nice, I need to go to Japan.  Looks sweet

Originally posted by shop_39014 dang, japan's got it good: epic snow and surf.  Kinda like california...only japan's water is probably a lot warmer

From what I have read about it is pretty similar too so cal in water temp. Gets warm in the summer and cold in the winter.

There are a few spots that are now doing indoor surfing. Never done it but it is being made more available but it has been around for a number of years. Although it wouldn't be as good as the real thing.

I used to think surfing was similar to snowboarding...but, with experience, I now think snowboarding is a completely different skill than both surfing or skateboarding.

the cool thing about surfing is it's something that is just fun as snowboarding that you can do in the off season. 

Skateboarding is cool too, but it's so urban.  Snowboarding and surfing really get you out of your element.

Originally posted by shop_39014 I used to think surfing was similar to snowboarding...but, with experience, I now think snowboarding is a completely different skill than both surfing or skateboarding. the cool thing about surfing is it's something that is just fun as snowboarding that you can do in the off season.

As long as there are surfable waves. Which is the only down side to surfing i see.

Learning to surf sucks. It is so much worse and harder to learn how to really surf than snowboard. But what makes it so hard makes it so much fun too. Well surfing is really easy standing there and turning the board is very simple. It is learning to read the waves and being strong enough to catch them, is the really hard part.

I hate how in shape you have to be for surfing.
In my mind all places take too much paddling except for a great day at steamer lane in Santa cruz. It is a point and you can get out and walk around jump back in at the point it is sweet. I have seen every kinda of break that more or less paddling. It seems like with beach breaks you are paddling a lot or not much. I like the not much days better.

Yea I am the same way I live in Idaho for fall and winter for school and come back to CA for summer to work. It is amazing how much slower i paddle.

Yea and you don't have to hike up the mt too. You just have to come down. I think if i had to hike i might be close. But it is turn I use my leg muscle a lot in the off season which is nice. And with snowboard you can go as fast or as slow as you want and it doesn't matter. Take breaks when you always almost anywhere but surfing you can't just stop half way out it just doesn't work at most places. 

Originally posted by Timmay_650 ]Yea and you don't have to hike up the mt too. You just have to come down. I think if i had to hike i might be close. But it is turn I use my leg muscle a lot in the off season which is nice. And with snowboard you can go as fast or as slow as you want and it doesn't matter. Take breaks when you always almost anywhere but surfing you can't just stop half way out it just doesn't work at most places.

Originally posted by hana24 Yup...I took a break from surfing for snowboarding season...

that's what I do now, too. 

Winters up here get too cold and stormy to have much fun surfing...it's just too big and crazy.  Heading up to the mountain is the perfect alternative.  I'm so glad I discovered snowboarding.   

ha ha I dont care if you, do. do what ever to it

I surf mostly in Santa Cruz but anywhere from there to SF you can find me. I have surfed the whole coast, I think i have hit most of the major beaches. My mom grew up in San Diego, so I have surfed there a bunch.
I was way excited I just order a new board (new to me, used)

I like Huntington beach. When I was younger I was down there for like a wedding of people i didn't know. So i dropped my parents off they were going to set up and do a bunch of stuff starting in the morning/ afternoon and i look the van and started at Newport and there was nothing there so i ending up driving to Huntington b/c i knew that was the best chance of waves and there was some fun ones nothing big and only a few people out. That was a fun day of surfing. Then I went and eat free food at the wedding too bad there wasn't cute girls my age at the wedding.

oops

Hey shop, Do you know anything about beach camping in that area. I have been wanted to do beach camping and wake up and be able to walk down to the beach and go surfing. I have been thinking about big sur but i have never been there.

Yea I have slept on the beach a few time before. I took a road trip down to Mexico and slept a few time on the beach there and when i was younger.

I love that when it is just you and maybe one other and then a seal but not a sea lion those thing are big.
Once one of them chased a kid out of the water. There a prob 5-10 of us and one just came out of the nowhere and a kid for freaked and started paddling in and it kept coming up behind him. I laughed really hard.

