for fun that can do freestyle tricks. In fact I confess I tried to get in it myself. Man, if I was a couple inches narrower I would throw this thing around like a rag doll. Anyway...

Soul Particle Accelerator

8yr old Elsa knows nothing of Particle Accelerators. Neither does she need a boat that blunts, cartwheels and spins, but she may come to appreciate that later. For now she thought it looked approachable, and was pleased to discover that it doesn't feel as if flipping over is imminent. These are the priorities of a child. And colour...

Elsa: Why is it orange?

Me: It's a demo boat. They're all orange. My F-Bomb is orange too...

Elsa: That's horrible... Why do they make them like that?

Me: Maybe so they are easy to spot when people are paddling them. Or maybe so no one will steal them...

Elsa: Hmmm... At least the cockpit is blue. But that will be covered up. It's bad thinking.

Me: Just paddle it OK?

The funny flat bit at the front of the cockpit rim caught my eye immediately and I assume it is a cunning design to make it easier for children to pull their deck. For safety we use a ludicrously loose deck; it's literally just draped over the cockpit rim. Its purpose is just to stop water splashing on Elsa's legs, which she hates. If she tips over it will just fall off.

Similarly I thought the seat looked really pro and excellent for being located in the boat, but Elsa didn't like it because she plonks herself down in quite an undisciplined fashion and hurts herself on the pointy bit at the front. I think a foam seat might be better for kids. Or a brain transplant.

On receipt of Elsa's feedback, Mega informed us that they will change out the seat for future boats.

The slalom style flush grab loops look really pro too, but we tied some webbing tails through them because grabbability/krabbability (definitely a word) is more important than not hitting poles or getting hung up in trees, when you are eight. And I will always have to tow her home. Mega tell us that they are bringing a new handle design to the production boats - this will probably address that issue.

So, onto the water. Elsa can paddle her plastic Minime playboat in a straight line without a skeg, so she set off confidently in the Firefly. Only to find that every now and then it kind of veers off into a turn that is clumsy to recover. THIS IS A GOOD THING. I remember my first slalom boat at age 15, and how frustrating it was initially that it did that, but you get over it pretty quickly. It's a function of a boat being good at carving turns. You just have to catch it before it kind of oversteers into a spin. After half an hour (a stressful half hour) of me very gently trying not to let her get annoyed and bail out of the mission to play on the swings, Elsa could keep the boat pointed at a distant landmark, or spin 360 and arrest the spin pointing right back on target. Directional instability = manoeuvrability but requires some paddler ability. OK.

The wobble test was also a success. The boat feels pretty stable (I assume, I can't fit in it), but Elsa happily rocked it from one edge to another which means that when she wants a bit of lean in her transitions she will be able to do it. She doesn't weigh much more than 25kg, so it's hard to get an edge on unless the boat is designed this way.

We crossed some eddylines but actual rapids will have to wait for another day. I was pleased that Elsa didn't get uncomfortable on the journey, and could get out of the boat on her own when we got back. Winning so far.

The boat is made in the UK by Mega Performance Kayaks, and you can get it here...

The Afterburn Effect of Exercise

It's much talked about, and it's alleged that many extra calories are burned. But is it real? If so, how can we get it? And is it even worth it?

The exercise afterburn effect is a phenomenon that occurs after completing a workout or physical activity. It is an ongoing elevated rate of calorie expenditure that may continue for hours or even days after exercise. This phenomenon is more scientifically known as Excess Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption (EPOC). The afterburn effect has been studied extensively and found to be both significant and beneficial for individuals seeking to lose weight or increase their overall fitness level. In short, when an individual engages in physical activity, the body uses up its reserves to fuel the workout. Therefore, after the exercise session, the body must replenish these reserves. As a result, recovery requires the body to burn more calories than if the activity had not been undertaken. This extra calorie expenditure is called the afterburn effect.

The body needs extra oxygen to replace the ATP (the front line of energy supply) and muscle glycogen used during the workout to recover to its normal resting state. It also restores the blood oxygen level and (somewhat counter-intuitively) has to work to lower body temperature. Oxygen/energy is required to mobilise protein to repair the damaged muscle tissues. The more oxygen is needed to restore the body to homeostasis, the more calories will be burnt post-workout.

