"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.”
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?
