Noseriding

Cool pic. Surfed with a hipster the other week doing crazy stuff like that.....skills plussssss

when I watched that vid Stu - my first thought was My God what balance & feel that guy has ... and I did intend to post just that
Pretty cool moves I reckon

Am I wrong though, look at the recent posts, fair dinkum. Back to basics.

Imagine if you could afford to get one off him!

Thanks Crisp for the article.

I found this bit really interesting:
"Having hips towards the tail is the key to the ultimate noserider. The hips make the board ride more parallel to the wave. When you are on the nose where the boards is, say, 18 incheswide, while it is 23 inches in the hips, the attitude of the board will be more parallel with the wave thus making you travel faster across the wave. The flatter or straighter the board, the more parallel it can ride. With more width and foam in the back half of the board, there is more flotation and volume. This mass creates more tension with the fin and makes the board go faster. Also, it counters the suction created by the soft rails and lift in the tail."

Wonder if McT's Involvement board is this sort of board?

Mac - what do you reckon?


Involvement model

Tom Wegener is a great guy. I was lucky to have a surf/chat with him and his son a couple years ago one day when it was really good halfway between Greenmount and Kirra - the point was packed and we we scored a bunch of great rides out on our own. He was really friendly and gracious (sharing waves) guy. I didn't know anything about him as a shaper at the time, just another SoCal transplant (like me) - except he and his boy had these really cool wooden longboards, while I was on a sickly little mini-mal. Still one of my funnest/most positive sessions ever here in Oz.

Yes it was a great article TDog, I am crap at it (noseriding) and this article helped to explain to me some of the reasons why, besides lack of skill. I still have trouble kicking some of my shortboard bad habits even though it has been years since I was on one under 8ft.

Cool, now we're cookin'.

A good point to highlight for both beginners and transitioning short boarders is the need to keeping your feet moving continuously making adjustments like: stand up & step back for bottom turn, step forward to mid point for trimming, two more steps forward to get to the nose when section has formed, then back again to midpoint for trimming.....

This is basic stuff for the longtime longboarder, but for beginners and transitioners it takes concious effort.

I'm riding a 9'1" McT EvoII and found this bit of the Wegener article helpful regarding that type of "modern high performance" board:
They are easy to noseride and hang ten, but they noseride best out on the shoulder and in soft sections. When on the nose, the board points about 45 degrees towards the shore.

The modern board will hang ten because the thickness and width of the nose provide floatation and planing area and the soft rails from nose to midsection suck water onto the deck. This stabilizes the board within the wave and counter balances the person on the nose. This is a stable situation until the wave becomes too steep. As the wave gets steeper the board will become more parallel with the wave and speed up. As the board speeds up it begins planing on top of the water and the tail will not suck water onto the deck. Due to the hard rails through the tail and the flat bottom, there is no curve to suck the board to the wave. The rider must back pedal off the nose or else the board will literally fall out of the face of the wave