The afterburn effect is generally considered to last anywhere from 15 minutes to 48 hours, depending on the intensity of the activity. High intensity interval training (HIIT) has been found to have the most significant afterburn effect, with some studies showing that the calories burned can be up to 15% greater than those burned during the activity itself. Studies do not tend to extend beyond 48 hours because the gains are small and hard to measure after that, but exceptionally, this study https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20886227/#article-details pursued results up to 72. It was reported that a one-set high-intensity resistance training session was shown to have the same effect as three sets in elevating resting energy expenditure in overweight college males tested. This effect was measurable all the way out to 72 hours.

The afterburn effect can be beneficial for those looking to lose weight, as it can help increase the number of calories burned throughout the day. It also helps to improve an individual's overall fitness level, as the body must work harder to replenish the energy stores that were used during the activity.

In addition to weight loss and increased fitness, the afterburn effect has also been found to have other health benefits. For example, it is believed to increase the production of testosterone and human growth hormone, which can help to build muscle mass and improve bone density. It can also help to reduce stress, enhance the quality of sleep, and reduce the risk of certain diseases.

Although the effect may be exciting, afterburn should not be confused with the thermic effect of increased muscle mass. Individuals with more lean muscle do burn more calories, even at rest, than less muscular folk. Whereas people who regularly train steady state cardio or endurance workouts may even burn fewer calories at rest because their bodies have been honed to greater heights of metabolic efficiency! The afterburn effect refers to the calorific cost of replenishing the oxygen debt of exercise, not the calorie burn of muscle mass or other normal resting physiological functions.

This study https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17101527/#article-details found the additional post-exercise calories to be in the region of 6-15% of the calories used by their subjects in the actual workout. They commented that the EPOC effect appears to increase linearly with the intensity of the exercise. In the aerobic workout zone, 60-65% of HRmax, we expect that the afterburn effect accounts for 0-5% of the calories used in the actual exercise. For more strenuous workouts, 75-85% of HRmax increases to 5-10%. High intensity training, whether resistance, interval or endurance, boosts that figure to 10-15% of workout calories!

There are no disadvantages to burning a few extra calories over and above what we set out to do in the gym or on the trail, but keeping the value of afterburn in perspective is essential. A 500kcal workout is going to result in an extra 75kcals burnt post-exercise. In this sense, optimism that EPOC plays an important role in weight loss is unfounded, especially since, as detailed above, achieving even that 15% figure requires a level of training intensity that is unlikely to be tolerable to a less athletic individual! However, every little helps; all calorific deficits result in weight loss to a lesser or greater extent, and reduction of excess weight has been shown to contribute to the quality of life as well as a marked decrease in all-cause mortality.

However, the duration and magnitude of the EPOC generated by high-intensity resistance training suggest that it would be a valid strategy as part of a weight management program for individuals who would commonly have opted for low-intensity, steady-state activity.

"A 15–20 minute HIIT session elevates your VO2max – which enhances aerobic endurance fitness – the same amount as 60 minutes of actual endurance training whilst torching a similar amount of calories" (Helgerud et al. 2007; Little et al. 2009; Tabata et al. 1996).

# Use a heart rate monitor with a suitable app to measure your exercise calories. Chest strap monitors are much more reliable than wrist devices.

# Make sure you enter your correct age and weight in the app. Otherwise, the results will be wrong.

# The harder you push yourself, the more bonus calories you'll use up. But don't get so obsessed with calorie burn that you train too hard or too long and cannot face it tomorrow!

# Rest/recovery and sleep are vital for the repair processes that use extra calories. Don't burn the candle at both ends!

# Use a calorie counting app to track your nutrition. There is little point in knowing what you burn if you don't know how much you're eating.

# Don't try to lose more than 1-2 lbs a week. You will have no energy, and your weight will bounce back up later. You might also be exposing yourself to health risks that are more severe than those associated with weight.

# Remember, the only exercise program that works is the one you can stick to! So count the calories, do the maths, but don't be so focussed on that last 100kcals that you stop having fun!

