2016 PPG Live

[yugi]

Why was the Mistral team rider, Seychelle, paddling a Mistral board?

Maybe her board didn't arrive. Or maybe could it be because the one thing that their all-waters board, the Equinox, does not do well is surf...

Anyone know the real reason?

Did you mean NSP?

[Area 10]

Yeah, sorry, I meant why was Seychelle NOT paddling a Mistral board. I missed out the word "not".

[PonoBill]

You're not going to wear something fashion-faux pas are you? Nevermind, I'll look for a guy with an orange strap cap and wildly colored compression wear.

Yiu got it dude. I love my hat. People love my hat. My hat is going to be uuuuge.

[Area 10]

Please stand at the finish line when the Pros are finishing so we can all see your sartorial style on the live feed

I've noticed it helps to get on the live stream if you stand near a scantily-clad female. The cameraman seems to spend most of his time with a roving eye

[PonoBill]

Second geezer in the short distance. Sitting at Hennesys now with a beer snd my girl listening to a grest band. Awesome day. SIC lent me the perfect board for the race. Its sll in the sneakers.

[headmount]

Good work B2.  We all watched over here with exciting color by Dave. 

[Remickulous]

Just left after 3 days of watching and demoing boards. What a great event! Everyone I talked to, from pro to avg joe, was super nice. I'll be back next year and race the open events just to do it.

As for the location, the venue was awesome except for the beach. I thought beaches in my area were rocky & tough, but Doheney beach is a damn rock garden with dangerously low water in all but higher tides. As a result, I really appreciate the long sandy beaches & easy breaks at Ocean Shores and Westport closer to me, even if they are 20 degrees colder and not as big.

Demoing all the boards over 3 days was an education worth every penny of the trip for me. Not only did I see & feel many boards, but I learned that open water wind chop is WAAAYYY more challenging than the chop I thought was tough in the Puget Sound. Today that chop, plus the surf & cross backchop from the jetty in the demo area, kicked my ass. The demo area was NOT for beginners, that's for sure, but I managed to find my next board as a result of those conditions.

The 3 mile and 6 mile open races must have been a sumbitch for everyone in that wind & surf. Thank God I have a year to train, because I now see that my whopping 70 hours experience gets me about 1% ready for the open water paddling I want to do :-)

Now I need to find the events near me from now on, and get to paddling more & harder than I have been. I'm so stoked it's hard for my wife to be around if I don't contain myslef. We are full of ideas and need to do a lot more research before writing our business plan for a paddling business we are going to open, maybe a little sooner than I originally thought. Its gonna be a very interesting & fun year!!

[TallDude]

I just rode my bike home from the event. I watched most of the events streaming live while I worked at home. Rode my bike down to the event. Saw Conner win. The waves play such a factor in these type of races. You think you have the lead by at least 50 yards (that's a lot of strokes) and the pack behind catches a big outside set. All the sudden you're in 10th place. Then the leader wipes out on the inside buoy turn and takes five of the leaders out. Now 10th place is in 3rd. Saw a lot of friends. Missed seeing some Zoners. All in all a well run event. $100+ for a 12 minute race = not me. Maybe next year?
Good hanging and surfing with Pono at SanO. Always look forward to that:)

[SUPcheat]

Just finished watching the second day eliminations.  Yeah, pretty exciting.  Chop and waves all over to make it look incredibly challenging.

Will watch day 3 when it comes up even though the results are already in.

[PonoBill]

My hips and knees are killing me.

[Area 10]

My hips and knees are killing me.

Hard luck. Hope it's just usual post-race fatigue, and you recover soon-ish. Geezers seem to pay a high price for full throttle, and in the heat of a race it's hard not to put the pedal to the metal. Get better soon, you did very well.

[yugi]

…
… that chop, plus the surf & cross backchop from the jetty in the demo area, kicked my ass. The demo area was NOT for beginners, that's for sure, but I managed to find my next board as a result of those conditions.
…

Best way to demo a board. Anything works in pristine conditions.

What did you find?

[PonoBill]

My hips and knees are killing me.

Hard luck. Hope it's just usual post-race fatigue, and you recover soon-ish. Geezers seem to pay a high price for full throttle, and in the heat of a race it's hard not to put the pedal to the metal. Get better soon, you did very well.

No big deal, fine this morning, I"m going surfing. It was just so bumpy and crossed up it was three miles on a bongo board.

[SlatchJim]

The Mrs and I took Friday off and went to Dogpatch, where we surfed with a very nice bunch in town from Cleveland.  That's the joy of these events, the gathering from all points to hang out and have a race and meet new folks that love the same sport you do.  What a great weekend this was.

[Remickulous]

…
… that chop, plus the surf & cross backchop from the jetty in the demo area, kicked my ass. The demo area was NOT for beginners, that's for sure, but I managed to find my next board as a result of those conditions.
…

Best way to demo a board. Anything works in pristine conditions.

What did you find?

2016 Starboard Allstar 14 x 28 was my fave, but the 2017 model in 27" was just as incredible. I'm gonna be hunting for the 2016 in hybrid (not carbon) to keep the cost down as much as possible.

I also learned that my universal board will do just fine until I pull the trigger on a race board. It will just make me stronger :-)