Easy Rider SUP Race and Surf Contest

As appears on Distressed Mullet (www.distressedmullet.com) -click here

Until this past weekend I had never been to Edmonton, Alberta. If you asked me last week what my impressions of Edmonton were I’d have mentioned hockey, cold winters and then would have struggled to come up with anything else.

In the 1980’s Edmonton was the epicenter of professional hockey as Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier were leading the Oilers to 4 Stanley Cups in 5 years. They won another post Gretzky in 1990. More recently they’ve struggled, despite consistently drafting the best young talent in the game. It doesn’t matter. Having grown up in the 1980s I still think of the Oilers as a powerhouse. I still think of hockey if you mention Edmonton.

As far as cold winters are concerned, just look at the statistics. Edmonton is way up north. Where I am from just outside of Toronto is positively tropical compared to Edmonton. The average temperature in January is a depressing minus 12 Celcius. The record is in the minus mid 40s. In this part of the country there are actually electrical outlets in parking lots for car block heaters. The idea is that you go into the mall and plug your car in so it will start when you come back out. It certainly isn’t the type of climate I associate with stand up paddling, and SUP doesn’t jump to mind when you mention the place. After my weekend at the 2013 Easy Rider SUP Race and Surf Contest all that has changed.

There is a strong and vibrant SUP community in Edmonton that’s been galvanized by the enthusiasm and stoke of Warren Currie (aka The Easy Rider). Warren owns The Easy Rider, an awesome store that started with snowboards and skateboards and now is big into SUP. He’s got a great river, the North Saskatchewan, to paddle on as well as a few small lakes nearby. He’s got a bunch of enthusiastic riders. He’s also got something that most places don’t have – surf on demand.

I guess I should have also said I knew about the West Edmonton Mall before actually going to Edmonton. Everyone in Canada has heard of it. As malls go it’s hard for me to tell whether it has more retail space than monster malls anywhere else. Suffice to say it is huge. It’s the stuff it has beyond shops and stores that makes it unique – try an indoor rollercoaster and amusement park, a hockey rink, a pirate ship and small aquarium with daily performances from seals and penguins, a hotel and, what makes it important to us – a massive indoor wave pool.

For the last number of years Warren and his crew have been going into the pool a couple of times a month and SUP surfing. They go in early in the morning before the mall opens and have the run of the place. They clearly go on a regular basis because some of these guys can really surf well. Having a facility like this means that when Warren hosts an Easy Rider SUP event he can offer more than just a race on the river. He can also host a surf contest.

I hadn’t planned on going to Edmonton and it was all kind of last minute. Jimmy Terrell called me up a week before and told me he and Dave Kalama were going to be doing a clinic there, do the race and the surf contest. He asked if I wanted to join them and offered to fly me out. I thought about it for a second. Hanging with Jimmy and Dave Kalama for the weekend? Surfing indoors in a giant wave pool? Sounded like bucket list material so I jumped at the offer.

I didn’t have time to ship out a board and West Jet, which I was flying, has a 3m limit on surf boards as baggage so I couldn’t even fly with a 12’6” board. Fortunately Warren was able to set me up with something for the race and, even though it wasn’t a Bark/Surftech board and was a 30” touring board and not a race board, everything was cool. I was stoked to go.

I got there in time to see the end of Jimmy and Dave’s clinic. I’ve run clinics with Jimmy before and we’ve trained with and raced against each other for years so I knew what to expect there, but I was really excited to hear what Dave had to say. I want to do a Kalama Kamp at some point. I’d learn a ton. The guy is a legend and I like his laid back, unassuming manner and ability to communicate his vast expanse of knowledge. I’m sure the people taking the clinic got a ton of useful information out of it, and it was cool to see people successfully applying things they’d learned in the Friday clinic in the race on Saturday.

The weather for the weekend was awesome – hot, humid and for the most part brilliantly sunny. The race was a downriver event just over 15 km in total and Warren had shuttles organized for both paddlers and boards. Proving that the SUP community there is vibrant were close to 100 participants, divided pretty much evenly between the elite race and a shorter, less competitive “tour”.

