Surfing Waves

im coming to the dark side of fat lazy old men, girly girls who like to get tanned but not wet their, and longboards.

im looking at craigslist and found a nice one but its epoxy and ive had epoxy before in shortboards, where i dont think the flex is so important.

does epoxy mess up the flex or what? also, what size do you suggest? im 160lbs, tall, and experienced on shortboeards. i was thining 8 foot so its not too long but i am hoping to catch those junk small waves that those oldguy are so good at.

is it a requirement to own a vw van as well?

lol.

Epoxy has much less flex than glassed boards, realy depends if the waves your surfing are clean enough or not.

And dont be a minimal/funboard kook, oldskool the whole way. Otherwise you'll just end up riding the 8footer like a shorboard.

I like a 9ft longboard. I can surf like the old man I am with the 9ft board. An 8ft board just doesn't seem to behave like a longboard to me. I have one of these, too. I have to work harder and be more aggressive at catching the wave and popping up.

My wife has a 9ft epoxy board. I've ridden it. I can tell a little difference, but not enough at my low skill level. I've lent this epoxy board to very experienced older guys and have never seen it go so far and so fast.

Conclusions:
1. epoxy boards are OK for most of us
2. 9ft boards behave like longboards and 8ft boards don't
3. VW van is not required, however, if you select to use one it should not be the later Eurovan models

so how big then? not 8 foot? im afraid to get a 10 foot thats too much board to handle. if i like it i might want to ride some bigger waves with it, like head high.. i dont think i could maneuver that and id be dragged

an 8 foot board sounds pretty huge to me ive only ridden 6 footers, except for me 7 foot gun

8ft boards are a total compromise, half way house, I have one, I dont ride it at the moment.

What do you want to do, perfomance longboard, noseride, just catch easy waves?

I cant see you taking it out on anything big or pitchy, a classic style all round mal would get you on small waves and allow you to have some fun, 9'2" or so, 23 wide etc

Just my opinion, but I hated the one and only epoxy longboard I owned. No flex, too light etc.

If you've never ridden anything else, it might be OK for you though. It's usually easy enough to rent one and have a go to see what you think. Lots of people do ride them and like them though, so it's worth checking out.

Just go for a 10 footer. If you can surf OK, you'll get the hang of it in no time, so might as well go for the full longboard experience, not just a watered down version, which is what an 8 foot is. Otherwise a real performance shape 9 footer is also good fun if you want to chuck it around a bit.

Id say its down to what you want outa of the board personaly i never got on with longboards it just was waaay to much board. So i opted for the mal route as a small wave rider. I propably dont gain as much paddle nor glide nor wave catching ability but i theorized thats if its ever small enough for me to need a longboard id go kayaking in stead

For the most part in weak ass 2ft- waves my mal does the job just fine. If however you want the more old school approach then im in absolute agreement with everyone else twas just not for me

Hang11 wrote: If you can surf OK, you'll get the hang of it in no time,

I beg to differ

thanks for the info. im looking at a couple 9 footers right now, might go with a funboard too im not really sure. but im leaning towards the longboard.

dear hawaii,
fun boards & fun shapes suck. they don't do much of anything well. they are actually harder to surf on than a long board. they pivot on their long axis very easily and that makes them a pain.