The afterburn effect is a beneficial phenomenon that can help individuals lose weight, increase their fitness levels, and improve their overall health. However, it is essential to note that the maximum afterburn can only be achieved with medium to high-intensity exercise and will not occur with low-intensity activities. Therefore, engaging in HIIT or other high-intensity activities is recommended for those hoping to take advantage of the afterburn effect. However, always seek professional medical advice before embarking on such a program.

Check back soon for a rant about why you don't know your BMR or how many calories you're actually digesting. In the meantime, don't forget to breathe!

Another Fine Book

The long and twisted survival book saga continues; this latest iteration of a thing I co-wrote in 2003ish has just appeared on my Amazon page. It's not the same old thing though. 

The story is that in 2021 the publishers decided to dismantle that book and publish two separate ones. I rewrote the the urban, travel and combat parts which were published as Urban Survival and Antonio did the bushcraft and wilderness skills which incidentally features me spearfishing on the front cover. 
 

Now, to my surprise, they've stuck the two back together again as Survival, A Practical Guide and I wait, patiently watching the letterbox, for it to fall through my door!

Winter is, ahem... winter.

If one more person tells me that "Winter tyres make no difference on ice" or that "It's not worth buying winter tyres for three days a year!" I swear to you, I'll... well, I won't do anything, really. I'm already writing this strongly worded article on the subject, and that's about as aggressive as I get, frankly. But I do pride myself on smiling sweetly (most of the time), and saying 'Riggggghhhhttt..." when I feel like yelling "Are you a f***ing moron? Shut up!"

Still, people need to be disabused of their delusions sometimes, so here we go.

Winter tyres are for winter. They aren't special magic tyres for Arctic conditions. They are for winter - anytime the temperature is 7ºC or less, even on a dry road, you'll be much better off on winters. The tyres most Brits have on their cars are called "summer tyres". They aren't "normal tyres" or "road tyres", they are for summer, to maximise grip on warm road surfaces. And that means warm like Europe. I looked at the average max/min temperatures for Birmingham and conclude that we are better off on winter tyres October through May (inc) so if I could only afford one set of tyres, I'd be on winters year round.

Now, that ice thing. Here's a video:

If you get up to go to work or drive your kids, and it's slippy, or just damp, or it's 7ºC, your car will steer and stop a lot better on winter tyres. If you crash your insurance excess will be probably be more than those tyres would have been. But it's not about you. It's about not crashing into an innocent pedestrian, or damaging other peoples property. Or clogging up the roads so that the trucks (that might otherwise have managed just fine in the snow) can't get to the shops with MY food. Selfish, is what it is.

By the way, by winters I mean, actual winter tyres. As per the video, all-season tyres don't even come close. Neither do M+S (mud and snow) tyres, or the big chunky tyres that came with your 4x4. The latter two are strong in some conditions, but do not have the  general cold-weather stopping and steering performance of winter compounds.

So, four wheel drive. We need to talk about this. Four wheel drive can be a massive advantage in slippery conditions, or it can be a liability. If you're driving a Land Rover or 4x4 jeep or pickup truck like a Hilux then you are probably going to be doing better than most, even on shonky tyres. Same goes for a 4x4 car designed for rallying like the original Audi Quattro, the Mitzi Evo or Subaru Impreza, Lancia Delta Integrale, Sierra/Escort Cosworth, etc. Other 4x4's, not so much. Most of the other luxury 4x4's, the 4x4 SUV's and other random things, they don't have the right kind of technology for really slippy conditions. Basically if your 4x4 doesn't have the ability to lock (or seriously lim-slip) its diffs, including front to back, you're just going to get stuck the moment one wheel loses traction. Which is kind of worse than a two-wheel drive car.

A soft-roader, faux-by-four, or as a friend put it, "Four by f-all"

We did an experiment with a highly rated 4x4 SUV on full winter tyres and it still couldn't make it up the road as far as my old Ford Transit could with RWD and no limited slip diff!

If you don't understand what the hell I'm talking about above then you probably don't have the right kind of 4x4 for the snow and ice.

