thewishthound's posterous

Blood Sweat and Tears

OK, it's a loooong time since I posted anything up, I'll admit it.

Frustrating how work can conspire against everything else.

Just so happens I haven't heard this in years, either.....

Nike Six-Oh

So, Nike has recently launched '6.0', a new brand that appears to be targeting the younger " boardsport" demographic (although what the hell '6.0' stands for is beyond me... Is it just a really long 5-0 grind?)

Interesting to see what happened to Nike in the last 12 to 15 yrs I reckon....

I don't know if anyone remembers, but Nike initially tried to break into the skate market in the mid to late 90's, only to a massive rebuff worldwide from skaters to the call of 'fuckin bandwagon jumpers-where were you 5 yrs ago in skating's dark days' or something similar.... Bear in mind the skate shoe market is larger than the running shoe market these days.

By 1999 they had fucked it all off and got out of the market, which has always been dominated by Vans (originally family/skater owned) for as long as I could remember (not now though!!), with DC (another skater-owned company) and Sole Technologies (Es, Emerica, Etnies) getting a share more recently. Puma and Adidas did the same-dipped their toe in, were told to get lost by the majority of skaters and pulled out. Adidas has seemed to come back with a product that is designed and owned by their skate team in recent years and as a result has a reasonable share of the market.

A few years later, Nike started up a company called Savier, which encompassed a line of shoes, jeans, shirts and other stuff. They wound things up again a few years later then started up Nike 'SB' which is still running today. I think Savier was an experiment to see how to get their brand back in the market.

'SB' hit the mark with skaters-you could only, and still to this day, can only get the shoes and the clothes from shops that sell skate stuff i.e. the hardware, like decks, trucks etc. I've got mixed feelings about SB, as the whole set up has allowed the team riders to lead the product development and they are massively supportive of the skate scene in general, sponsoring events and such like. On the other hand, their production process and reasons for getting involved are a bit dubious.

After a few years of success, this new branch called '6.0' seemed to come out of the woodwork, selling shoes which could easily fit into the SB range, but available here, there and everywhere, not just skateshops. 6.0 seems to be targeting a younger, 'poly' board sport market it seems.

This must be great for Nike, as a lot of people wouldn't care too much if they have something that looked like it would do the same job, was available in loads more places and their rep in general for being a company 'supporting the scene' was now much more commonplace, thanks to the SB venture.

Not saying what's wrong or right about all this, just thought it was interesting to see how big companies work.

There's some clever marketing people out there.

Turning Point

Smoother than...

Deck the halls with boughs of holly....

Rotten Apples

I met a guy a while back at a wedding who told me that he was launching a new food culture magazine, but it would not look like any old bland four-quid list of recipes that every other magazine concerned with food seems to be these days.

Instead, it would focus on the real culture behind food and how we relate to it. Pretty interesting, I thought to myself, with a mental note to check it out.

Anyhooo, it arrived in the post last week and I will quite happily say that it was a breath of fresh air. Plenty of great photography and as much a focus on art than with food. A feast for the eyes and mind.

Good work, Ed and crew!

Check www.rottenapplesmag.com

Widow Maker

I took delivery of this a couple of months ago and only had a chance to
try it a couple of times before the summer doldrums kicked in over
here.  It's a 6'6" x 19 7/8" x 2 5/8" diamondtail by Chris Diplock from
Phoenix Surfboards in Cornwall

http://www.diplockphoenix.co.uk/

Glassing is 6/4/6 with a fine sanded glosscoat. Entry vee to flat to a mild spiral vee out the back. Centre box with Lokbox sides. I choose the Lokbox sides so I could mess about with both fin size/shape and also be able to slide them up and down in the boxes. Current setup is a 7.5" Greenough 4A style centre with 3 5/8" single foiled Lokbox composite sidebites, set right back in the boxes. As usual, Bro nailed the design and the finish by Paul Fluin is up there with the best.

Only a couple of 'proper' surfs so far in the surf I intended to use it in-chunky beachbreak in the overhead/2xOH range, and I loved it. It covers ground at an alarming rate and holds in really well. Definitely a 'get in early' board, rather than one you can swing under the lip late for a cover-up, but with the forward foil and flatter rocker up front, I guess that won't be a surprise! Getting about and positioning when there is a lot of water moving around is great as it paddles very well indeed.

I read that Parmenter designed the original Widowmaker as a gun that could be turned from a forward point-the idea being that thruster guns were often not too user friendly as they required effective turning from the tail. However, more recently, it seems that people are referring to the design as it could apply to smaller surf, with guys like Andrew Kidman and Neal Purchase Jnr drawing a bit of Terry Fitz’ into the mix and bringing it to the attention of many people through their respective creations.

Personally, my take it on it was that I wanted something different to try in chunkier surf, where (let’s be honest!) most people do not surf like Andy Irons and blow tail or go over-vert on solid 8ft faces, but just want something fast and reliable to get the job done. I also thought the fin set-up and forward foil would go towards creating a very adaptable and user-friendly stick.

Its early days, but I definitely feel like it would benefit from a more basey centre fin, so I’m currently on a mission to find a couple of different templates to play about with.

I also have a Starfin and a Larry Allison Wingless Keel to try, but I think I'll initially go with these as singles as I feel it may over-fin the board with sides.

Unfortunately, mid-August is a bad time (in a particularly bad summer for surf!) to experiment with boards for solid waves here in the UK, but once some winter swells start to happen I will have a chance and will post my findings if anyone is interested.

Random list of Difficult Skateboard Tricks

A Beautiful Massacre

I love Beachbreaks!

via magicseaweed.com

Beachies always seem to be treated as the poor relation when compared to reefs and points and after having some epic surfs over the last week or two in good (and not so good) beachbreak, I'm here to postulate the positives of the good old beachie...

For a start, they are by far and away the most reliable option around these parts (SW England), with points and reefs being the slightly higher maintenance, aloof, fickle bitches that more often than not promise more than they actually deliver.

Not that this matters one jot... You see, beachbreaks can be all things to all men. A bit like a pack of Revels, I suppose. Check out that left in the photo above-shades of Mundaka there maybe? OK, a bit shorter and only working for an hour or two, but these glimpses are what beachbreaks are all about.

You can see elements of those waves on any given day at our local beachie. Waves that we all lust after as surfers and dream about surfing one day.. a dumpy, miniature version of Soupbowl may be breaking just down from the next peak that is doing a pretty good impression of Impossibles every other wave... Cover versions of classic originals they may be, but sometimes just hearing the tune is pretty satisfying.

Beachies are generally pretty user-friendly as well. I surfed a reef last weekend that required me to clamber down over barnacle-encrusted spines of reef for a good few minutes before I could even think about the paddle out to waves which were, to be honest, pretty average. I scraped the fin on the Pony as well, which was somewhat aggravating. No such issues over a friendly sand bottom. However, beaches mean duckdives. I know that duckdives are not everyone's favourite part of surfing and that beachbreaks necessitate this activity, but I don't mind it so much, even in the winter. Keeps the crowds down a bit, I reckon and a friendly rip can always be found here and there to assist.

So, here's to the good old beachbreak, our faithful companion, day in, day out, wherever in the world it may be. Gotta love 'em.