Wakeboarder.com

Last weekend we had a Malibu demo day on Saturday and the Grind contest on Sunday.  A full weekend of wakeboarding and boating.  Really put me in the summer mindset.  The lake was packed on Saturday with boat after boat leaving the dock.  This is the best time of the year.  Sunday at the Grind event just make lake season get off to a great start.  Tino, Gabe, Tom and Keith were hitting the rails and showing off all their skill.  Tino hit the rail on his second pass and I could tell he was going to be hard t beat.  If a kid can jump off a delayed flight and then throw down a sick pass on his second hit you know he is going to be on it.  Keith now riding for Jstar has a few things planned for this season.  Keep an eye out for some stuff from him and his crew of riders.

Friday night I had to work late….don’t feel sorry for me because my job was to judge the Grind Series Bikini contest.   I am still trying to figure out how I ended up in a position like this but I’m not going to complain.  It beats a day job…  Since I had to “work” my wife took some pictures of the event.

http://photos.wakeboarder.com/showgallery.php?date=1204518969

Enjoy

Wakeboarder.com

Now I have seen it all.  I am in San Antonio visiting family and this is what I see driving out of the neighboorhood.

In the past year I have had items stolen out of my car and others in the area have had similar problems.  But THIS… This takes the cake…..

One of our friends emailed this to me asking if this was one of the events that we sponsored…..I told him no..  This was not one of the events that Wakeboarder.com was responsible for..  I bet most of you have seen it but I missed this one ..

http://photos.wakeboarder.com/showphoto.php/photo/16317/cat/3374

I need to get me one of these.  Horacio over at Nice rack just sent me a video of a new Mirror arm that they make for the Malibu boat.  From the video it is a must have for me.

Malibu Mirror

Where did the wind come from?  Friday night I went out for more filming and we had some pretty nice conditions in places.  We were able to get a few people on film…..but Saturday the wind kicked in and Waketoberfest had some really bad water conditions.  We setup camp around 9-10am.  Brought out the wakeboarder.com Malibu and parked it on shore. ( The Malibu really got a workout this past week since all the riders really wanted to ride behind the Malibu.  We brought in some extra bags so the loaded 21 was putting out a really huge wake).  During the contest at waketoberfest we fired up the grill….cooked food and served up drinks all day.  It was a great way to spend our day.  We even gave out some tees and stickers.  We hope everyone had a great time at the event because we had a really laid back day and it was great seeing and meeting everyone.

I picked up Ryan Anderson on Sunday because we brought him in this week for filming and Waketoberfest.  We started talking about riding on Monday.  We talked to a few people and got a team ready for filming and riding on Lake Austin.  We loaded up the Wakeboarder.com Malibu 21 VLX and were on the water about 1pm Monday.  We filmed until late Monday evening.  Watching multiple riders throw down some of the best stuff that have is really impressive to watch.  These young riders are taking riding bigger and bigger each year.  As soon as we get some film downloaded I will try and get some images of the afternoon posted on Wakeboarder.com.   

I was looking into some new products and ran across the Oakley sunglasses.  I have seen them all over and some of the riders that we have worked with in the past are sponsored by Oakley.  They produce films in the wakeboard industry so I figured let me check them out.  I am looking at all the styles and start thinking hey maybe I will get a pair for myself.  Might as well try them out before I send some buyers to look at the brand.  While I am online shopping I find this term called Asian Fit.  I have never seen it before but according to the website there are these types of ‘fits’ for different nationalities.  And they made one just for me!?!?  Then I read the description and it starts to sound like a late night infomercial.  Do your glasses fit low on your face?

I thought that running my own business would give me way more free time….at least I am doing something in the wakeboard industry.  I think if I were up working for someone else I probably would not be in such a good mood.  I just went over some Helium.  This is a new company that we have not worked with so far.  The vests look really good and I think the quality is there also.  After that I went over the Spy Optic catalog.  I checked out all the new Limited edition Spy sunglasses that I could.  Then I went on to the big board companies.  I spent some time on the CWB product line.  They have a few new items out for next season and they did some changes to some bindings.  I really think the new reverse hinge is going to be good for the more advanced level riders.  They also look really sleak.  Almost like a binding that lost 3 pounds.  I did not get the weight on them but I bet they are going to come in under most of the other bindings on the market.  They also will have a shaped wakesurf board next season.  I really am seeing more and more big companies seeing better numbers in the wakesurf department.  Next was Gator Wakeskates.  I am not sure if you know but the Gator wakeskates have been getting better and better.  I think the wakeskate line from Gator next season will be very strong.  I have my guys/gals over at Wakeskating.com trying to get the inside scoup on the skates.  I think I spent most of my time on the Liquid Force products.  Did you know they have a full clothing line coming out?  Well maybe not a full line but they have some really cool boardshorts, walkshorts and other items.  The boardshorts are being made by the same companies the big surf lines use.  So the LF boardshorts are not going to be some re-label.  These are going to be built from the ground up.  When I first saw them I actually thought the shorts were from a major brand in the surf industry but I will not mention that companies name.  I probably spent a good part of and hour looking at the LF hardgoods.  It is pretty hard to figure out which board will be the hottest.  The new Lyman should be a front runner.  Shane and Watson boards are always at the top of the list.  I think the numbers were a little lower on Watson last season.  The 06 matte black was the big year for the Watson.  I think that was the best graphic for that board so far.  Last season the Shane board had a big jump because of a new top coat.  I do think the PS3 is going to get some attention because Froggy(can I still call him that) has been killing it on tour and his board is going to move away from the younger looking graphic.  Soven is all grown up now and his board graphic has changed as well.  They have introduced a new board called the Press.  If your looking for a board with the new Flex ride then you might want to try and demo a Press board..check out the bindings that go with this board.  LF has a new slider base that they are going to introduce.  So many boards are hitting rails so LF is going to sell the Substance with a slider bottom.  You can also get the slider bottom on the Limited versions of a few Pro boards that were released at Surf Expo. 

 thats all for now.  It is 3:40am.

I ran across this post on Wakeboarder.com in the forums.  It is always great to see a young kid out riding and having a great time.  This little guy is 6 years old and just going at the wake.  Reminds me of a kid we sponsored back in the day.  Turned out he started landing inverts at 7 years old.  He rode in the INT for a few years and really made a pretty good name for himself.

http://forums.wakeboarder.com/viewtopic.php?t=72278