Having said all that, here's a disclaimer: winter tyres mean more grip in cold dry weather, in cool damp conditions and in the snow, and on ice. They are not a brain transplant or a cloak of invincibility. Do not drive like a twit.

To recap, here's a short list of things that don't seem to work terribly well in the winter:

Summer tyres
All-season tyres
M+S tyres
4x4 SUV's
Driving fast
and the brains of non-snow-dwellers, apparently.

The mainstream news media is usually wrong. But it's the best we have.

The mainstream news media is usually wrong. We know this. Well, I do, anyway - because every single time I've read or heard an article that I had insider knowledge of (like, I witnessed the event myself, for instance), the coverage has been woefully inaccurate or downright wrong. Every. Single. Time.

Not a scientific study, I realise, but the consistency of my experience leads me to believe that I cannot (or should not) treat any news report as gospel truth. It's just way too unlikely to be right.

Enter the "new" news. Social media has spawned myriad dot-com news pages that the cynical and the conspiracy theorists love to share, because they appear to be the antidote to the dry, old and reputedly biased trad media. These pages, according to popular belief, are a breath of fresh air, telling us the truth behind the lies and blowing away the smoke and mirrors of the bastard political elite.

Bollocks.

I'm not talking about stupid memes that people share because they reflect their own political agenda. Those are all bollocks, but no. I mean serious sounding websites, usually with "art", "science" or "health" in the title, which purport to educate and inform. I have bad news for you...

Many, if not all of those articles are written by pillocks like me. For next to no money. With little or no regard for fact-checking or in fact anything except hitting the word count in the shortest possible time.

Back in the day when I was a bit desperate for cash, I would take any writing gig I could get, so I stumbled across these "agencies" that provide writing work to freelancers. You have to pass an infantile writing test and then, boom! The editor emails me a list of subjects:

Deodorant - 800wds
Space Exploration - 700wds
Is the taxpayer footing the bill for the Royal Wedding? - 1000wds
The Large Hadron Collider turns up another new particle - 500wds
The world's banks are really run by the Rothschilds - 700wds
I made these up, but you get the picture...

You have about two days to write ten to twenty articles and you get paid a set amount for the lot, if and only if they all conform to a set of guidelines, which was a bigger document than the contracts for any of the books I've written! The point is that I know nothing about these subjects and just Google quickly and write them quicker still; I worked out that if I wrote as fast as I can I could earn about £3 per hour. The editor pastes the words in and the content goes out as informative material. But, with the best will in the world, it's crap.

The purpose of these articles is only to get you to the site and expose you to advertising. That is almost exactly the same business model as a newspaper, but the perpetrators do not care at all about accuracy when it comes to social media. If a few people rubbish the claims and start an argument that just means more exposure and more ad clicks.

If I was writing for The Independent or something, they'd only use me for work that I knew something about. Like kayaking. Or snow. These "agencies" would just send a list of seemingly random subjects to me and say "Do it."

I realised pretty quickly that I didn't want to do this work, but there are a lot of unemployed, stay-at-home parents, wannabe writers, or just desperate people who are still doing it. I suppose that by not sharing this nonsense on social media, we are potentially depriving people of their income, but for the greater good I suspect that perhaps we shouldn't.

The Wizard Stick

 Here is the NEW Wizard Stick paddle from Mega:

http://www.surfkayaks.com/product.php?productid=17774

Disclosure: I am a Mega Team Rider, and I was given this paddle to review. However, like the magical sitar from the movie Moulin Rouge, I only speak the truth. The words in italics below are the official Mega claims. The rest is me.

Mega are renowned designers and laminators of sexy composite boats, most famous for their surf kayaks (market leaders since 1991), but also sea kayaks, open canoes and even a playboat! Now they are trying their hands at the magic of paddles. Weighing in at just 850g, the new Wizard Stick is certainly a force to be reckoned with. Mine is carbon blade with sky shaft (history lesson about pole-vault poles, Google it), and I've gone for a length that I can use for surfing (but it's a bit long) or sea kayaking (but it's a bit short) or whitewater, for which as you might guess it's perfect! Medium blade (745cm/sq).

