The Global Paddling Community

Independent kayak review: Liquid Logic Scooter

Intro

LiquidLogic introduced 2 completely new playboats in 2004, the Scooter and its bigger brother, the Big Wheel. Playak tested them for you (the Scooter mostly). This is our official independent review. We will talk about the Scooter here, but as the 2 boats are quite similar, you can typically read it for the Big Wheel as well, just imagine a bigger paddler.

Test Environment

We tested the Scooter on a wide range of river features (flatwater, huge waves, big holes, downriver) in 4 different countries. The range of testers was just about as wide, male and female, beginners and absolute cracks.

Metrics

All sizes can be seen in the Playak Boats Database. We recommend that you click here to open the specs of both boats in a separate window. The first thing we always do is measure and weigh new kayaks and compare them to the official specs. In this case the official specs were all within 3% of the real-life values, which is very accurate in our experience.

Design

From an aesthetic point of view, we found the Scooter plain sweet and sexy. This probably has to do with the smooth bright plastic (very sticker friendly), the round lines on the deck and the cute bill-shaped bow. It's all a matter of taste of course, but most people we met showed that same first reaction.

From a functional point of view, the Scooter is nothing radical to look at and doesn't inspire you with dreams of Big Air. However this said something about the classic looking lines draws you in. The boat looks very well thought out with enough volume around the paddler to give the pop but still with slicy ends for the old school moves for those of us without big waves.

The Scooter is very high and wide at the knees, which means that you will often hit your thumbs on the boat. Luckily with the smooth plastic and round deck lines this doesn't hurt too much though. It only happens in the beginning anyway, you get used to it fast.

One other small problem is that the cockpit rim sticks out. This combined with the height of the boat around the knees means that it's easy to catch the rim with your paddle when pumping on the flat for a loop. It's not quite like with the Zelezny Igo, which really catches the paddle completely, but still, we preferred the Riot approach where the cockpit rim is lower than the deck, which also protects the rim from breaking. Anyway, this too just takes a little getting used to.

Outfitting & Material

The plastic feels very rigid and the slight roundings in the design make the boat very stiff, including the hull.

As with all Liquid logic boats the internals are superb. No redundant gadgets or magic seat positioning systems. Just good solid outfitting that works. A well shaped seat hugs the paddler and is easily positioned by one screw on either side. There is no need to contort your hand into strange positions to hold the nut behind the seat, as LL have molded this into the seat itself. So all that is needed is a Phillips screwdriver. Hip pads are pre-shaped and self adhesive, and come supplied with spaces, so a good fit can be achieved in minutes.

The back rest is a ratchet system with the ratchets placed on the adjustable thigh braces inset so the deck doesn't rub and wear.

The new Insta-fit foot cushion is the big new hype this season and now comes as standard in all LL freestyle boats. The instafit is basically an air bag filled with beads like a bean bag. You simply place it in the bow of the boat blow it up and slide in with the valve open so as you push out the air, the bag molds around your feet, for a perfect fit. This seems to be a real love or hate affair. People that get on with it think it's the best thing since sliced bread whereas the ones who didn't just couldn't get on with it. But then you can just go back to the old faithful block of foam and use the instafit as a camping pillow.

Performance - Flat Water

Because of it's short length and slicy ends, the Scooter is very easy to wheel and stall on the flat. Unlike the last generation of playboats which where very bouncy, which was great for advanced paddlers, they were quite difficult for someone without previous experience, to learn these moves. The Scooter is very balanced on end and very stable in a stall but will still bounce when initiated making loops quite easy.

Performance - Waves

The hull is verrry loose (somehow you already feel this once you get into the boat on flatwater...) and edge to edge is very quick. We noticed that on big waves it was more difficult to bounce the Scooter than some other boats we tried. This may also be because we had the quite far back, but on the other hand, there is just not much boat behind the cockpit.

Performance - Holes

In a hole the Scooter is very stable and cartwheels very easily. Rather than bobbing from end to end the Scooter is a lot smoother and easy to keep control of. If loops are your thing you won't be disappointed. The Scooter loops easily thanks to the volume around the middle of the boat and back loops are easy as well.

Performance - River Running

The Scooter, although not a river runner, handles well when you need to run a reasonably sized rapid while on your way to your local playspot. The edges are quite forgiving and don't trip. The Scooter holds its line and ferry glides quite well and boofs very easily.

Conclusion

All in all we really liked this little boat. The quality of materials and outfitting is very high and the boats just looks good (yeah, we know, that's a matter of taste). The boat is loooose and performs very well in a wide range of environments.