Reno River Festival

This is one of the biggest events of the whole USA tour. Though this year there was a date change, it is usually in the spring and starts of the tour, while this year it was pushed back to mid June, the same weekend as FIBArk, another huge event.

Though I was one of the few to leave Colorado and fly over to Reno. I think I made a wise choice, as it was an amazing weekend. Like most of the USA, Reno had low water levels, though with a couple phone calls they were able to more flow, which helped a ton. The river went from really low, to perfect levels for the #5 hole.

We started off on Friday with some freestyle prelims, mainly just seating the competitors for the finals in Sunday. It was two rides both count. I was able to pull off with pole position coming in 1^st with a combine of 2030 points.

Saturday brought some slalom racing and the big trick contest. The Slalom was really interesting being they used buoys instead of gates, so there was no head ducking or even squirting. This style of race changed how you would look at the course and the obstacles.  It was fairly tight between Jason Craig, Matthiew Doumulin and myself. Though with fast and clean run under my belt I was able to take home the top honors with a 160, followed by Matthieu with a 169 and Jason with 173.

We then sprinted straight over to the Big Trick contest.  Everyone got three rides, with there best and biggest single trick counting. I felt got with a sweet combination trick, linking together a McNasty / Lunar Orbit / Back Loop / McNasty. Though Jason pushed my out with a really hard new trick we had been working on, the Jaw Flip: a McNasty into a Jedi Flip.

Sunday was the big day, with freestyle finals, the stand up board races, and crowd favorite boater-cross. We stated of with Finals of the freestyle at 10AM. It was three rides with your best ride counting. I had a hard time linking my combos moves together and ended in third, behind Adam Chappell in 2^nd and Matthieu the Frenchy in 1^st, both who had amazing rides.

We followed up the freestyle with the SUP slalom race. It was a downriver race with buoy obstacles. It was close between Ken Hoeve and myself. We both a really tight 1^st run, though with a clean second run I was able to secure my 1^st place finish.

Next was the 8 ball boater-cross. It was heats of four with 3 buoy obstacles and 2 8-ballers. I ended up winning my heat but was disqualified for not going the right way around a buoy. I then continued to announce and watch as one by one people got slammed and beat down all the way to the finals. After the 8-ball boater-cross we did a SUP-cross. 5 people mass start one buoy obstacle and a sprint to the finish. I was tangled up with Jason Craig around the rock, though I was still able to pull off a 2^nd place while passing Todd through the main hole.

The day was finished up with some award ceremonies and free concerts in the park.

Now I’m off to the next event, Missoula Montana.

Singing out,

Nick Troutman