What is the feeling towards Knee Boarders?

[Kunji]

Hey you two above, why not ride both crafts if you are good at them?

[chrisb]

Hey you two above, why not ride both crafts if you are good at them?

Probably because in my situation I don't regard myself as good at standup, just proficient. Therefore every time I go for a standup surf I feel that I can develop.

Kneeboarding has many limitations. For a standup a quiver from shortie to mal size covers most wave situations. On the other hand a kneeboarder in small fat surf just looks sad.

[Kunji]

Excuses, excuses.

[Benvolio]

I would be interested to hear if there's any kneeboarders out there who can actually ride a shortie/mal/minimal with a reasonable level of competence but choose to ride a kneeboard instead.

i grew up surfing and now ride both. depending on the conditions i'll ride a mal, or a mini-mal. but if the surf is good and big enough i'll always take out the kneeboard.

it's the sense of speed you get and the proximity to the face of the wave. also - kneelos can get barrels on days surfers could never hope to and getting barrelled is my favourite part of being in the water.

you get the same feeling taking the drop on a heavy wave as a standup surfer and the same sense of speed off the bottom and off the top.

check out some awesome simon farrer action - drawing lines most surfers could only dream about - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yq4_fsRsCcU

[combatwombat]

yep mekin,
it's owned by some Dr dude apparently.
I just like starting rumours..........but there's a lot a knelo's that frequent that spot

[bombora]

Coops I still sometimes ride on my knees _ it's just that I'm doing it on a shortboard (my body's default mode on a late takeoff!?!?!). It's actually a bit difficult (for me anyway) to switch between the two as they are surprisingly different ways of surfing. KB you are in a parallel "stance" like a skiier, standup you are in that classic sideways stance aka a snowboarder. Quite different ways to extend your body and lean into and push thru turns. That's my excuse anyway.

[Kunji]

Do you know any of the local Kneelos out the Point?

[headwax]

interesting discussion.

Here's a video for the maroubra boys I noticed were here. Toilet bowl 1979.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhpC4Gtd0bg


some kneelo propaganda:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddakOOGsT14

http://video.google.com.au/videoplay?do ... 6148809642


cheers

headwax

[combatwombat]

coops were you asking about DY or lennox?

Never see many at lennox, be ferkin hard doing the jump with flippers on??
Disproportionent amount at boulders though.

There where two Kneelo's at Angourie this morning(total crowd about 2dozen). Both were very competent, taking off at ledge and pulling in across no mans. One of them was about hundred kilo's and wearing a gath.......i took a wide berth o him.

[marlowe]

Combatwombat, check your surf history. The North Coast has been kneelo central for a good few years. George Greenough lives near Broken Head; has done since the mid 70's. Large chunks of his first film The Innermost Limits of Pure Fun were shot at Broken, Lennox and Anga. This is now out on DVD and worth looking up if only to see what the North Coast used to look like in the 1960's. Some of the footage will have you looking for a time machine. The in-the-tube stuff (he was the first ever to do it) from his second film, Crystal Voyager, was shot at Lennox. GG may still be seen on the beaches in the area occasionally, but you have to be up early to catch him. His latest film, Dolphin Glide, is shot from a dolphin's POV and is getting rave reviews wherever it goes. These days GG rides inflatable surf mats in between visits from Rasta & co. Apart from water cinematography, his contributions to board design alone give him guru status in the surfing world.

David Parkes, multiple past Australian and World Champ Kneelo, has lived and worked shaping boards in Byron since the early 80's. His boards are ridden by kneelos all over the world and David still rips. David is very well known and respected in the Byron surf community. His son Garrett Parkes is a current Junior World Champ, (in plain old stand up surfing), sponsored by Quicksilver, and still rides boards shaped by his father. David, apart from being an unreal kneelo, a competent stand-up surfer and a thoroughly good bloke, is also an extremely gifted shaper who has developed his own take on the much maligned and misunderstood quad fish over the last 20 odd years; so much so that he is one of a handful of people worldwide taking this design to the next level. And they're not just boards for riding barrels, as you may have noticed.

Whether you stand or kneel DP can shape you a thoroughly contemporary board, that works and is neither a throwback to the past, nor a rip-off of somebody else's design. Check his website at http://www.parkesaustralia.com/

Not all kneelos wear flippers these days.
The style of surfing amongst the younger kneelo crew is just as explosive as stand-up now is.
Most of those grizzled old kneelos who appear in the line-up have been around long enough to learn some manners and give respect where it's due. They may look a little different, but they're still out there havin' a dig. Ain't that the thing that counts?

[wanto]

The style of surfing amongst the younger kneelo crew is just as explosive as stand-up now is

[combatwombat]

errr not quite sure what to say marlowe???

i pointed out that kneelo's surf in DISPROPORTIONATELY high numbers at skennards(a north coast break) and you seem to have blown up at me. on some days...espec mid week, if you delete the kooks they can account for more than half the line-up. go back in the thread. A.K.A headquarters.

greenough's property borders friends of ours, what i know about him i've learnt from him and john derry but feel free to give me a lesson in history.

As for carrot and his dad, i don't know what to say......how big do you think Byron is????

Anga's was pretty good yeterday and so was the standard of surfing, some surnames matched high end boards you might buy in a pretty surf shop somewhere, some matched the plumbers vans in the carpark. but the 2 kneelo's ripped, still wouldn't have wanted to be in front of the big fella?!
Maybe re-read my post???

[combatwombat]

really? cool. Would i have seen him on a mat?

the other KB was telling me he used to own the vegetarian restaurant about where hog's breath is now in Byron. Really nice guy, kept raving about the sushi at Maclean!

[silvafish]

i reckon the most classic mates ive hung with have all been kneelos,there always keen to surf ,just a few from the past....braff baker,big jeff from kirra,nova,ponsford.parksie,albert,crawford,how about horton..his gold..kiwi snag,drew who ownes the best pad at cloud nine,palmy tony,burleighs bevan@big andy.all these fellas are the cheese...struth.has anyone ever seen the old mate that skateboards on his knees..big airs at pizzy...i hope kneebords never die!

[marlowe]

Combatwombat:

errr not quite sure what to say marlowe???

err...oops. In defence I can only offer that I was ASSUMING things about you that weren't quite right. Often people do the same about kneelos and boogers...just because they're different. You only need to look a couple of posts prior in this thread to find proof. I still think it's maybe not a bad thing to get some of the stuff you know and I know a bit more into the public eye.

As for how big is Byron, I know it's big enough to have both a "core" population of locals who avoid town pretty much altogether and a huge transient population. I've come across plenty of people who claim to be from Byron but have never heard of DP.

And Silvafish,

has anyone ever seen the old mate that skateboards on his knees..

yeah! I think the last time was at Dbah. As he swooshed past me I heard him say..."offshore everyday!"

[k_boarder]

I feel that any kneelo who tries, perseveres and succeeds at standup would be unlikely to revert to kneelos.

Unlikely, given that you can learn to ride kneeboards effectively standing up. Why would a skilled kneeboarder want to ride a standup when they could ride a kneeboard and get the best of both worlds?

I can guarantee that Simon Farrer could surf rings around almost anyone on this forum standing up on his kneeboard- they go farkin unreal standing and kneeling. Standing is just another method of attacking a wave for a kneeboarder.