Things prone in general

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Nels
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Things prone in general

#1

Unread post by Nels »

Sooo...I live sandwiched between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara...and I go way out of my way to avoid surfing with other people. Bodysurfing, bodyboarding, and bellyboarding make that much easier. Any decent wave is usually choking on standup surfers of the complete gamut of abilities, plus some SUPs...enough so that it would be unreasonable to expect to show up at any premium spot and expect anything else. Sometimes it happens, but it isn't realistic to expect.

I'm genetically incapable of considering "surfing" to be one exclusive form of riding waves. If you ride waves, you surf. Why make life more complicated? During decades of hard-core standup surfing I never didn't bodysurf, and then have a bodyboard, and then handboards. Got a soft kneeboard and ended up riding that thing for years as a mostly finless paipo. There's a lot of surfing years in the rear-view mirror for me. What I seek from the experience has evolved, matured...I don't seek in my normal conditions to maximize wave-count or even performance as long as a reasonable experience can be had more often than not.

I find that, for me, after a full half century of riding waves from earliest thrashing about to more recent thrashings...I seek only the essential good vibrations of the movement of riding waves. Sometimes that can be just taking off on a dumper on a bodyboard or bodysurfing if the circumstances are right.

I will not let other people define my surfing experience for me, either by word or deed. Compare that to contemporary standup surfing culture...no wonder I am drawn to the outlier world of fringe equipment. Fun is where the weird is!

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Re: Things prone in general

#2

Unread post by bgreen »

Nels wrote: I seek only the essential good vibrations of the movement of riding waves. ...no wonder I am drawn to the outlier world of fringe equipment. Fun is where the weird is!

Nels
I'm sure a few can relate to this sentiment.
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Re: Things prone in general

#3

Unread post by rodndtube »

Nels wrote:Sooo...I live sandwiched between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara...and I go way out of my way to avoid surfing with other people.
Nels
That is so true... regardless of where I might live or surf.
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Re: Things prone in general

#4

Unread post by Pes78 »

I started surfing late in life I think at 28 or so. Did the stand up thing because that's what I thought surfing was or is. Kneeboarded for a couple years and I was looking for something else to do when it was big at some of the spots I would go to. So I bought a handplane for bigger days and to get barrelled. One wave I caught down at Black's changed everything for me. So I got to thinking what could I ride to get the feeling from that wave all the time. I stumbled onto paipos some how and this site. As far as the growth of riding prone craft I think there will be a increase in it in the future. As stand up surfers get older and the distain they show for SUPS I think they may look into the prone zone. I've really started to not care what people think of what I do, whether in the ocean or on land. I think it's best to keep it on the down low.
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Re: Things prone in general

#5

Unread post by SJB »

I bodyboard because at 72 my balance is shot....was never that great. I am well received everywhere I surf....might be the gray hair? Also I have not surfed agro Rincon in decades. What I really want to know....is if the the bodyboarder who is out every time I check the Ventura Point web cam at sunrise....is on this forum?
Nels
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Re: Things prone in general

#6

Unread post by Nels »

As stand up surfers get older and the distain they show for SUPS I think they may look into the prone zone. I've really started to not care what people think of what I do, whether in the ocean or on land. I think it's best to keep it on the down low.
I bodyboard because at 72 my balance is shot
I know the body changes as we age...at 62 I see it both from age and recent health issues...but I think evolved attitudes will lay more people out too. At some point one has to question just what it's all about 40 or 50 years into an activity, especially if you have to deal with a lot of other people who generally aren't friendly. Hells bells...they aren't friendly to actual literal peers...no reason to expect any better treatment due to age or experience. Everybody is just another consumer of resources. If I'm in the water with anything more than a handful of others at Zuma I get the full bodyboard-as-speedbump treatment...not sure if age discrimination is part of it, never really felt that. Although I have enraged a few young Valley mothers while checking the summer surf , looking past the herd at the waves...they must think an "old guy" with hat and sunglasses is checking out their little kids. Sometimes that forces me to stay in surf-check place longer than I would like, just to see what happens.
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Re: Things prone in general

#7

Unread post by Nels »

Bodyboards currently have an interchangeable stringer system option available from several major brands.

http://www.rideiss.com/

It's a very interesting concept, very affordable...but alas...it has no practical application that I can see for bellyboards of traditional construction. Maybe I'm wrong? From what I see on contempo boards they are going towards more external stiffening with carbon strips, as opposed to traditional wood stringers.

This would seem to highlight the difference between bodyboard materials and traditional foam/fiberglass construction. Trad route is exoskeleton, bodyboard is built more like a living creature with the strength and structure on the inside. Trad route has max toxicity in construction (I think) where bodyboard materials have it in material production.