The river is cool. It’s big, wide and pretty fast moving. We finished the race in just over 1hr, 10min, which is the pace you’d expect from a fast downwinder. The river has scoured a pretty sizeable valley into the prairie so if you were taking time to look around it was actually pretty scenic. Unfortunately, given the board I was on and the quality of the field, I wasn’t doing much sightseeing while racing. Mike Darbyshire from Vancouver got out into an early lead and we had to chase him down. I did most of the work to do that with Jimmy perched on my draft. Once we caught up we drafted Mike for a good while before Jimmy took the lead. After Jimmy’s lead the three of us traded leads and then it all came down to a crucial point on the river where each of the three of us made a choice as to which line we were going to take to get the most benefit from the current. Jimmy applied his experience racing marathon canoes on rivers and sniffed out the best line and strongest current. I shouldn’t have doubted him and gone with him. Mike went to the far left and I thought the middle would be a great compromise as usually the middle of the river is the fastest. Jimmy came out of that section with at least a 50m lead with less than 2km to go.

I went nuts to try to catch up and am stoked that I really closed the gap but in the end Jimmy finished 7 seconds ahead with Mike a couple of seconds behind me. Doesn’t really matter. I had a blast. It was fun to paddle on a winding river in that current. It was fun to race against some new guys. It was fun to turn a corner on the river and see the almost 50 paddlers doing the tour on the water just ahead of us and then pass through them. It was even fun paddling and racing on a different board. Silvia Mecucci, all the way from Italy, won the women’s race and came off the water with a big smile on her face as well.

At the finish line there was really cool camaraderie as the early finishers all helped the later finishers get their boards up the steep river bank and loaded back into the shuttle vans. I loved the whole vibe. We hopped in the shuttle bus and went back to the park at the midway point where we met in the morning for registration for a great barbeque; the awards and a ridiculously large amount of real quality draw prizes.

Day one ended at a local bar beside the Easy Rider shop with some good food and the screening of a couple of really cool SUP movies. As SUPing days go this had been a really good one. The cool thing was there was another cool day in store.

We had to get an early start on Sunday for the surf contest. The mall opens at 10:00 a.m. By 10:15 the wave pool would be full of kids bobbing around in the surf like Cheerios in a cereal bowl. We got in a 6:00 a.m. and quickly set up the boards and got the contest started. We needed to be done by 9:30.

The competition was divided into a Pro heat featuring Dave and Dave (Kalama and Boehne), Mike Darbyshire and Warren (because it was his event!), a bunch of men’s heats, a couple of women’s heats and a kids’ heat. Basically 4 to a heat and 8 minutes for each heat to do their thing. Waves in the pool are generated in sets of 4 every 45 seconds or so, with each wave in the set getting bigger. I’d say the big waves were about waist high.

I’m happy to say I made the second round and caught every wave I went for. Beyond that let’s just say I have some work to do to catch up to the Daves. It was really cool seeing Dave Boehne nose riding and Dave Kalama doing fin-first take offs, making his board do full 360s and taking off with his paddle upside down. I guess the maintenance staff there didn’t have a stepladder available for him to play with. Obviously everyone had a blast and once again Warren had cool awards for the winners and more great draw prizes which went till everyone had won something.

I can’t say enough about the enthusiasm Warren brings to the sport. I guess I should also credit his wife Angela who was there every step of the way helping out and spent the morning of her wedding anniversary handing out and collecting wet numbered rash guards to the surfers in each heat. What they are creating in Edmonton really is outstanding, and certainly for me it’s given me a whole new appreciation for the place. It’s a Canadian SUP mecca and I can’t wait to go back!

If you love unique SUP experiences and sharing stoke with others than this is an event you’ll want to get to sometime. The race was fun and challenging. The surfing indoors was surreal. I can only imagine what it must be like to surf there in the winter and then step outside into arctic conditions. It must be crazy. Warren and his crew of volunteers take care of all the little things that make a competition fun and memorable. And Edmonton in the summer is actually beautiful. The Easy Rider SUP Race and Surf Contest is definitely something I’m going to be heading back to, hopefully with a bunch of friends in tow.

