Wednesday, May 23, 2012

The more raceboards start looking like canoes... the more I want to race in the surfboard class.

I'm gonna let the all the Olympic hopefuls, 2% body-fatters, former East-bloc athletes and sponsored paddle/ambassador/pro (everybody's an ambassador these days) race their four thousand dollar stand up boats... I'm gonna carbo load on fish tacos and beer, plug in a Futures surf fin and bang rails with my fellow weekend warrior... surfboard class baby, surfboard class.

9 comments:

Chris Koerner said...

Big Red baby. Bring it on!

John Ashley said...

Ha! Hey Chris! I should've added "... or race in the inflato class!". Big Red is old school John Ashley- we're going to be at Patch early on Mem. Day with Chili dogs, real dogs, boards, and covert cocktails... you, Shirley and the kids coming down?

Anonymous said...

haha!-if it wasnt for my stupid lower lumbars you would see me at all the races-alwyas good fun and good people-then you and i could hurl good natured insults at all the beautiful people!
see u maybe this weekend at Patch and definitely at the WB Luau!
Jon

Better Yeti said...

It's interesting you should say that. I was just having a related thought, while pondering the probably indulgence of a custom 14' raceboard from Boehne (who has soaked up an conspicuous proportion of my leisure dollars...)

The last five years of SUP has left me gorged with surf. My new session calculus includes recovery time between waves because -- as never happened in the pronie days -- I'm hooking up the outer and inner sections, ripping back out and finding myself yet again in perfect position with everything except the stamina to scratch for yet another (20th? 30th? 40th? Christ -- a good session used to be eight) wave.

So, yeah. I let 'em go by now in a way I never did before; it's brought out a kind of self-interested generosity I never had before, poor benighted pronies, huddled around the peak on their potato chips, battling for the drop.

So what I'm really left with -- after the feel-good rush of the wave is diluted -- is the endorphin flood of working the paddle and covering huge spans of water -- the offshore equivalent of the Runner's High. Yeah, I guess it's surfing -- I technically do hook up the runners going downwind -- but it's a mutation. Definitely something alien. Or at least extremely back-to-the-future.

And so I start thinking about canoes. And pacing migrating California Grays. And getting far, far from the madding lineup. Hey -- I'm in my fifties. Seems like the normal progression, right?

But i digress.

John Ashley said...

You had me at, "pacing California Grays".

Hills Local said...

I'm sure SUP racing will start to turn you off more and more. Make them race BOP style in and out of the surf! No Lycra and paddle flumes.

Anonymous said...

This is paddle surf.net , not paddle for the trophies .com right?

John Ashley said...

Amen, Anon. and to that end, I've got a couple good surf trips coming at me in the next couple months... gotta get back to what matters!

Anonymous said...

Let 'um race their "canoes", it just means more surf for me..duhhh