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Jim Buley races Great Falls, loves the Villain

Posted by claywright, 20/07/2010| Posted In: 2010 Villain series, Featured Post, Heros, JK Team Posts, Team JK, Uncategorized, Villain, Whitewater, creeking, events, hero, jacksonkayak.com, news

Finally Racing Great Falls – by Jim Buley

I’ve been paddling for 18 years now, and have been running Great Falls of the Potomac since 1995, yet I have never entered the falls race during the Potomac Whitewater Festival. Let me state for the record, that running the falls, and racing the falls, are two completely different animals. One animal has teeth, and the other has really big teeth. Going full-out over Great Falls takes a lot more juice than just a normal lackadaisical run of the falls. A lot can happen when you paddle as fast and as hard as you can over class five rapids. This is in the mind of every racer who competed in this year’s Potomac Whitewater Festival Great Falls Race, I’m sure, and it was in the back of my mind as well, since I was about to race for the first time.

Let me be completely honest here: I am a HUGE fan of my 2009 Super Hero, and thought that it would be very hard for the Villain to win me over, but it did, although- not at first. I’ve been paddling the Super Hero since it first came out and just love the way the boat literally makes rapids feel a class lower than their rating. My stats= 6ft 1in tall, 34 inseam, wt. 180lbs.The Super Hero makes it easy to make the transition from a playboat, to a creeker, be

cause of the flat hull and shortish bow. I spend a majority of my time in my Super Star and Mon Star, so making the switch to the Super Hero for a creek run is always an easy one.
The first time I paddled the Villain was down the Fishladder of Great Falls. My first impressions were that the boat definitely had more forward speed than the Super Hero, which was good for the point-and-shoot type of slide rapids that the Fishladder has, and for punching through the holes at the bottom of those slides too.The Villain also has softer chines than the Super Hero, which makes it more forgiving if you get sideways on a slide. These attributes I liked a lot, however, I found that when you stuck the bow into stiff current, the Villain tended to take off on you much like a long boat. I attribute that to the extra bow length of the Villain over the Super Hero. I also think that you tend to get a little spoiled by paddling short boats that are easy to correct in current.

I decided that I just needed a little more time in the Villain, and gave it a second chance. I took it out for five days in a row for some practice runs of the falls to see how I could adjust to the new length  (8 ft, 8in vs 7ft 11in of the Super Hero). I did some slow laps, about five or six, and got pretty dialed in, so I decided that the rest of my practice runs would be at full speed. I really liked the speed and the ease of which the Villain handled while going full-out, and decided right then and there that I was going to enter my first Great Falls Race.

We had a nice rainy day for the race on Saturday, and the river level was starting to come up a bit from the day before. My goals were these; 1) Race for the first time.2) Go full-on and make finals (top ten) 3) Be fast and clean in finals and make the top five at least 4) Win the short boat class. Well, I wound up finishing tied for 4th place in short boat. My finals run was clean, and pretty fast, and only one second behind 3rd place. I was pretty psyched! The Villain treated me very well, and I was stoked to have competed and performed well. I was also the oldest competitor in the race, at the age of 43, which made me feel good too ;0)

I look forward to next year’s race! Attached are some pics of me from the race that were taken by Hector Picart.

See you on the river!
Jim Buley
Valley Mill
www.valleymillkayak.com

JK sponsored the falls race. We also raffled off a Jackson kayak for AW at the fest party.
Race result times for short boat;

Short Boat Final

Name Bib # Time
Jason Beakes 11 1:07
Nathan Sass 1 1:13
Sam Kane 3 1:15
Simon Braun 20 tie 1:16
Bobby Miller 14 tie 1:16
Seth Chappelle 22 C-1 tie 1:16
Jim Buley 26 Jackson Villian tie 1:16
Richard Hurd 19 1:18
Colin Swan 16 Jackson Hero 1:19
Jordan Poffenberger 2 C-1 1:22
Mike Todd 10

2 Comments to “Jim Buley races Great Falls, loves the Villain”

  1. Risa Shimoda says:
    July 26, 2010 at 12:12 am

    Jim, You did great in the race, amidst a strong field! Thanks for the support for this year’s Potomac Whitewater Festival – to Valley Mill and to Jackson Kayak!

  2. Jim Buley says:
    July 29, 2010 at 4:56 pm

    Thanks Risa! It was another great fest. Thanks for all your hard work, and thanks to JK and AW

    Jim B

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