Canada Cup of SUP, August 17, 2013

This was a great event hosted by Surf Ontario and 404 which drew about 60 competitors in only it’s second year.  Significantly, it drew Danny Ching, who made the trip to support the event, run a clinic and promote his 404 brand.   The event was run entirely off the sandy beach at Frenchman’s Bay in Pickering. 

Last year’s inaugural event was a big success and consisted of a buoy race that everyone, from novice to elite participated in together.  This year, race organizers Mike Sandusky and Doug Tutty, put together a two-stage event with a short 5km open water distance race and then a BOP style buoy race.  There was about an hour in between the finish of the distance race and the start of the BOP style race and in that time they ran rec and kids races on the buoyed course.
 
The weather turned out to be awesome - perfect sunny and warm conditions with a light onshore wind out of the southeast.  The wind wasn’t enough to kick up any sizeable waves for either race, but there were small bumps to use to gain speed in the downwind sections.

The distance race started at 9:00 a.m. with a beach start.  Paddlers had to go about 300m to a buoy off shore before doing a 90-degree right shoulder turn and heading west.  Then it was just a simple matter of following the shore just over 2 km to the turn around an anchored motorboat and then heading back.  You weren’t required to go around the buoy on the way in and could just head towards the beach and the finish line a short run up the sand.
 
Let me make it very clear that anytime I have a change to race against Danny Ching I get excited.  Actually it’s more than that, I feel privileged.  There aren’t many sports where you can line up on the start beside the very best athletes in the world unless you are one of them yourself.  This is one of the things that make SUP racing so awesome.   Furthermore, in this part of the world though we occasionally get the odd high-level SUP paddler here to race, none have been at the level of Danny. When you consider that there are only a handful of paddlers in the world at his level it really is a privilege when he shows up at your local event to race.

The start for the distance race was good for me.  I don’t think Danny made an effort to kill it on his start, and I understand that he probably entered this race cautious about the shoulder injury that caused him to drop out of the M2O race at the end of July.  We got around the turn buoy together and headed west steadily pulling away from the group behind us.  There was a light tailwind with tiny bumps to use for a little extra speed, but basically it was just steady paddling.  We had a nice conversation on the way to the turn, around the turn and for most of the way back.  Danny even dropped back and rode my wash for a good portion of the return leg. 

I knew he’d inevitably make a move and when he made it, it was emphatic.  He has a high-end gear that I have rarely seen from people I’ve paddled with in SUP, and I had to work to get his draft without letting him get away from me.  Once I was on, it wasn’t too hard to stay there, but I made a tactical mistake as we approached the finish.  Since we weren’t required to round the buoy and head straight into shore we could slowly angle into shore.  Danny slowly headed into shallower and shallower water.  I actually started to hit bottom with my paddle, which didn’t surprise me, as I know I sink the blade a little deeper than most paddlers.  So I decided to come off his draft to the right and angle out a bit to get deeper water.  I hammered and caught up a little but any move I was making to pass him quickly stalled and we basically maintained our separation.  The problem was I was now further from the finish on the beach because I had angled out.  I had to cut back in behind him and angle more sharply to the finish area on the beach.  By the time I’d hopped off my board and ran across the finish line he had beaten me by 7 seconds.
 
Danny and I laughed about the mistake I’d made and he said as he angled closer and closer to shore he kept waiting for me to go right into shore, jump off my board and try to pass him running on the beach.  I’ll remember that and consider trying it next time, but for me I was quite satisfied with the result as it was.  I know Danny didn’t exactly empty the tank in that race.  I’m certain he was paddling cautious and being careful not to over stress his shoulder.  However I’m also convinced that at some point in the race he realized his shoulder wasn’t so bad and he could take it up to high gear.  I’m just stoked that I was able to travel with him in that gear better than a year ago.

The guys coming in behind Danny and me were really competitive and it shows that there are a lot of good paddlers in this area.  Rich Phelan had a great race to come 3rd, Brent Schmidt from Ottawa was 4th and Chris Stringer 5th.  Chrissy Wessman was the top girl.

