It's summer. It's hotter than a pepper sprout. You're going to the lake. Should you bring the kayak or the paddleboard? Choices. The paddleboard industry has an answer to this dilemma: The hybrid inflatable SUP with a kayak seat, which is the best of both worlds.
Bote has long included a kayak seat with some of its pricier offerings, like the Bote Breeze Aero (7/10, WIRED Review) we tested last year, but the new Bote Lowrider Aero comes in a tandem option. It adds two seats and anchor points for Bote's Rac system, making it possible to have an SUP that can carry the full fishing rig of a kayak in a single craft. It is the best of many worlds.
Get to Know the Lowrider
The Bote Lowrider comes in two sizes: A 10-foot, 6-inch single-person version, with a single seat, and the 11-foot, 6-inch tandem version, which features two seats. I tested the latter, though nearly everything here will apply to the former as well. It's just a foot shorter and only has one seat.
The Lowrider is the widest SUP in Bote's lineup at 36 inches. It's big. Really big. This makes the Lowrider very stable, which is what you want when you're trying to use it as a tandem sit-on-top kayak (or even a single sit-on-top). It also makes it a very beginner-friendly paddleboard, since you don't need insane balance to use it. If you do have insane balance, it's a good platform for SUP yoga and the like, although I remain convinced SUP yoga is something people only do in promotional videos.