Anyone call a kayak shop ?

why do you think that’s funny?
There are regular forum participants here who have proven expertise. Bnystrom’s vast resources regarding kayak repair and outfitting is just one example. Additionally, the website is a click away.

Local

– Last Updated: Apr-15-13 9:58 AM EST –

Usually people want to know "what works"
for where they live , their geography,
and who better to answer succinctly
than the local kayak shop people who paddle there.

Local info, local instructors/classes, local shops,
where people can touch, feel, sit inside kayak,
would have more relevance than some blurb on a forum.

you don’t seem to understand
that many people do NOT have a “local” kayak shop.



Not sure why you are making a contest out of this. You are also dissing some good kayak clubs. Is their info useless too?

what’s wrong with both?

– Last Updated: Apr-15-13 10:17 AM EST –

I've found some good local paddling locations from others in this forum, people who, again, have proven knowledge. Some of those people have even pointed me to good local kayak shops.

As for boat fit, I only trust my body.

I don't think there's any magic to a local shop that makes it necessarily more or less trustworthy than someone in this forum with a proven track record. In both cases, one is going on the advice of a stranger. Sure, one has a workplace related to the sport.

I don't understand why one cannot use all the resources available to them, rather than automatically and arbitrarily ruling one out.

To me personally this is THE most valuable resource this website has to offer (classified ads being a close second).

At no stage in my 40 year paddling
career have I found boat shop advice to be adequate to my needs. Not even at Nantahala Outdoor Center, where I have bought several of my boats.



Honestly, I thought you were trolling to reveal the useless and ignorant advice offered at many local shops, because that’s what one should expect. Instead, you seem to think that we’re wasting our time on here, asking for and giving advice, because we could get it faster over the phone at Joe’s Recreational Kayak Emporium.



Well, isn’t that special!

So this is a waste of time thread about
… what exactly? People supposedly wasting their time starting threads?



Weird.

We are blessed
with 3 excellent shops I’ve worked with in the SF Bay and Monterey Area. Someone already mentioned CCK (there is one in Sacramento as well), but I’ll add Sea Trek (Sausalito) and Monterey Bay Kayaks (I think you can figure out where MBK might be) to the list.



MBK is where I started kayaking in 1985, back when sea kayaking was pretty much unknown. Jeff and Cass ran a really nice shop and she has continued the same standards after Jeff’s (RIP) illness. It is still my favorite shop.



Rick

Anyone Call a Kayak Shop
Steve and Bonnie at Scappoose Bay Kayaking in Oregon are very knowledgeable and helpful. They can and will answer any and all questions asked.



Greg

here’s a nice website resource
http://www.paddling.net/launches/



I love this map. I’m not sure I’d find it at my local shop, but one can find it here in Paddling.net.

No dis or misunderstanding

– Last Updated: Apr-15-13 2:02 PM EST –

Most posts told me about shops in Michigan which
I'm quite familiar with and they know me.

A few people posted about shops in other
parts of the country, which may benefit the
crop of new paddlers exploring the waters in 2013.

Paddling clubs are a wealth of info and I
highly recommend paddling with other people.


MANY questions on the site could have been answered
with a simple phone call to a shop in that state.

Extremely variable
Spans the whole gamut of the human personality and intelligence



Highly informative

Good communicator

Patient

Respectful

Flexible (adapts to individual customer)

.

.

.

.

Not knowledgeable

Impatient

Snarky

Judgmental

Opinionated



To me the knowledge and communication skills of the shop are important and I will hunt across state lines for the right combination of knowledge, service, the right kayak, and the right price.

Paddling Deserts
So on the flip side, who lives someplace where there isn’t a paddling shop within 75 miles (arbitrary distance)? Let’s use specialty shops here rather than include large box stores, just for the heck of it.



See you on the water,

Marshall

The River Connection, Inc.

Hyde Park, NY

www.the-river-connection.com

(new 2.0 website)

someone should create a map

– Last Updated: Apr-17-13 2:37 PM EST –

It'd be interesting to see where kayak and canoe specialty shops are (not counting liveries) in a matrix with waterbodies and population density.

Hey, if anyone could do it, the people running this website could!

would only use shop for select info
Even with a top notch shop you may not reach the top notch person on a call. The shop may cater more to lower level paddlers making questions such as good rock gardening boats tough for them. They may tend to advice purchasing only the brands they happen to carry. They may give overly conservative advise not knowing you and not wanting liability. None of this means you shouldn’t ask your shop questions, but it does mean you may want to compare that advice with other sources.

Proximity to large water bodies

– Last Updated: Apr-17-13 3:42 PM EST –

Michigan is sooo much different than most other states
as it's a peninsula with massive amounts of coastline
some 300 rivers and 1,000's of inland lakes.

How tough is it to find a shop in the other 50 states
that have a few large lakes and rivers ?

The sport seems to be growing each year
http://www.outdoorfoundation.org/research.paddlesports.html

it is interesting to ponder
One would expect to find them in MI along the great lakes, near denser populations, and in the case of anything above Clare, probably has to be a resort or vacation destination as well. As I mentioned earlier, the shops I noted don’t seem like they’re having an easy go of it in this economy.

We are in a unique position and it’d be interesting to see where the shops are in states different than MI.

Great Lakes Basin

– Last Updated: Apr-17-13 4:29 PM EST –

Many states border the Great Fresh Water Lakes
http://www.great-lakes.net/lakes/basinMap2.gif

Paddling shops nearby to answer questions,
get unique personalized advice, info, etc. ?

The more shops there are, the less
they’re likely to know. If I ran smack into one, I might check with them about local river conditions. But having driven around the perimeter of the lower peninsula, and across the top of the UP, without even seeing what I would call a real paddling shop (rather than a rec boat rental), I don’t believe your claim that Michigan has some wealth of so-called knowledge.



And I can’t understand why you think people could get the same questions answered in average paddling shops that they can get answered here. There are precious few paddling shops that have that kind of knowledge.

The USA with all it’s coastline…

– Last Updated: Apr-17-13 8:04 PM EST –

I find it odd that a newbie would ask what kind of kayak
should I get, when the USA is practically surrounded
by water and has countless lakes, rivers, etc.
Surely local paddling shops can handle the question.

Maybe people just don't bother making the effort
to look up a phone number or address to drive there
in an age of computer keyboards.
Kayak shops live and die with traffic in their stores

I also never understood how Dear Abby flourished
with people writing her for simple advice.

Sure there are highly, highly trained, skilled,
seasoned, experienced paddlers who frequent these
forum boards and are willing to share knowledge,
for a wide variety of complicated questions.




First off I suspect that many that consider starting kayaking DO talk to folks in a kayak or other sporting good store. Which store they go to relates both to what is available and how well they advertise since, after all, these are new paddlers that don’t yet know where best to go. So they may end up in a big box store for lack of knowing kayak specialty shops even exist.



But these shops are often NOT the best place to ask the question because invariably the answer would be that the best kayak for the customer just happens to be one of the ones in the shop and we know that can’t always be true.



The real best answer to to talk to shops, clubs and online resources and compare what they say to who you are and what you want to get out of the sport. Limiting yourself to one source is bound to get a biased answer.