Immediately after the race I started working on a bottle of Recoverite and sat back to enjoy the kids race.  It was really cool to see the kids of so many of the racers competing.  Both Chris Stringer’s and Andy Skeoch’s kids paddled really well.  Looks like there will be lots of good company out on the water to paddle with well into my 60s!

The BOP style race was up next.  About 300m out to the first buoy, a left shoulder turn to a buoy another 400m or so away and a right shoulder turn around that.  Then straight out into the lake about 300m or so, a right shoulder turn and then a long downwind paddle into the beach for a run around a small chicane and then back out to a buoy on the right.  A left shoulder turn around that and then back to buoy one to repeat the loop.  Two full laps in total then a run up the beach to cross the finish line.

We started knee deep in the water, and for this start I was beside Danny.  I’m pretty certain he didn’t hold back at all on this start.  It honestly caught me off guard how quick he was.  Not just getting on his board and getting his first stroke in but also his sprint speed.  He had a couple of board lengths on me immediately and by the time I really hit my stride he had three full lengths of open water.  I pulled a couple of those back before we hit the first turn, but he took a little distance back on the turn.  After that it was pretty much a case of me more or less matching his speed between buoys and then losing a board length or so every turn.  My left shoulder turns aren’t bad and I don’t give up a ton of distance, but my right shoulder turns are very weak compared to his.  It was actually a real treat to paddle behind him and get to watch his foot and paddle work on each turn.  So incredibly precise and effective.  No tension or extra effort to maintain balance.  Just completely fluid and relaxed movements that get his board around a buoy in not much more than a second.  For me it probably takes double that on a left shoulder turn and at least triple that on a right shoulder turn.  I’m better at these turns than I have ever been but it is clear after a race like this that there is a lot of work left to do.

Danny came into the beach 23 seconds ahead of me and Rich, who hung right on the back of my board for all but the last straight away to the beach came 3rd, ten seconds behind me.  Rich’s result was great and I think he was pretty stoked with his two races.  He’s consistently put together great races at all the local events this year and I’ve paddled with him a lot and seen his skill in big water as well as flats.  Hopefully he’ll start doing some bigger travelling races next year.  He’ll do quite well.

The results for this race were posted really quickly.  Mike and his volunteer team did a really good job of keeping track of all the times over each of the races.  They’re posted - click here.
 The entire event was awesome.  Some tasteful awards rather than tacky trophies or medals and lots of product given away that everyone was stoked to get.   Some post race refreshments right on the beach and everything tidied up by 2:00 p.m. so people had time to do other stuff with the rest of their day.

I’m pretty pleased with my effort here.  I didn’t feel any lingering effects from the two 12 miles races I did last weekend at the Lobster Cup in Maine, and I seem to have good travelling speed.  It was a treat to race Danny.  I’ve said all along at the age of 50  I don’t expect to win against the top guys like Danny, Connor Baxter and Kai Lenny.  They’re awesome.  But I’d love to close the gap to a point where it sort of redefines what anyone ever imagined a 50 year old is capable of.  I’ve still got lots of work to do but appear to be making some significant steps in that direction.

Thanks to the Surf Ontario and the volunteers for their effort, and in particular thanks to Danny for making the trip.  Danny is a fantastic ambassador for this sport.  At virtually every race we’ve both been at I’ve seen him out on the water playing on his board, showing kids tricks and having fun after the race.  He takes time to talk to everyone and share his stoke for the sport with them.  It makes a difference.  People leave these events not only excited that they’ve seen perhaps the best guy in the world do his thing, but thrilled because he took the time to talk to them and maybe give them a few tips.  This small gesture on his part makes these people way more excited about the sport.   As a result, I don’t think there is anyone who has met Danny who isn’t happy to see him have success in the biggest races.

If you’re from Ontario you need to put this event on your calendar for next year.  If you are from somewhere further away, consider making the trip to Toronto for this event.  There is a vibrant SUP community here that will promise you a fun and competitive event.