I've snapped paddle shafts before, including a sky pole; one over the deck of the boat 'cos I landed flat from 40', and another by jumping on it. But unless the shaft is damaged already, a more likely outcome is a catastrophic failure of the blade or joint.

"The carbon paddles are made from carbon fibre multi-directional prepreg laminate."

OK.

"The shafts are 30mm and inserted into a 70mm long sleeve in the neck of the blade for extra strength."

OK.

I can't tell if they're strong, but they look strong. The joint is a bit bulky because the designers have erred on the side of Mega-strong, and the blade looks as if an inch-thick pile of carbon fabric has been put in an autoclave and squashed paper-thin under Mega-tons of pressure. Which it probably has! (See what I did there?)

Hmm, no dihedral... Is this even gonna work? Dihedral is the principle of shaping the drive face like the convex side of a spoon rather than the side you eat from. The slight loss of power stabilises the blade and prevents flutter. The only paddles that don't have dihedral are usually in slalom or other power-hungry applications, and the immense forearm strength of the athletes is relied upon to control the flutter. Until they retire with wrist and elbow injuries. No... we like dihedral.

"The blades are spoon shape tip to tail and flat across the middle plane with a thin profile to bite the water efficiently with no flutter."

Are they now? This doesn't sound right. So I took 'em paddling. The only way to be sure...

I have many sea kayak paddles, from G-stick to long touring Euro blades, but I like to go out fitness training in my Inuk (fast sea kayak) with short slalom style paddles just for the workout it gives me. Enter the Wizard Stick. I put a few miles in on the Tamar estuary where I live. There's no flutter. There's less splash and more power than with my slalom paddle. What is this witchcraft? Damn...

"Very light - almost all flex has been eliminated from the blade, so the power output is immense."

This is true. There is flex in the shaft, though, just the right amount to give the paddle that "living thing" feeling like a wooden paddle and protect my ageing joints! I love sky shafts and have done since Werner first used 'em way back when. They're incredibly strong with just the right (minimal) amount of flex, and the ovals for the hands are much nicer than most. Speaking of ovals, the Mega paddle seems to have less than usual, which worried me until I used them and it felt great!

One problem I've had in the past is with the Skypole having a greasy feel so that I had to use surfboard wax to give me a confident grip. The Mega one is slightly different, with a matt finish almost as if it's been sintered. No grip problems here.

OK, so it's my new favourite paddle. But I haven't exactly tried it in its element. I put the paddle away and kept checking the surf forecast for a day I could a) surf and b) take decent photos, but another opportunity came up first; a massive rainfall on Dartmoor brought the rivers up big, notably the Dart. I was pencilled in to do a boat test, so after the school run, I found myself bowling across the moor with whitewater boats and the new fave stick. 

In my head, I was going to get some photos of the boat doing its thing and some of the paddle for this review. With snapper Kate on the bank with a DSLR, I seal launched into the pumping river, painfully aware that I hadn't been on whitewater for a year (or in this boat ever), and a strange thing happened. I forgot about the paddle. Completely. I was thinking about the somewhat general-purpose boat, how to use it, how to get it to surf a wave that most people can't surf even in playboats, and I forgot I had a new paddle. I think this is the best accolade possible. It just works. And I did paddle the surging floodwaters, and I did surf the difficult wave, and the paddle didn't make me adapt or think or anything.

So, perhaps I'm biased or just lucky (probably), but I think it's perfect.

It's also available with glass blades, carbon shafts, bent shafts, bla bla... But mine is the best. End of story.

I will use it for surfing when the right day comes. But in the meantime, I'll use it for everything I can!

Sorry about the radio silence...

It's been a while! I decided I would shift the emphasis of this blog to my then embryonic personal training business, and then there was a toddler, and then Covid-19. I seriously underestimated how time-consuming toddlers are, especially when you're stuck with 'em 24/7. But no regrets. It's been great to be able to spend so much time with her.

Now, onwards. I'm writing some PT and personal development stuff; it's very progressive and closely aligned with my philosophy, one that regular readers are probably familiar with. If you're new to my ramblings, it may or may not be for you. The next post might be called something like "Your goals are not the answer".

Watch this space, and in the meantime, don't forget to breathe...