(((( I'M HOME AT LAST)))) THERE ARE KNEE BRO'S OUT THERE !!

[HALFMANRIPS/MIKE GARRETT]

GREAT SITE KNEEBROS !!!!!

THIS IS MY 28TH YEAR KNEERIDING AND THOUGHT THAT I WAS CLOSE TO BEING CLASSIFIED AS AN ( INDANGERED SPECIES). DID A FEW CONTESTS BACK IN THE ( CKA ) DAYS. WOULD LOVE TO HOOK UP AND SEE WHATS NEW BOARD & STYLE WISE. HARD TO BELEIVE I'M 41 NOW BUT STILL HAVE THE FIRE. NOW I'M THE OLD GUY I USED TO QUACK AT ????


HOPE TO SURF WITH YOU ALL SOON !!!!!!!!!!!

[Poidog]

hey mike,

welcome to the site. i just recently found and joined the site too. theres going to be a contest in santa cruz on nov. 6,7,8 at pleasure point. should be close to 60 kneeboarders in the contest. can you imagine that? that just blows my mind. this site offers lots of info. on our sport and you get to meet alot of other people that share the same love of the water as you do. the contest will be my first outing and hope to meet and talk with others from the site.
anyways, glad you found the site.
hope to see you there in santa cruz."HALFMANRIPS" you gotta love that.

[Scott]

Mike,

There's 3 spaces left for the Pleasure Point contest. Come'mon up and meet the guys (I think I know about 15 now, which is a heck of a lot more than I knew even a year ago). Some of the best times will probably take place outside of the contest venue itself.

I'm 49 and still cookin'--you've got so many more years left!

Scott

[red]

It's great to see the resurgence of KB spirit. It's only a matter of time before some journalist picks up on it and contrasts it to the dog-eat-dog surf world.

As a bunch of old "bad words" has anyone else done the calculation of how many waves they have left? It's a few thousand a year -real motivation to get out there and get a few today! Of course, number of water years are the question. Does the body abuse of KB force earlier retirement to golf or (gulp) other forms of surfing?

[Jon Manss]

I started out in the water at ten, body surfing ,spent my teens with strep throats and ear infections my doc said it wasn't related. I knee rode the sixties to the nineties, and I left the surf scene without one major injury or lingering pain. I play tennis and ski now more than ever and both of these have left me with joints screaming for relief. Am I not listening to my body or does old age excuse all this? Jon

[Smokin Rock]

Jon,
sounds like you need to listen to your body and surf more! as for your being too long in the tooth as an excuse.........i dont think so!
unless perhaps you're suffering from alltimers disease. GEEV EM
aloha,

[Burnwater]

Thanks Halfman for the inspiration to post my 1st reply on this site.
I have more titanium in me than Lance Armstrongs's bicycle and After 40 yrs of surfing thought I was permanently retired. Couldn't do the popup to my feet any longer. Now in the last yr. or so I've embraced kbing and have gotten some of the best barrels and surfed with more stoke than I have in yrs.
And yeah, what a great site this is. I've been looking in for a few months now and the spirit of the kb crowd is like a throwback to the golden age.
This cluster of freethinkers, funseekers, knuckleheads, gearheads, philosophers, gypsies and pocket rocketeers never fails to keep me interested, educated and entertained. Thanks guys (and hopefully gals soon).
Hope to meet you all at the festival.

[Scott]

This cluster of freethinkers, funseekers, knuckleheads, gearheads, philosophers, gypsies and pocket rocketeers never fails to keep me interested, educated and entertained.

Alright, which one of you 250 guys is the knucklehead!? 'Fess up or we'll never get another post out of Barnwa...er, Burnwater.

[Iñigo]

Hello,
I'm 36 years old and I have been surfing from 10 till 21. Then I had an accident and broke my spine ( 3 "vertebras") and my left ankle. After three years recovering I started kneeboarding till now. I use an enforced corsé for my spine and although my surgery doctor tells me to be careful always that I entered to take waves, (almost everyday) I fill better, phisically and psycologically. And of course now a days I take bigger and better waves than in the rest of my life.
I hope I will be kneeboarding till my body says to stop. But in my last revision everything is ok, so I am not thinking to leave it. Just the contrary.
It is a pity to have discovered this web so late, so it is impossible for me to go to November gathering. I hope you will place some photographs of the event so we could know people by its face. If there is a new gathering near summer I will do all the necesary effort to be there and share our personal experiences.
Have a good gathering. The overseas kneeboarders will follow it through the web
I really envy the people who is inscribed. Next time I hope to be there.

[Burnwater]

Sorry Scott,
Didn't mean to offend. Thought you cold water guys had thicker skin. Being certified myself, I used "knuckehead' strictly as a term of endearment. So all you KBing Kheads out there (and you know who you are), celebrate your gift and keep spreading the spirit.

Barnwa...er, Burnwater

[DarcyM]

Knuckleheaded kneeboarders have a knack for knavish knick knack knowledge, but they're still a knotty group of knobby knights, ya know.

(knuckleheaded and proud!)

I've been kbing since age 15 and have been in the water forever. Played basketball in HS and never had a serious injury until skiing did a number on both knees. Kbing has given me some surfer's ear, various skin craters that healed and passed, 17 stitches here, 3 or 4 there, one rotator cuff injury. I'm as stoked now as I've ever been, with the benefit of finally having time and money to travel to places just to surf, and to keep my equipment up to date. At age 44, I'm hoping for at least 20 more years, and maybe more, if I don't hurt myself too badly at some other sport activity where soft tissue injury is more likely (or heaven forbid get married to some guy who forces me to quit -- not bloody likely!) I still try to move my surfing forward, and progress rather than regress or accept status quo. I've seen guys older than that surfing, but a lot of them are old and slow. I wouldn't want to get so slow that I'd be in the way or too scared to surf for fear of injury. It would suck to be relegated to surfing slow mush down at "old man's". But I suppose we all cross that threshold when we reach it.

Quit or compromise?

BTW, both my older brothers, who pulled me into surfing, essentially quit surfing (one to injury, one to work/family/other interests) and haven't put a day in the water in more than ten years.

dm

[Jon Manss]

Darcy, It is so cool you still have the stoke and drive even after all your injuries. We used to say that old Sewer Peak riders never die they just fade down to the Hook. I think your brothers are more the rule of old surfers than the exception. I don't surf near as much as I used to. But at the same time I'm a firm believer that you can take the surfer out of the surf, but you can't take the surf out of the surfer. My life was, and still is, affected by the rhythm of the sea and all its memories. Jon

[gsurf]

From the sounds of it I might be the "old giser" (54) in this group but glad to say I surf as much as I can restricted only by the old work ethic.
Joints are good (ok, knees get sore off and on). Kneeboarded the Lane consistently in the 70's, went to shortboard late 70s til' just about 1 1/2 years ago when I rediscoverd KB'ing due to a shoulder injury that kept me from paddling. Shortboard and kneeboard both now.
I prescribe to the old notion "Use it or lose it." even if ya' can't use it like you use to.
Looking forward to meeting you guys in November.

[Ler]

I'll confess to being a knucklehead. I can get a long list of people to vouch for me too. My momma thinks I'm special.