Nike’s push into the action-sports industry took another large step with the recent announcement of the upcoming 6.0 Lowers Pro. It will be held at Trestles in San Clemente, Ca. for the first stop of the Macy’s California Trifecta Surf Series April 29 to May 3, 2008. The ASP and WQS event will initially launch as a 4 Star for 2008, and as part of a three-year deal, will upgrade to a 6 Star in 2009 and 2010.

Nike’s venture into the action-sports world has been fun to watch. They went pretty hard after Jordy Smith, only to lose him to O’neill. Their signing of Dusty Payne to their surf team was huge for them, and their continued progression in this direction will bring a lot of positives to the world of surfing.

While the money for sponsorship contracts continues to move northward, the prize money for tour events has been relatively stagnant over recent years. Having an ‘outsider’ company with the deep pockets of Nike throw their name onto the tour scene will put pressure on the big boys(i.e. Quiksilver, Rip Curl, Billabong, O’neill) of the action-sports industry to up the ante. Production value for the WCT events still leaves a lot to be desired as well. As Nike 6.0 continues in this direction and eventually makes a move for ‘CT events I look forward to seeing what they will bring to the table when it comes to putting on events, as well as their production of webcasts.

With just a smidge more than a week left until the 2008 Billabong XXL winners are announced, I decided to take another run through and check out the finalists for each category. Now wrapping up it’s eighth year of running, the Billabong XXL is building prestige and helping to progress and grow big-wave surfing in ways beyond imagination. Hundreds of entries are coming in from breaks all over the world, many of which were unknown until recent years. Each year the entries get crazier and more difficult to fathom. 2008 has undoubtedly seen that trend continue.

It’s going to be difficult to decide where the $50,000 grand prize for Ride of the Year ends up. Take a look at this years entries and I’m sure you’ll agree. Mikey Brennan’s Shipstern beast and Carlos Burle’s Ghost Tree ride were both mind-blowing in their own right. However, I would have to guess that this years winner will come from one of three entries from waves ridden at Teahupoo. Ian Walsh, Shane Dorian, and Manoa Drollet all pulled themselves into deep monstrous lefts at the famed break, and in doing so have given the judges work to do when deciding who to hand the $50,000 check to.

The meteoric rise of Bede Durbidge into surfing’s elite class is another in the long list of story-lines that makes this generation of surfers as exciting as ever to follow. The 2007 Pipeline Masters and Triple Crown winner has ridden a wave of momentum into the ‘08 Dream Tour and now after the Aussie-stops, finds himself in front of everyone not named Kelly Slater.

His defeat at the hands of the 8x world-champ at Bells left me wondering how he would respond after losing such a big event in the dramatic fashion that he did. After reading his blow-by-blow post about his finals match-up with Kelly I wonder no more. Bede has the attitude and the out-look of a champion, and there is no doubt that the ‘White Fijian’ is on his way to greatness.

Instead of taking this as a crushing loss and second-guessing himself, Bede appears to be taking his runner-up finish at Bell’s as a learning experience, and this will only continue to make him a force on tour. (more…)

My, how those bureaucracies can be sneaky little buggers!

After February’s victory over the proposed Trestles toll road, I kind of put that issue on the backburner. And to be honest, I really hadn’t thought too much about it until I began noticing ‘Save Trestles’ signs once again popping up around many of Southern California’s beach cities. After reading one of Jon Coen’s recent posts on EXPN, I now understand why.

Apparently the Transportation Corridor Agency has filed an appeal of the California Coastal Commission’s decision to deny the proposed project. I’m sure their hopes are that with this back-door approach they will quietly go about having this decision overturned. If that is the case, they are underestimating us in a big way.

In order to have another public hearing, the surf community has to write to the CCC to ask for a public hearing. Our friends at Surfrider have simplified that process, and you can let your voice be heard once again, or for the first time, by contacting Secretary Carlos Gutierrez here. Trestles is truly an icon. This is a battle that we simply cannot, and will not lose.

Cardiff, California’s favorite statue received yet another makeover this weekend. The appropriately named ‘Cardiff-Kook’, the $120,000 disaster of an attempt to honor the surfing community, was once again donned in women’s apparel.

It’s been a little more than 8 months since the statue was first unveiled. To this day I still have a hard time figuring out how in the world anyone ever authorized putting that thing up. Is this really the best idea they could come up with when deciding how to spend that type of money on honoring the surf community? Especially in a surf-community like Cardiff.

I have yet to meet a Cardiff resident/surfer who in any way, shape, or form feels honored by this piece of metal. As long as the statue stays erected we can look forward to checking out its latest outfit time after time. I wonder what look it will go for next?

