By Megan Quinn

FACING THE WAVES: Riverboarders get up close and personal with rapids

Among tubers and weekend kayakers who practice their moves in Clear Creek, wetsuit-clad, helmeted adventure-goers can be seen whizzing headfirst through the water on colorful, sled-like contraptions. They're riverboarders, seeking a thrill and not afraid to get a little (or a lot) wet.

Riverboarding, also known as sledging or hydrospeed, looks somewhat like boogie boarding or body boarding. It involves lying stomach-down on plastic boards with handles and navigating river rapids by using different kicking methods. complete article»

Day on river takes on new meaning, new view by Andy Thompson

RICHMOND - Attention all whitewater lovers for whom navigating rapids in a boat has lost its ability to thrill. Shane Bolling has just the sport for you: It's called riverboarding, and it might best be described as a hybrid of river kayaking and boogie boarding.

As Bolling sees it, the key to riverboad experience, and what sets it apart from more traditional whitewater conveyances, is perspective. "I would say that a riverboard will take a much smaller rapid and make it seem much more intense than if you were in a boat, be it kayak or raft, because you're right on top of the water. complete article»

By Edward Stoner

Face to Face with Whitewater by Edward Stoner, photos by Shane Macomber

VAIL - Shane Bolling reassured his student. A lower learning curve, he said, allows beginning riverboarders to ride Class III water - something that takes a while for a novice kayaker to work up to. Bolling headed for the put-in spot near the 17th tee of the Vail Golf Course - just upstream from a set of three rapids in the cold, swift water of Gore Creek. "Your slightly-above-average weekend warrior can get a kick out of it," he said. The lower learning curve offers a lower barrier to entry, he said, whereas with kayaking, it's a good idea to take a basic lesson, get some experience on progressively harder water and then take some roll lessons before tackling Class III water. Riverboarding started in New Zealand and France in the 1980s. Bolling says it's growing in the U.S., and that his sales are doubling each year. He estimates that there are several thousand riverboarders in the U.S., and he thinks that number will continue to grow. complete article»

On a Riverboard, It's Down the Creek without a Paddle

By David Howard - To the uninitiated, riverboarding looks as sensible as sliding down a ski jump on a cafeteria tray. But its practitioners insist that it's not nearly as hard or dangerous - or even scary - as it looks. The sport addresses anzieties straight on. "When you're rafting or kayaking, what are you afraid of? Falling in," said Ken Taylor, an enthusiast from Atlanta who on weekends heads for the Ocoee River in Georgia. "We're not up there worried about staying upright; we're already in the water."...One day this spring, Klye Brown, 18, and Heath McClain, 20, Alabama college students, readied themselves to test that premise on the Nantahala River in western North Carolina. They had driven all night to get to the Nantahala Outdoor Center, a water sports center, and weren't deterred by the rainy weather or the cold water. They strode upstream along the banks following the lead of Shane Bolling, 36, the owner of RipBoard, a businesse in Golden, Colorado, that sells and services riverboarding equipment, who was taking visitors out for demonstration rides at the Nantahala center's Spring Splash event.complete article»

The Boards of Summer

By Caroline Kettlewell - Sure everyone else is wakeboarding, windsurfing and whitewater paddling this summer. But you want to ride the cutting edge, don't you? You want to do the thing that (almost) no one else is doing. Well, slap on the sunscreen and get ready to get wet.

Riverboarding - When you meet Chris Washnock, he doesn't seem crazier than the average person. He has a friendly, low-key manner, a ready grin and a responsible day job with a major beverage company. You realize that Washnock, 35, is not quite like the rest of us only when you are standing with him at the very edge of churning Class IV rapids that thunder past in a froth of whitewater. The rest of us would take a cautions step back Washnock jumps in. complete article»

Great Outdoors - Wave Warriors

By Kelly Bastone - For riverboarders, the gnarliest water in the West is right here in our own backyard.

Floating belly-down on a riverboard, I'm accelerating face-first into a wall of whitewater. There's none of that above-it-all sensation you feel on a raft, where an inflated rubber buffer smooths out the aquatic turbulence beneath you like a magic carpet. Instead, I'm swimming in the current, gripping what amounts to a kid's snow sled that dives under the wave and leaves my head to slice through the rapid. Bin an instan I'm on the flip sied, noggin perfectly in tact.

Riverboarding is an up-and-coming whitewater sport, a niche activity with a following in places where the water is plentiful and wild like Washington, North Carolina, South Africa, New Zealnad-and Golden, Colorado. The allure of riverboarding is that you're immersed-instead of riding on the surface, as in a kayak, you're down where the water is frothy and fun. And unlike kayaking, which demands some degree of technical skill even in class II rapids, riverboarding requires a few techniques beyond a simple flutter-kick

Shane Bolling, a scruffy thirtysomething guy with brown hair and broad swimmer's shoulders, introduces riverboarding to newbies like me on the the class II and III rapids of Clear Creek in Golden. He discovered the sport while on vacation in New Zealand, where it's called "sledging" and in 1998 he started importing the 2-foot by 3-foot river craft into the United States. Now Bolling's Golden-based company, RipBoard, manufactures three models of riverboards in Commerce City. Bolling says sales double every year.