Results: Bent Shaft vs. Straight Shaft Paddle Shoulder Injury Survey

July 28, 2018 by John Nestler in Survey, Kayaking, Health

In January 2016 I released an online survey with the intent of determining whether shoulder injury rates differed among whitewater kayakers who used bent shaft or straight shaft paddles. Shoulder injuries are incredibly prevalent with whitewater paddlers, and I was personally interested in the data since I sustained multiple subluxations while kayaking ultimately resulting in surgery in 2012.

Many kayakers must have had a similar level of interest in the survey since there were over 2,700 responses. I fully expected less than 100 responses, but the survey truly went viral. Thanks for providing that data and rallying to spread the survey around! Unfortunately there are many confounding factors present, and I never had the time or technical skill to do justice to the sheer amount of data collected in the survey. I'd like to say I could put aside time for a project like this, but I'll be starting medical school next week and I don't think it's going to happen. Thus I'm making the raw data public so that people can sift through it if they're interested.

How Much Time Does it Take to Hike the Colorado Trail?

January 13, 2017 by John Nestler in Survey, Backpacking

I finished bikepacking the Colorado Trail in the fall of 2016, and quickly became interested in the average trip length of other trail users. I originally intended to analyze bikepacker trip length, but I created an online survey and 90% of the responses came from thru-hikers (57 out of 63 responses). This article examines the average length of a thru hike on the Colorado Trail as well as other factors including hiker age, gender differences, and whether hikers wished they had budgeted extra days for their trip.

Colorado Trail Hiker & Bikepacker Trip Length Survey

October 10, 2016 by John Nestler in Camping, Survey, Bikepacking

I’m interested in trying to figure out the average amount of time that users take on the trail, and the amount of time they wish they had since that can be used as a reference tool by people planning their own trips in the future. Of course this metric is going to include both the faster thru-hikers and those sauntering along, but my hope is there will be a happy medium in between. The CTF publishes some rough date ranges, but as gear changes and the trail becomes more popular it’s very possible to see some deviation. If nothing else, I think it will be interesting!