respect the vest

There's a really interesting interview with Joel Tudor about logging, competitions and his Vans duct tape series in the newest issue of Slide magazine. Worth checking out if you get the chance!

Hopefully everyone had a slice of the swell we were treated to over the weekend. Sunday for me was particularly fun before the crowds of straight lining longboard crutch wielding masses turned up. I learn't a couple of things:

1. Competing for waves while riding a 5'2 in a line up of 9 foot plus boards is hard work

2. Catching up and overtaking longboarders who drop in on you is exceedingly fun on said 5'2

3. Tyler Warrens bar of soap design is one of the fastest, most exciting and downright fun surfboards i have had the pleasure of owning!

sitting on the stoop..

cold beer, warm air, bare feet and the fading summer sun.

A time to remember in the depths of winter........

winter wonderland

So last week i picked up a new winter wetsuit. It's a hooded 4/3 from the new Hasu range from Nineplus.

It's mostly single lined apart from the bottom of the legs and feels very lightweight. Seams are liquid sealed and the torso and hood is lined with fleecy material. It's a chest zip entry, the neoprene is yamamoto feels lovely and supple.

It's supposed to be plenty warm enough for our winter (water around 8 celcius) but i must admit i wasn't entirely sure as i sauntered down to mid tide 2 ft windswell a few days ago, it felt thin and too easy to get on compared with my old xcel suit to believe id be warm.

How wrong i was. I'm not going to claim it's warmer than a 5/4, it's probably about the same (although having a full time hood reduces flushing and the fleece lining in the hood had my head sweating!) What you gain is in flexibility, it feels as though you have a summer suit on, in fact less restrictive than some 3/2's i've worn. The seams let very little water in and i was perfectly warm, even hot, for an hour on a windy grey day. Admittedly it was a small day and i was on a log so i didn't spend a lot of time under water.

 So far so good and on first impressions i'd heartly reccomend it.

Only time will tell on durability and if the warmth of the suit lasts and i'll keep you posted..........

Rob from the Nineplus shop has a new blog for the shop itself up and running, have a look here

Meanwhile, "surf city" Newquay has a fine looking new shop up and running with a cafe upstairs called Watershed. Their blog is here Looking forward to checking them out next time i'm down the coast.

horse

a horse is a horse of course, of course
and no one can talk to a horse, of course
that is of course,
unless the horse,
is the famous Mr Ed!

today's trivia question is which old skateboard video did the song appear in, answers on a postcard..........

score draw

Two pictures taken within seconds of each other, one with the lc-a, the other with my pentax digital compact. For once i can't decide if i prefer the analogue or the digital version!

petro cruising

le bistro

At last! i have been surfing and i am really pretty relieved i actually still know how! Really fun to have a couple of small clean logging waves, especially in the sunshine at the weekend. Extra rubber is definately not helping how un paddlefit i feel though!

Yesterday was cold, grey and properly felt like winter. Difficult to leave the house with the prospect of a damp wetsuit in a windchilled car park but well worth it. Couple of fun ones and good to catch up with some faces i haven't seen or a while. Mr Bott was styling as usual on his new bing (levitator) hopefully i can try it and report back soon!

The rest of the week looks small and clean, i just need to work out how i can squeeze time in the shortened daylight hours!

hidden in plain sight

a diamond in the rough

coastal cruising no.2

Happy New Year one and all, yes i know it's slightly premature but reading blogs will doubtless be low on all your list of post celebration things to do tomorrow morning so i'm getting in early!

The last couple of years i've listed my top three "funnest"  boards of the year at this point but 2011 has been a year of transition in my quiver with a bit of a clearout followed by some new acquisitions so i thought i'd list them all as they stand right now, when i'm happy with all of them and not bored of anything enough to sell right now!


So here goes:


5'2 Tyler Warren for Hobie Bar of Soap.
5'6 Gulfstream twin keel fish.
5'6 Jeff McCallum Mford
5'8 Larry Mabile classic keel fish
6'10 Spence by Tim Mason displacement hull
9'4 Bing NR-2
9'4 Gulfstream CP model diamond tail saunton foil or "old faithful!"
9'4 Squire Dirk of doom (gato death dagger inspired pointy log!)
9'5 Dano Old Pleasure
9'6 Classic Malibu Jai Lee 1 model

If i'm honest, it's the bar of soap and the mford that i'm most excited about surfing at the moment, both different branches of the simmons inspired tree, both blazing fast and loose, both great on our frequent average days as well as the good ones. Of course ask me in a couple of months and i'll probably give you a different answer!

