Surfing Waves

Hi All,

Just want to know what you all think. I am a beginner, have got to the stage where I can get up every-time in white water, can turn, stall and trim but still usually miss green waves, (guess coordination and timing stinks). Anyway I asked around at a number of shops/websites and BIC boards seemed to be well recommended for a beginner. I bought an 8-4 thinking it would be the most suitable, (this was recommended as I'm 6'0''), but now I am not so sure I made the right decision. First off, its really really heavy which makes just carrying it down to the beach difficult, it is impossible to sink, as I can more or less stand on the damn thing and it only slowly sinks which means its impossible to Eskimo roll/turtle roll or duck drive, (I've managed this on an 8-0 foamie), and therefore is hard to get out back, thirdly its only a month old and Ive already snapped the leash, yes UK waves are big at the moment but this isn't Hawaii! Is this normal??? Cheers for all replies.

Greg

Okay, a couple of things in there...

Firstly, BICs are great boards to learn on. They're not great boards, but they are indestructible, stable and very forgiving. So once you're used to it, you'll be fine.

They are heavy, which can be a pain, but also can make the ride more stable and handle whitewater or chop better, so thats not necessarily a bad thing.
Weight has got little to do with a turtle roll, and nothing to do with a duckdive... well, it has, the opposite - the lighter the board, the harder it is to duckdive. You'd never manage to duckdive an 8'4 board anyway.
The fact that you say its too heavy but wont sink suggests you're a bit confused about what the board is supposed to do. Just spend some more time with it for now.

And lastly, the leash has got nothing to do with Bic - it'll just be the one the shop threw in with the board. And, yes, they do snap. They're disposable items.


Now I don't mean to be harsh, but stop blaming the board - thousands of other have managed okay on a BIC - and just get out there. It takes time, a lot of time. Get out there again again and again, and then - again.
Frustration is the biggest killer of fun and the reason why people gve up, so just relax and enjoy it. It's all good

What he said, and they make great pens.

I'm a little curious though, did you have some lessons at a surf school?

Yes I did, on the north coast, a week of them, since then I've been on my own but I'm happy with the progress I've made so far, if not so happy with the board

Think I owe you all an apology, had the time now to try a number of boards and the Bic is not so bad! I think the reason I was so hacked off about the bic was for 2 reasons: up to that point I had used two board types, a "foamie" and the Bic, and I was finding it hard to do stuff on the Bic that I had already found easy on the foamie and the leash snapped and was annoyed at having to buy a new one so quickly. Anyway, please excuse my rantings in future.

No worries greg, I'm looking forward to a real proper rant from you!