Blazing Paddles Riverfest was an early birthday gift for Cleveland’s 230th birthday (pictures and video)

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Our 349 registered paddlers from ten states and guests enjoyed a fabulous time at our 8th annual Blazing Paddles Riverfest on Saturday July 18, 2026, just days before Cleveland’s 230th birthday. Is there any better way to celebrate the river and the city that helped a young nation rise to global prominence than a paddle on the historic & scenic comeback Cuyahoga River? Of all our guests, it seems the kayaking cat stole the show!

MANY thanks to our paddlers, super-volunteers, stakeholder partners, safety personnel, and SPONSORS for making our audacious vision for an immersive and authentic annual Cleveland waterfront festival a reality! Our Riverfront Expo presented by Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District presented non-paddling guests the opportunity to connect with local organizations and vendors. And yay for Collision Bend Brewing Co. for making our first-ever beer garden happen!

Music Box Supper Club kept the riverfront vibe pumping with a free concert by Jah Messengers.

Several galleries and videos are below for viewing! See you next year on Saturday, July 17, 2027 for the 9th Annual Blazing Paddles Riverfest.

Drone Ohio Gallery

Lee Baskey Gallery

Jack Brancatelli Gallery

Share the River Gallery

Race results (run the land)

TV 20 Interview

Blazing Paddles Paddlefest was an early birthday gift to the City of Cleveland!

/ Nautica Waterfront District/
Blazing Paddles Paddlefest was an early birthday gift to the City of Cleveland!

Happy Birthday to the City of Cleveland! July 22nd is the anniversary of the 1796 date when Moses Cleaveland and his boat of Connecticut Land Company surveyors landed at the confluence of the Cuyahoga River and Lake Erie, establishing a capital city of the Connecticut Western Reserve.

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Progressive Cleveland Boat Show Kicks of our Waterfront Planning for Cleveland’s Summer of 2025!

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Progressive Cleveland Boat Show Kicks of our Waterfront Planning for Cleveland’s Summer of 2025!

Is there a better way to kick off a new year of Cleveland waterfront event planning in early winter than 4 days of H2O lifestyle fun at the Progressive Cleveland Boat Show? For us, it’s a definite yes. A challenging year followed by some self-imposed downtime gave way to the kick in the pants the boat show provides us.

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Carrying the Torch - One year as Cuyahoga River AOC's Champion of the River

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Carrying the Torch - One year as Cuyahoga River AOC's Champion of the River

Yesterday’s Bedrock & Cleveland Cavaliers Cleveland Clinic Global Peak Performance Center ground-breaking event gave Share the River executive director Jim Ridge a moment to reflect. “It’s wonderful how a natural resource a city turned its back on is now being considered as a place people want to use as its front porch.'“ “Bedrock and the Cavs embrace of a revitalized natural resource like the Cuyahoga River is heartening and it’s sobering to consider some of us may be gone before the 15-20 years it will take to complete the $3.5 billion, 35-acre riverfront development project”.

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Working & Learning at the Pan-American Masters Games Cleveland 2024 Triathlon

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Working & Learning at the Pan-American Masters Games Cleveland 2024 Triathlon

We can honestly say Sunday’s Pan-American Master Games (PAMG) Triathlon was easily our WORST ever effort documenting a Cleveland waterfront event. But it was our best experience helping battle-hardened outdoor recreation event planning veterans ensure the event was a fun and safe experience for locals and recreational tourists from Afghanistan. Brazil, Canada, Hungary, India, Mexico, Mongolia, and Switzerland enjoy Cleveland.

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Earth Day - this is Cleveland's Cuyahoga River NOW!

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Earth Day - this is Cleveland's Cuyahoga River NOW!

We do wish more journalists (and their editors) would flip the script and instead of looking back on the bad old days, they take a look at the ONE river in the world that can elegantly and directly speak to how far the ecological movement has come for a variety of reasons.

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Connecting the Franklin Blvd. Detour Dots Between the Ohio to Erie Trail and Towpath Trail

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Connecting the Franklin Blvd. Detour Dots Between the Ohio to Erie Trail and Towpath Trail

The long-awaited beginning of the Irishtown Bend hillside stabilization project finally arrived this week. Franklin Blvd. a key connector from 25th St. to Columbus Rd. will be shut down until fall of 2025.

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2023 Red Bull Flugtag Cincinnati - lunacy on the Ohio River!

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2023 Red Bull Flugtag Cincinnati - lunacy on the Ohio River!

Saturday August 12 was an epic day in Ohio (known as the “birthplace of aviation”) as Red Bull Flugtag Cincinnati took over the Ohio River for a day of fun, frivolity, and engineering failures. Cincinnati was the only city in the United States to host Flugtag this year and it seemed appropriately ironic given the nearby location of the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park where “Arguably, the human imagination found its highest expression in two men from Dayton, Ohio: Wilbur and Orville Wright, first to fly a powered, heavier-than-air machine and creators of the practical airplane.”

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Remembering Tommy Piros - by Edie Call

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Remembering Tommy Piros - by Edie Call

For those who didn’t know him, Tommy was a kayaker. Not just any kayaker; an exceptionally talented whitewater kayaker, sponsored by Jackson Kayak. He loved running wild rivers and stout waterfalls, and he did it with his own unique style and grace. His whole family kayaks, and they’re all really, REALLY good. Tommy started paddling before he was out of diapers. The guy basically grew up on the water and he was always up for an adventure.

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Happy 53rd Anniversary Earth Day! Blazing Paddles Paddlefest is the photo-op for the comeback Cuyahoga River

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Happy 53rd Anniversary Earth Day! Blazing Paddles Paddlefest is the photo-op for the comeback Cuyahoga River

For several years we used to recognize Earth Day by prowling the Cuyahoga River shoreline, in an effort to show still images and video of how the comeback Cuyahoga River looked and felt now - as opposed to pulling up five decade-old images from the bad ol’ days at the dawn of Earth Day.

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