Incidentally, the photo is topanga in case you were wondering!

coastal cruising no.1

 

carp 

 

les dunes

douglas e powell

 

 The exceedingly talented, Mr Douglas E Powell. Acoustic singer songwriter tinged with americana, english folk and melancholy. Wholly deserving of your attention!

BGA

 

Al, architect and onetime art director for Wallace and Grommett, reflecting on another quiet fun offshore logging session while the masses battled unfavorable winds elsewhere.

It's starting to be the season for finding the quiet corners out of the wind, for boots, more rubber and rather depressingly gloves and hoods before very much longer. With the dark evenings and winter storms, it's the time of year that my mind starts to focus on climbing (indoors) a little bit. Al is often on the other end of the rope as i dangle two storey's up desperate to clip the bolts before my finger strength gives up. Quite a position of trust if you think about it....... i must remember to stay on his good side!

It's quite refreshing to be able to pick a day and time to go do somthing and not have change plans for weather or tide at the last minute. We're pretty spoilt for choice around here for indoor climbing at the moment. The excellent bouldering room in Pilton school is getting about a third bigger as we speak, Barnstaple has walls in Petroc and an old church, the Mill near south molton is still open and exeter has the quay, reviewed in a previous post.

For those a little further along the coast, Bude just got a brand new bouldering facility, called the chalk house, in the kings industrial park on the edge of town. It's not been open that long and i went to check it out last week. It's a decent size, not as big as say the climbing academy in bristol but bigger than the bouldering areas at exeter or south molton. A lot of the wall is slab rather than overhang though they have plans to add a proper roof area soon they say. It's got a fairly lo-fi feel with ply rather than coated climbing wall surface and is obviously born out of a few peoples passion rather than a big investment by a business. On the day i went, they had just had a comp on so there were fewer routes than normal but there were still 50 routes up. They were ungraded but the majority weren't too hard, many of the steeper ones having fairly juggy holds, which i think is a good thing for a part time climber like me. One big difference compared with other places i've been is the height. The wall tops out at 4.5m which, although is regulation international contest height,  feels a long way up when you're clinging horizontally on bad holds lunging for an uncertain grip!

All in all it's pretty cool and great to have another alternative if you're down that way and the surf forecast lied!

gul

So after a brief lull in swell and wind hereabouts, it's back to some solid groundswell and breezy conditions again. Almost all my surfs recently have seem to have been battling some kind of strong wind, whether onshore or offshore and as usual i've not had the time to seek shelter on the bigger days. Summer's mellow sessions feel long gone and winter feels just around the corner.

 It made a nice change then earlier in the week to slide into some unexpectedly fun thigh high glass at low tide croyde of all places. Even at that size there's some speed in the wave and getting up on the nose and back requires some deft footwork, especially as it tends to be quite A-framed at lower tides. I took the pointy squire log in and i have to say, in the type of wave it is built for (i.e hollower and fast), it really lit up, light enough to feel responsive not tracky from the back as it zipped along in trim and really solid despite it's narrow nose on the tip.

Having headed beachwards with little expectation of a dip, an hour, alone in the line-up in the fading sun brought big smiles.

 In other news, i tried on one of the samples of the new Nineplus Hasu chest zip suits this week.
All black with a subtle gold logo, it features the lightest, stretchiest single lined yamamoto i've seen. Really looking forward to mine arriving in a couple of weeks now!

on the line.....

where the streets have no name...

well they do......... it's just in french!

wood is good

for the daily commute

Reissue not original but very sweet all the same, stacey peralta warp tail, trackers and cambria wheels. Loose as a goose and oh so much fun.

Mega thanks to Gavin at surrey skateboards for taking so much pleasure in sorting me out, it was greatly appreciated!

hobie split

There are a lot of beautifully maintained hot rods and busses around california, a lot of occasions when i wasn't quick enough with a camera as they drove past. This beautiful splitty resides outside the main hobie store in Dana Point most of the time though so it's an easy target.

This weeks essential reading is "uncle Skello's what's hot and what's not" published every thursday on the Gulfstream blog. Everything you need to know to chart your way through the sartorial and cultural minefield that is staying cool,

Remember, support your local otter..... shaper, sorry!

ruby's

So Ruby's is a chain of classic american style diners that are scattered along the coast. They are based on the stereotype we all have.... red vinyl boothes, waitresses with 50's make up red gingham dresses and white pumps, malt shakes etc. This one in laguna has some period correct cars out front too. Sounds kinda cheesy doesn't it? But you know what, it's fun and they make superb burgers!