After reading another interview with Kelly Slater it has almost become comical how similar each one starts off. Some form of “Will you be at the next event?” has been the lead-off question for each one and I wonder if we’ll ever get to a point where we just stop asking.

Finding out information this crucial is the obvious job of the press, but to what end? This question has been posed to Slater over and over and over again for years now and I have yet to see an interview where he provides an answer that brings any sort of clarity to the situation. His state of mind is admittedly perfect for where he is at in his career right now and his results at Snapper and Bell’s demonstrate just that.

I’m sure this will continue being the question-du-jour with each interview. Slater is obviously an enormous part of what makes the surfing-world go round and each sponsor for every event is praying that he shows up. As it continues to be the first thing that comes from each interviewers mouth we can look forward to more vague, nondescript answers from ‘The King’ time and time again.

Will he show up? Maybe he will, maybe he won’t. When you’re Kelly Slater, you can pretty much do what you want.

The search still continues, and apparently this one may take a while…

Last November Volcom launched its Kickflip-off contest in hopes of pushing surfers to progression while obtaining the rights to footage of the first ever documented kickflip on a surfboard. Over 4 months and many failed attempts later, they’re still waiting. The $10,000 grand-prize is still without a home and could be without one for some time.

One thing I found kind of interesting, is that unlike the first couple of months after launching, there are no mentions of the contest on their homepage. Their YouTube kickflipoff page has a few entries of near-makes, but not as many as I would have imagined at this point. Is this a sign that Volcom has lost a bit of interest in the contest, or is it a testament to the difficulty of executing such a technical maneuver? The ‘above the lip’ qualification can’t be making this any easier as well.

Someday someone, somewhere will put this one down. I thought going into this it would happen sooner and I’m guessing Volcom did as well.

After the first two events (Snapper Rocks and Bells) of the 2008 ASP World Tour, the top twelve are as follows -

1. Kelly Slater (USA)- 2400 pts.
2. Bede Durbidge (AUS)- 1908 pts.
3. Mick Fanning (AUS)- 1764 pts.
4. Taj Burrow (AUS)- 1476 pts.
4. Jeremy Flores (FRA)- 1476 pts.
6. Andy Irons (HAW)- 1464 pts.
6. Joel Parkinson (AUS)- 1464 pts.
8. Bobby Martinez (USA)- 1286 pts.
9. Kai Otton (AUS)- 1200 pts.
9. Adriano de Souza (BRA)- 1200 pts.
11. Adrian Buchan (AUS)- 1142 pts.
11. Dane Reynolds (USA)- 1142 pts.

Not a whole lot of surprises so far. The “Usual Suspects” are all in solid positions It’s good to see Dane up near the top after a couple of events. I thought his surfing exceeded everyone else’s at Bells and was just hit with bad luck against Taj in the quarters. Goofy’s like Bobby Martinez and “Ace” Buchan have to be pumped on flipping things around on Teahupoo’s left, especially the defending champ Martinez. Speaking of Teahupoo, Kelly Slater is going to have a tough time fooling anyone into thinking that there is even the slightest chance he won’t be there. I still think he will end up skipping a couple of events this year, this just won’t be one of them.

It’s never a cool feeling to come away from a session feeling the way I felt(and feel) after surfing a break just north of Ponto in Carlsbad, Ca yesterday. The waves did their part, and aside from the moderate onshore flow creating some crumble, the 4-6ft surf was enjoyable as always. On the other hand the ocean and beach looked miserable, and I’m afraid they have left me feeling the same.

I wouldn’t consider myself a biologist by any stretch of even the wildest imagination. With that being said, it doesn’t really take one to know that the brown bubbly funk lining the shoreline is not anything that anyone, or anything for that matter, should be swimming in. With my eyes on the incoming sets and blinded by anticipation I consciously ignored the nastiness washed in with the tide and made my paddle out. That ignorance has put me down and left me feeling quite ill today, and I’m paying a price for it.

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Two WCT events. Two finals appearances. Two risky, unconventional moves. Two victories.

The legacy that Kelly Slater will leave behind once he does actually decided to hang it up for good, only continues to grow. Many may wonder if it is actually possible for someone who has dominated his sport the way Slater has for so many years to continue expanding on his legendary status. It is possible, and the first two events of 2008 have shown us why.

It’s not just that Kelly is winning. He ’s been doing that for many many years against a countless number of cdifferent ompetitors who line themselves up and give him their best shot. This year it’s the way that he is winning these events that is simply just mind-blowing.

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