First Water Session of the Season: Cold but Worth it!

I had the opportunity to catch some sufficient winds at Wasaga Beach 5 on Saturday April 26, 2014. I saw no lingering ice on the beach, nor in the water (thankfully), but a little further north along the coastline, things were looking mighty white still.

It was a balmy 4 or 5 degrees C, and the water temperature was about 2 or 3 degrees. Without a doubt, these conditions were the coldest I've ever experienced, and after about two hours or so of riding, I packed it in. But throwing in the towel isn't the point of this post. Rather, it is to reflect on a couple of hours of super-awesome freeriding in smooth 15 knot winds, not too gusty, and a well deserved season opener after six months hiatus due to our long Canadian winter.

I unraveled the new Controller Version 2 at the beach. The lines are a little on the stiff side, compared to the last bar, but if they are more stretch-resistant, then it will have been worth the extra minute or two to untangle the ends. The functionality of the bar remains about the same, but this new version bests the Version 1 in a few key areas:
- The rubberized grips are nice to hold and create a little bit more "friction hold" between my hand (or gloves in this case) and the bar;
- The clippable stopper at the end of the trim line is a godsend - no more flailing trim lines to wrap around my steering line; and
- Aesthetically it just looks better, the blue and black scheme is nice (white just gets dirty).

Those are my initial thoughts on the V.2 Controller bar. Last week, while suffering from a flu, I made my first ever video of an "unboxing" when I received the new bar in the mail. Later in the week on return to work, I found out that it's not actually that "cool" to video the box opening ritual. I never tried to hard at being cool - but my video is still out there if you have 10 minutes to spare...