Turning Pages: A Stellar Performance and Service with a Smile.

A little while ago I made up my mind to try something different to mountain biking, and that resulted in me competing at the 3D Rotorua Multisport Festival. I loved it and told myself that I would return better armed for the experience.

I know I am a good mountain biker; the results showed it. However, I was a slow runner and mediocre kayaker. The running required hard work and hours on pavement. That I did. But I quickly realised that for the Kayaking leg I would need more than a sit-on-top plastic touring kayak to train on, and a borrowed boat to race on. I also figured that Kayaking is a lot like Mountain Biking; once your technique is down, the easiest performance enhancement is often simply to pull out your eftpos card...

So I began to search. I wanted a boat that could be raced hard and fast on oceans, rivers, lakes and more, but would also be a fun boat to train on when things weren't too serious. Lastly, it had to be affordable.

I settled on a surf-ski; it fitted all the performance criteria and there was potential to find a second hand bargain that fitted my price range. Fast forward a month and I wasn't getting much closer. I had a few "almost" opportunities that dissolved at the last hurdle, and it seemed that I was destined to another race on a borrowed boat. Then I stumbled across something spectacular...

Based out of Whakatane, the New Zealand distributors of Stellar Kayaks had some ex demo boats for sale. Demo boats take a beating, and the prices shown were at the upper end of my price range, but I gave them a call to see what they were. Turns out "demo" was another word for "used as a display model, still in original packaging and never actually been used on the water". I couldn't believe my luck!

Having tried a Stellar in Auckland and deciding that I liked the fit, we planned to visit Whakatane to try the boats on offer. Now, this is where the story changes from the run of the mill sale and is the reason I have chosen to produce a post on the topic. Whakatane is a 4 hour drive from Auckland, so a trip there was going to have to be an over night excursion. Little did I realise it, but the distributors (Franz and his lovely wife) had a small house on their property that they rented out to visitors coming to demo boats...

But it gets better, usually visitors were charged for the stay and then refunded if they then chose to buy a boat. Franz decided that even though I was buying a demo boat for significantly less than the retail cost of a new boat, he was going to let my accomplices and I stay for free... Imagine our surprise and gratefulness at being told that we had a place to stay as well as the opportunity to get a great boat at a price I could deal with...

We then discovered that Franz was not content to let me show up and purchase a boat I had picked out from his website. Oh no. He took out an in use demo of each model boat I was likely to suit, and put me out on the river in each one to make sure that I was choosing the right boat. He then proceeded to spend over an hour setting up the boat and giving me some on the water coaching in said boat to ensure I could use it to the best of my ability.

This is what I believe fits in to the category of going above and beyond for a customer. They took a group of complete strangers, invited us into their home, and took care of us over the entire weekend to ensure we got what we were after. I have never heard of this level of customer relations before and quite frankly I was astounded, flattered and more than a little bit humbled.

I had visited other kayak retailers before then whilst scouting out my options, and some other retailers fitted into the category of fantastic as well. A special thanks to Oscar at Fenn kayaks for helping me out with a boat at last years race, and for sourcing out a quality paddle for future excursions, and to Garth at Flow Kayaks for helping me out with some coaching and the offer of a boat if I needed it.

And yes, while I met some retailers who didn't come anywhere near the bar set by the others, my overall consensus of this community is that it's one I like the look of. I fell that the mountain bike community, as wonderful as it is for the most part, could learn a trick or two from these guys to take the industry to the next level.

So, to those retailers who have helped me so far, I would like to say a big fat THANK YOU! for all that you have done for me so far, and I look forward to being a part of this awesome group of people in the future... If you get a chance to check any of them out, I highly recommend them and I have put their details at the base of this post.

Until next time, see you out there.

-Cpt A.