"The recreational integrity of surfing has been so hopelessly degraded by… kooks and their endless gear fetishes."
The avant-garde stylist and artist Tyler Warren, “shaper of longboards for lazy people” as one reader puts it, has had a swing at the e-bike craze that has turned Lowers and surrounds into a tangle of two-thousand dollar electric bikes, an immense black grotto of steel and rubber.
“The time has come to put our foot down and stop the use of Electric Bikes in California State beaches and parks,” writes Tyler. “Please sign the petition in my bio and help keep our special places not over run with excess of people and over useage that takes away from the beauty and peace of our last naturally beautiful places. The electric bikes have gotten so bad they are littered up and down beautiful state park beaches on a daily basis. It makes it feel like the 405 freeway when your out to get your fill of beach sand and ocean.
“Kids younger then 10 have them and race around with no respect or license. In this more n more of a rat race world we live in let’s keep the traffic on the street and not on our sand. With more and more E-bike companies, stores and purchases this is a snowball effect that we can’t turn our backs to.
“I have plenty of friends that ride them and get there ease but it’s getting out of control and no one is speaking up so I feel the need to protect the places I love and want to share with further generations knowing what it was like walking up the beach with a view of sand and water not a pile of E-bikes.”
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The issue is an emotive one and as crazy as it is, it’s fascinating to watch the bile explode.
Andy St Onge, from Sunset Beach, Oahu, whom you’ll remember as the author of the magnificent “One single wave can epitomise or encapsulate everything imaginable or possible in a surfing life”, was especially riled.
“All Kooks — foils, sups, jetskiis, yoga creeps, sellout wannabes, etc etc etc. If you don’t live there don’t surf there. Beat it. The recreational integrity of surfing has been so hopelessly degraded by the combined compounded impact of unrestrained commercialism with hordes of par venu kooks and their endless gear fetishes. Charlatans all. Including of course the plebeian aspiring surf stars who whore themselves out to the lowest bidder. Rabble kook scum one and all.”
Of the three hundred or so comments, most were on the side of Warren, his followers regarding their use as vulgar and opportunistic.
I find the e-bike a fascinating invention and marvel, often, at how quickly they came into common use, particularly at such a high price point.
Do you own a little electric bike? Are they as good as they look?
And have you seen, at close hand, the conga line of bikes to Lowers, everyone lined up, pricks to asses?
I don’t know why these articles show up on my Google feed but I read them and the comments. One thing is clear is that much of the surfing demographic are a bunch of insufferable elitist pricks. The beaches in California are public land. They aren’t yours you entitled a-holes. Some of you clowns sound like a bunch of people insulated from the real world by living in a gated community. You probably call the cops if a taco vendor sets up shop near your neighborhood.
I live in Long Beach. We don’t have waves so naturally we don’t have a bunch of a-holes on our beaches.
Quit worrying about ebikes and start worrying about polution on our beach sands, killing of sea creatures and rising blooms of shit in the water that makes humans sick….Someone slap this kook clown for writing such a pathetic story…
REALLY???….
You would rather have cars? Surfers are turfers really, they don’t need more rope ladders up to their tree house. It’s ours, not yours is the attitude of locals.. This is the same reason Laguna Beach didn’t want the Toll road, they were afraid of the great unwashed inundating their beach town.
Those things are the terrestrial equivalent of SUPs. If you don’t have the strength to surf without a paddle or bike without a motor, keep the fk off bike trails and the ocean.
I’m 70 years old. Surfed all my life (not as much now as when I was younger). We used to drive up and down the SoCal coast looking for the best spots. My beach, my waves mentality existed then as well. The author cant’t see the forest for the trees. There are just that many more people out there enjoying the sport than before. E-bikes are an environmentally sound way to get to where your going. It’s not going away with more people discovering this way of life.
I was ski bumming right after college in the 80s when the surfers showed up with Burtons, Sims and Kemper snowboards. fun times as we taught them that territorial surf brah dynamics won’t work at altitude.
With college football starting when we we read about the next adventures of Surfline man as he watches football from the parking lot in his Sprinter at Trestles?
She was only semi-serious but is was a legendary comment and made the pain of the climb easy to forget. My local bike shop is pushing me to buy one and I do love the thought but the $7,500 price tag doesn’t excite me when I just spent that on my non-electric bike last spring in an effort to motivate me to get back into serious riding which has worked. If only I had a whoop and the BG boys would let me post my rides so I too could be like the look at me Peloton and Strava crowd…
Excellent roller blader. Is that like a cool gamer?
Let’s keep the beach–the beach, and not a freeway.
I think San Clemente did the right thing by banning them.
With that logic we should ban cars from the freeway, it’s too crowded and ruins my experience.
eBikes are lame. They both lack the danger of a motorcycle and the physicality of a normal bike. Too safe and easy and we all know true happiness comes from the effort required to achieve a goal (e.g. peddling uphill). I ruthlessly poach my teenage nephew’s ride at every opportunity.
offered you life-saving paddle earlier…
Aldi is having a special on ebikes next week. I can’t fucken wait!
First world problems. If you thinks it’s crowded with fuckwits and their toys, don’t go there. Pretty fucken simple.
Split the state in half, save NorCal water from an over-stressed state, do you really think ebike congestion @ Trestles matters to the average surfer? How many miles did the ‘top 24’ fly last year? What’s the carbon emissions flight from Aus to US? WANNABE ACTIVISTS! I’m blocking this shit site, millennial, non-carving, non-power, Brazzi groupie, and general whining ass bitches…thanks for ruining Bali by the way…
Unless you were born circa 1950 or earlier, you’re the one who fucked bali.
WHOA! Tell me you’re not typing out this manifesto on a device that wouldn’t exist without big oil and mining?
Surfline man just bought an ebike that fits nicely into his sprinter van. He’s super bummed, he was totally gonna become a local at lowers
“Help keep our special places not over run with excess of people”
Decades too late for California, dude.
And you really should learn to speak Inggris properly.
As for Ausie’s having class and respe⁹ct. Where? When? Margo and Neil had it, Rasta doesn’t bitch, What venue anywhere holds a card to Trestles? Hosseger? Good luck holding a final there, tides are crazy. Every event in Australia was garbage this year, like most of the tour, heck, be honest, wasn’t this year on tour the most uninspiring surfing of the last decade? Who won? Judges drama? Where’s Joel Tudur, Joe Turpel, anyone, save the league, you’re killing pro surfing…
Sorry, all I hear is a wannabe Ausie hippie poser, grit and grime mate! Your post all suck, trash, makes me proud to not be a fake flag waving clown. What happened to Ozzy pride? Mick is spewing piss beer in your face, this site sucks…