Trad route materials are very available and affordable...compared to bodyboard materials. I think if anything has stifled standard bodyboard design advancements it is this. Speaking as someone who has had the chance to ride a knee/bellyboard design made of bodyboard materials...I feel like there is something to be gained in that direction...but I see no way that avenue will get thoroughly explored.
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Re: Things prone in general

#8

Unread post by SJB »

Nels....you are much more of a technician than me. I am a simple point and shoot guy on a Nomas Tomas creation. My Happy hunting ground is typically as far South as C St. and as far North as El Cap. I am a Point guy...seldom interested in beach break anymore unless smaller. If you ever find yourself up this way (assuming we get some decent waves again someday :x ) please let me know. Also let me know if you ever need another speed bump to run interference South of you at Zuma or wherever. Perhaps we can give those Valley Mothers something else to talk about. :o P.S. I seldom surf on the week-ends. Privilege of old age. 8-)
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Re: Things prone in general

#9

Unread post by Pes78 »

Nels was that board your talking about from wave front surf shop? I know they had some softtop boards in there at one point. I went in once to check them out and the guy in the shop said he was having some poly boards made from down in the South Bay. He said it was based on the board he was riding at the time. I can't remember his name maybe SJB knows him or he's the guy in the Cst cam at dawn. There are paipo riders out there that we just don't know about or they don't know about the site.
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Re: Things prone in general

#10

Unread post by Nels »

you are much more of a technician than me
I'm mostly theoretical...and I seem to have had a long-standing interest in materials. Our area in the post-foam surfing eras...Hollow W.A.V.E. boards, the Boogie came after Tom Morey left Morey-Pope, mats (nod to Dale Solomonson in Oregon there too but he was friends with Greenough and Gross). A little further south in the South Bay - Colorflo fiberglass cloth...that stuff was amazing. Took a board through the South Pacific in 1978 with just a canvas boardbag and it came home pristine.
I am a simple point and shoot guy
Love the camera reference. At one point I was selling some photos (slide) to magazines which were taken on a Canon Super Sure Shot. I'd read that National Geographic issued them to "writers who couldn't shoot photos". I couldn't do action surf shots but I could do most everything else. Then in editorial offices would come questions...what kind of equipment do you use? Ahem. Not wanting to offend the hardcore shooters, and not wanting to lose potential future assignments, I would respond "Canon, exclusively". Always an acceptable answer...

Exactly how I feel about the bodyboard...point and shoot simplicity. Also handboards.
I am a Point guy.
As was I for decades, until longboard resurgence morphed into the Blue Crush of women flooding in, which eventually begat the surf schools. I could not handle the masses, didn't want that to bum me out and potentially make me the bummer in the lineup. Never intentionally cut anybody off. But it's the point waves where I fly in my dreams...
Nels was that board your talking about from wave front surf shop?
No, mine was a full on soft kneeboard based on Velo measurements from East Coast builder Rob DiStephano. There are photos on Rod's site of it. I think you are thinking of the Clyde Beatty Jr. soft top paipos, which I think are basically epoxy boards with a thin layber of soft material over them. I saw one at Revolution in Camarillo. Can't figure out how to repair if they got dinged, and the soft layer certainly didn't look to me like it would prevent dings. Wave Front has had them on their website. Hadn't heard about any regular boards, will have to check in. I'm horrible about getting to Ventura these days; that's a freeway trip for me compared to driving through fields of celery and artichokes...guess which way is less stressful?
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Re: Things prone in general

#11

Unread post by Pes78 »

I reread your interview and now remember the board. Interesting about the soft boards as there are some new ones out that may be worth looking into. Formula fun which is part of Marko I think have a fish softboard that could a combo knee/paipo like your soft board. And INT have a few new boards out and both companies make them here. If and when I ever get a chance to travel these may be a good option.
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Re: Things prone in general

#12

Unread post by flojo »

Hey Pes..I have a softech rocket 50 that works well as a bodyboard for me. As the name implies, it is 50 inches long. It is a little too short towork as a knee board for me—(I am 6 ft, 180 lbs)., but I have heard of others that have used it as a knee board.

They make a bigger board that I have been eyeballing as a prone/kneeboard hybrid. It is called the “torpedo” and is 5’4”.

These boards come with fcs fin boxes and the fins can be changed, or ridden finless-whatever floats your boat.
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Re: Things prone in general

#13

Unread post by Pes78 »

Yeah flojo I've seen those and was looking into them at one point. It's funny I was getting out of the water today and couple guys I know were asking if they could try my board. The thing is they wanted to try surfing it standing up. These guys surf pretty well and I think they could do it, will be interesting to see though.
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Re: Things prone in general

#14

Unread post by Nels »

I've seen various EPS softboards and have wondered about them...especially about their durability. Traditional bodyboard materials are stronger but crease. With something like Softech I wonder if they snap or if you can grip them hard enough to seriously dent. I take ridiculous care of my boards so they tend to last a long time, but with EPS soft equipment being used in an alt manner...lot of unknowns there.
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Re: Things prone in general

#15

Unread post by flojo »

The rocket 50 I spoke about above seems pretty sturdy. I dont think it would permanently dent from gripping or hitting a rock. It is stiff and
light. It is a little floaty but I have fun with it in mushy, junky waves. It seems pretty quick too. I have noticed some cosmetic loss of paint on the
nose but structurally, it seems sound. I only ride it prone. Its wide point is forward so I ride more up on the nose than other prone boards I have used.
It came with those keel fins that flex a little bit and I found on waves with a little bit of power, they flex too much for my taste so I swapped those out for a set of side bite type fins. I have not tried to ride it without fins. Its not the only board I ride but I always have it stashed in the back of my truck and wind up using it quite a bit.
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