At Munich airport, can y'believe…
It’s been almost 25 years since Tom Lochtefeld invented his FlowRider stationary wave, an idea that came to him while he was in his custom bathtub in 1987.
“Now this tub was not just an ordinary Kohler – it was my custom design, with a picture-window view from La Jolla Cove to Blacks,” says Lochtefeld. “Flying swan spigot, two outback shower heads, and eight custom Jacuzzi jets turbo’d by a five horsepower pump. Not one to just relax in the lap of luxury, I hooked up a series of hoses to those jets and started squirting water up molded plastic sheets. Voila, the FlowRider® Stage One.”
The FlowRiders, which y’can find everywhere from cruise ships to bars and, soon, China, resemble a moving skate half-pipe and, crucially, all those stationary waves created, sometimes by chance, sometimes by design, at rivermouths and at certain parts of a river.
What it means is, cats who grew up surfing at, say, the Munich Eisbach river wave, absolutely own FlowRiders. And, last week, at Munich airport (FlowRiders are so portable!), the Surf and Style European Championship was held (okay, not the world champs when it comes to stationary wave jams, it’s close) and, surprise, the Germans dominated.
What a thrill to see names like Fritz and Moritz in the limelight!
Yeah, y’can write it off as a chop-hop fest, but there’s something liberating about seeing gals bust out their fins and an absence of floaters or dead air as two surfers wait twenty minutes for a set.
Best of all, my old pal Quirin Rohleder stomped everyone and won the masters. (Hello to you!)
Anyway, here’s the clip. Do with it what you will.
Only got a minute in, there goes the argument that a consistent, repeatable wave will produce some kind of explosion in progression. That was about as predictable as Dells love for Ayn Rand. Looked like a bad drag version of 1992.
Same thing’ll go for wave pools : we’ll just see more endlessly repetitive mechanical surfing. Machines =status quo. not progression.
Here, wash your brain out with 3 minutes of Grant Taylor: http://www.thrashermagazine…
what’s so important about progression? Could give two shits about progression as long as I’m having fun.
Absolutely nothing on the micro, individual level but on the macro level it’s used as justification for just about every human endeavour. Technology, progression, humanity onwards and upwards into a trans human techno-future. Genetic mutants riding the wavepools of the future and astounding the ordinary human plebs with their wild acrobatics.
But it’s weird, you watch any of the wavepool stuff and the first thing that strikes is not the creativity and progression but the mind numbing repetition; it’s like an assembly line, the same thing happens every time, in exactly the same sequence. Maybe there is something in the mechanical repetition in the manufactured wave which produces a corresponding neural response in the human brain, or maybe it’s early days.
technological improvements etc. are either capitalistic endeavors or made to improve human condition as a whole. Surfing, not so much. As for the repetitive nature of the video, it’s likely due to the small tank they’re in, as well as the limited number of experienced participants. Let the top 44 at it for a year and see what they do. In any event, I suppose that’s what makes surfing such an interesting thing to do – no two ocean waves are the same so no two waves are really ever ridden the same.
I don’t mean surfing in a wavepool will cure childhood cancer, just that a lot of the argument for centres around this amazing progression we will see.
Fucking hell see Dion Agius surfing Wadi? Even with anorexic fashion models poolside it was still as boring as batshit.
I call BS on it.
You skate, Shep? And is it really that predictable that I can find a little space in my heart for Ms Rand?
I heard, Dell, from a fellow surf writer that you were more hard core about Rand than Al-shebab were about the word of the prophet. Remember when they raided that shopping centre in Kenya and rounded every one up ? People that couldn’t recite key verses in the Koran were shot as infidels.
Apparently when you were ed of some rag everyone from the photogs down to the work experience kiddy making the coffee had to pull out some Randian goodness at will or hit the bricks.
Urban myth?
This person?
“[The Native Americans] didn’t have any rights to the land and there was no reason for anyone to grant them rights which they had not conceived and were not using…. What was it they were fighting for, if they opposed white men on this continent? For their wish to continue a primitive existence, their “right” to keep part of the earth untouched, unused and not even as property, just keep everybody out so that you will live practically like an animal, or maybe a few caves above it. Any white person who brought the element of civilization had the right to take over this continent.”
Ayn Rand, Addressing the Graduating Class of West Point, 1974
I think Rand may be slang for the Koran? but a lot of inside references going down, so who knows… Nice quote anyway!
GT is just what the Dr. ordered.
The guy with the top knot represents everything I hate about surfing.
Except the part about “surfing being a spiritual pursuit, in tune with mother nature,” I assume.
Thought that was a chic for a while.
Think of the what you could do if you shredded this puppy on one of those jet powered boards!
They’d call you the Munich Miracle Man.
I think I’d rather own one of those than the thing in Wales.
That says a lot about you as a person Trogan…
Indeed. But think about it – you can basically get a full surf in on one of those things in about 20minutes. Now, I’d make it wider, but that thing’s gotta be fun…admit it.
The ones with the barrel look pretty fun
You seen the wipeouts on those? Ouch.
arrghhh I admit it then!! Fuck Disneyland I’d be all over it… I love playtime.
Calling Cyclone Boner…