What boards DID you take to Indo?

[Beanpole]

Yeah, I was going to say this was straight out of a Deus ad. Dare Jennings does it again.

[Davros]

Check out the Sunrise Cafe off King Street. It's a garage where you can work in your bike blended with a hipster cafe. Unique.

[marauding mullet]

I sold this for $2,200 once. Kick me now.

[The Mighty Sunbird]

In Newy when I grew up we practiced a particularly puritanical form of surf culture. If you rode a bike you were a fcucken westie and therefore subhuman

[steve shearer]

I'd love to post a photo of three pop-out generic motorbikes here, but I wouldn't know one if I fell over one.

[tootr]

You just buy a shitbox Yamaha for $2 grand, bolt a few hundred bucks of body kit and paint it, then sell it to a hipster for ten grand.

[crabmeat thompson]

More surfers should ride motorcycles.
They'd be stoked with the substitution when the waves aren't co-operating.

Agreed.

I'm looking at getting another.

[steve shearer]

I'd love to ride a motorbike but I've just seen too many people turned into human sausage meat because of them.

[Cranked]

I think a Matchless G50 would be my bike of choice

[steve shearer]

Cranked you've obviously preserved your taste and judgement when it comes to motorbikes.

what happened with surfboards?

Why not pine after a Mitchell Rae Outer Islands instead of a generic pop-out?

serious question.

[Davros]

Any road bike that is 250cc four stroke made after 1980 is the banal of motor cycles.

[Hatchnam]

I had a WR450F for a while. Even after over a year I never fully got accustomed to the amount of torque it had. Great fun zipping around the burbs. It'd go like a rocket up any steep hill.

[Davros]

I rode in Sydney in my 20's. Fun but fuckibg dangerous. Found the bitumen a couple of times. Watching too much Mick Dooan and Kevin Schwanz.

[marauding mullet]

In Newy when I grew up we practiced a particularly puritanical form of surf culture. If you rode a bike you were a fcucken westie and therefore subhuman

HA ! ! Every surfer born of Newy IS a westy, it's in your genes.

[Cranked]

Cranked you've obviously preserved your taste and judgement when it comes to motorbikes.

what happened with surfboards?

Why not pine after a Mitchell Rae Outer Islands instead of a generic pop-out?

serious question.

My taste and judgment is exactly the same in bikes as it is for surfboards, but its different to yours.

The industrial production is a positive for me. The worlds best shapers present their very best boards - they would be crazy to not put a lot of effort into providing the best shape they can - that board is then accurately reproduced. Perhaps you could explain why, of the very best shapers in the world at the time, around fifty of them had enough confidence in Randy French to partner with him to mass produce their boards. I don't think it was just money either, they knew their reputation was at stake. So, I'll go with the mass approval of the process by the 50 or so people who know infinitely more about surfboards than the the rest of the world combined. Yeah, I know their was some bitching, but a significant part of the surfing fraternity were offended with the use of mass production techniques to manufacture boards and the fact that it was being done in asia. The same happened in the motor vehicle industry in the 60s. There were riots, death threats, broken families. Given that sort of reaction, even though it was not as severe as the motor vehicle one, a lot of those guys back peddled. The thing is that prior to that reaction and the ensuing loud and emotive response, they all thought it was a good idea.

You can respond that they never made it on the pro circuit, but those pros represent a skill set and performance level absurdly different to that of the average punter so a failure in that market segment does not invalidate the construction technique. Another factor was that the long and involved production process meant that the pros requirement for custom boards could never be satisfied.

But by far the biggest reason for me is that I have ridden numerous examples of all the various construction methods for thousands of hours and I strongly prefer the STs.

You use the emotive descriptor "generic pop-out" that dates from a lot of really badly made surfboards, sure that is more than justified for a lot of boards, but that's not at all accurate for the consistent fault free, fine tolerance processes that are used to produce STs. The Moulds are accurate to within tenths of a millimeter. They use (at least) two moulds for each board type, one for the glassed shape prior to the hard foam layer, and one for adding the next glassed layer (to save the the ridiculous and time consuming process of vacuum bagging).

There's also the factor of proprioceptive muscle and nerve learning. If I rode poly boards exclusively for a year there's a chance I might get on a ST and be unable to surf as well as I could on the poly boards because the reactions differed from my current proprioceptive muscle and nerve learning state.

Why not pine after a Mitchell Rae Outer Islands

Funny you should say that, I see a lot of them, older guys on 7'-7'6s and they rip. I got a few good waves in the head and a half range (maybe one double) last trip and a guy on a Outer Islands paddled over and asked if I was riding one (I was on a JC 7'5). I think I would find the Outer Islands too heavy and without the quick reaction times of the ST JC. Had a chance to buy a 7'6 last year in good condition for $750, but I didn't.

[Davros]

Is this becoming a circular conversation?

[alakaboo]

Many fish don't have a sense of when they are full, so they'll keep eating while there is food available. Sharks sometimes vomit so they can continue feeding.

[Cuttlefish]

I'd love to ride a motorbike but I've just seen too many people turned into human sausage meat because of them.

I know far more people that have died in car crashes than motorcycles.