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Inflatable kayaks.....

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mantispf2000

Turbo Monkey
Aug 9, 2001
1,795
246
Nevada, 2 hours from Mammoth
Who here has experience with one? Now that I have my Tacoma (Thank You, Autonation of Las Vegas!!), I'd like to get one for me, the missus, and our dogs. Figure the inconvenience of inflation is overshadowed by the low weight, so wife won't have to help me carry it when we get to our destination.

Yes, I am checking out places like Amazon, REI, etc, and just want some honest feedback, so THANKSS!!!!!!
 

jimmydean

The Official Meat of Ridemonkey
Sep 10, 2001
43,096
15,180
Portland, OR
I got the cheapy Sea Eagle and it's been an awesome river floaty. The wife just goes along for the ride and I do all the work. It's been awesome, we have used it about a dozen times in 4 years maybe.

 

Full Trucker

Frikkin newb!!!
Feb 26, 2003
11,136
8,772
Exit, CO
I have a Star/NRS Outlaw 1, and have paddled a couple of other models. The ones I have used are more river/whitewater oriented, and dang are they fun for that. I mean, you can paddle them in lakes as well, but my understanding is they won't track as straight as a hard sided kayak with a fin or an inflatable that's still-water oriented (if there is such a thing). And honestly, I don't have much in the way of knowledge or advice but I guess where I'd start is by figuring out what your primary use case is, and do some research on what models (or features?) work best for what you want to use it for. I've been trying to find online resources for this, but haven't come up with much. I think paddling.com is decent, and mountainbuzz.com used to be the forum for that sort of thing but maybe it's dying off like all other forums?

FWIW, I went with a known whitewater brand since I'd be paddling the river in my town that has plenty of rocks and such, and whitewater from easy class 2 up to class 4-5 stuff. I wanted something that could take impacts with rocks, and I could eventually get into more serious rapids with. If you're tooling around lakes and whatnot, a Costco/Amazon sort of things might be totally fine.
 

OGRipper

back alley ripper
Feb 3, 2004
10,735
1,247
NORCAL is the hizzle
Costco sometimes has stuff like that. Worth looking into.
We grabbed a cheap inflatable kayak at Costco a couple years ago. Can't even remember the brand, but I think it was like $250 or something. We weren't sure how much we'd use it so didn't want to spend too much at first. Packs down pretty small, inflates quickly, and works just fine for goofing around on lakes and gentle rivers after bike rides. Wouldn't want to take it in any serious water, but we're not really into that too much anyway. I'd like more on-board storage and better cup (beer) holders, but for the dozen or so times a year we use it, it works for us.
 

eric strt6

Resident Curmudgeon
Sep 8, 2001
24,386
15,155
directly above the center of the earth
i did not know you needed a dually to haul those things around until i drove through lee vinning and saw a covoy of about 6 trucks with them and their yeti coolers in the back....

heavy payload indeed...
Do you have any idea how heavy an 8 foot bed full of Ice chests packed with beer weighs?. And in the desert one can never have too much ice cold beer.