I got my new board today I am so excited to do ride it.

I got the Surftech JC Hawaii Peter mel which is the Tuflite. Yea it is my First TL/epoxy board, I have only demo them once before when i was looking to buy a new board and i liked them a lot but couldn't pay the price for one. So i got a M10 board from the factory as a blemish one for cheap. So I wasn't going to buy a new board anytime soon but i was on the internet messing around and saw the JC for about $120 and they said it was in great condition but no real picture. So i took the risk and brought it and was so excited when i saw it b/c it looks like someone waxed it and rode it once without a traction pad and decide they didn't like it. Which is great for me.  
I think i hitting the beach tomorrow to see what i think of it but i am going to have to ride it without a traction pad which i dislike.

http://www.surftech.com/boardDetails.php?bid=SURFBDS+%3A+L1192-0604-JC&type=SURFBDS++&shaper=JC+Hawaii&skill=&weight=&rshape=&cond=&qual=

Originally posted by Timmay_650 I got the Surftech JC Hawaii Peter mel which is the Tuflite. Yea it is my First TL/epoxy board, I have only demo them once before when i was looking to buy a new board and i liked them a lot but couldn't pay the price for one. So i got a M10 board from the factory as a blemish one for cheap. So I wasn't going to buy a new board anytime soon but i was on the internet messing around and saw the JC for about $120 and they said it was in great condition but no real picture. So i took the risk and brought it and was so excited when i saw it b/c it looks like someone waxed it and rode it once without a traction pad and decide they didn't like it. Which is great for me.   I think i hitting the beach tomorrow to see what i think of it but i am going to have to ride it without a traction pad which i dislike.

yeah, I also considered the peter mel.  I like the fact it has a flatter rocker and a wider nose - that'll make it faster and easier to paddle in mushier waves. 

Hope you got the right size because surftech are super floaty...which is great for paddling on a glassy days, but sucks in offshore days, heavy texture and/or when you try to sink the board in the barrel (might want to hold on to your old fiberglass board for those conditions).  In my experience, you gotta get these much smaller than you think...or, at least, pay attention to difference in volumes.

I have owned a 6'4" tuflite Rusty Pirahna for about five years now (probably shoulda got the 6'0") and I've only had 4 dings...and NO pressure dents on the deck (a fiberglass board that old would have been all fugly by now).   One of the dings is from when I bailed it into longboard (beginner on a soft-top trying to paddle out right through the impact zone )...it was a really heavy collision that would have undoubtedly snapped my fiberglass board.

tuflites are stiffer than fiberglass, but I got used to it and started compensating after a few botched turns.  Also, the gloss coat doesn't grip wax well and I felt like it was slowing me down (kinda like having zero structure on a snowboard base), so I took some fine 1500 grit wet sandpaper to it and gave the whole thing a matte finish...lightly going from tip to tail, of course.  Definitely some improvement.

Tuflite II fixed these two issues and I'm really stoked to see how it works on monday.  TL2 is still horribly light, so it's not a "quiver killer" by any means.

true, tuflites have good resale value because of their reputation for durability.  You should make a decent profit.

I just tried to take off the OAM traction pad off one of my older surfboards so I could put it on my new board, but it just ripped to shreds...so don't buy OAM if you want to re-use it.  I also have an old Astro Deck pad I've used on three different boards (3M adhesive spray works great) and it still works perfectly.

hope these south swells last through next week...I'm heading to the beach tomorrow through friday  

Hey Shop 39014 How was the trip get some good waves?

And can you expand on "so I took some fine 1500 grit wet sandpaper to it and gave the whole thing a matte finish...lightly going from tip to tail, of course.  Definitely some improvement."
On the top or the bottom or the whole thing?

My vote goes to Hakuba in Japan, looks totally awesome a few of my mates went over and said the powder is crazy and also its supposibily quite cheap as well.

...so, I got up at 5:30 am on Friday and dawn patrolled at the pier because it had the best wave at that particular time (I usually try to avoid crowds, if the waves are good farther down).  Being basically the start of the weekend and no school, there were already about 6 guys on it. 

So I paddled out a little farther down just to get warmed up before heading into the pack.  I quickly caught a little wave that closed out on me.  I fell and my board went flying away from me to the length of my leash.  Well, this dude pops up from out of nowhere, grabs my my board and throws it aside yelling "WHAT THE F*CK!!!???

Of course, I didn't mean to get that close to him (my board never even touched him) and didn't get a chance to apologize before he threw a temper tantrum. Anyways, it wasn't completely my fault because he was too cool to make any effort to paddle away from my path.  He wasn't hurt and was acting way out of line, so I decided not to say anything.

Well, turns out, this guy thinks he's all local, even though I've never seen him in the 15 years I've been surfing there.  He even surfs all sloppy with no style...like someone who hasn't been doing it long (Cal Poly?) . 

So, he starts trying to get everybody else to heckle me (I had never seen any of them either).   All he could really come up with was "jokes" about my hood (hey, it was 6 am, overcast and kinda chilly...I'm not going to be cold just so I can look fashionable)

Unfortunately, one of the other guys kept bringing up the near miss and was literally trying to instigate the guy to the next level.  I was just sitting there waiting for him because I knew he was all talk and I could take him in a real fight - I was totally ready for anything he had to offer (although I was thinking about the fact the other turds would need to back him up).

I didn't say a word the whole time and just paddled outside for a set wave.  Fortunately, a good one came and I got into a paddle battle with the asshole that was messing with me...and I smoked him!!!  He yelled in frustration right in my ear as I pumped a ton of speed right by him, shredding it all the way to the inside.  You can imagine how satisfying that was.

I paddled back out and saw he and his friend had paddled in.  I was thinking "good riddance".  About five minutes later, they both paddled back out on soft-top longboards....what a couple of feminine cleansers.



I know what you mean - I might expect that from some of the meth-heads that
are fixtures at better, more well known spots.  But it's bizzare to see that at pismo...especially since I can surf just as good as most of the guys here

I hate people like him that act so hard and just love being a jerk. But it is good that you didn't get the crap kicked out of you. He seems like one of those people who would start fighting you one on one then when they start to lose have 2 friends jump in. And then things don't look good for you.

I love smoking people, it is a great feeling when they think they are all that. But that is so wrong to bring out your soft tops. There are a bunch of locals around here that would of kicked the crap out of them of that.

I love hoods I want to get a suit with one. I have even wore a hood a booties before without a wet suit. I looked really funny but i didn't care.

"especially since I can surf just as good as most of the guys here"
I remember when i final got good enough where they would give me a spot in the line up and not just burn me. It is really nice having that feeling you can hold your own surfing.

the day before that incident, I spent some time surfing the pier (over an hour) with a few locals I've actually seen around for years...no problems.  I've never really spoken to them, but we all gave each other respect and got good waves. We were kinda in sync to a certain extent, practically taking turns, it seemed (although this one really good guy who I know is sponsored by a bunch of surf companies was getting the best waves)

piers just brings out the worst in some people...and it's always guys who paddle out with a crew.  I don't know if they're just stupid, or have a superiority complex (or both), but they sure are assholes...just horrible people, in general

I had another pier episode a while back where these two guys (I had never seen before...or since) where just dropping in on everyone, no matter what.  I wasn't on my tuflite, didn't want to risk bumping boards and wasn't really in a confrontational mood, so I paddled down the beach to inferior conditions. 

of course, none of the hassles I deal with here is on the scale of a superior area like in-town santa cruz, but that's why it's so ridiculous here...it's usually not good or crowded enough here to warrant this type of behavior.  That's the ugly side of surfing...non-existent in snowboarding.