Malibu recap

Malibu or bust. We were looking forward to spending the weekend at Malibu... but then the wave reports started coming in. Small... dismal... tiny... this was on Tuesday of last week. Depressing. Originally we were shooting for a Wednesday departure date... but then it got pushed to Thursday... the next thing I knew, we were departing at 5:30 Friday afternoon. Bad wave forecasts can do that... But with much of the crew already down there, it was time to pack up and hit the road. Some of the Santa Cruz / Pedro Point Crew had already been down there since Wednesday. Troopers... we were beginning to look like serious slackers. 

Putting our heads down I got behind the wheel and we got going. Black Betty sucks gas like it's nobodies business. It costs about 100 bucks each way to get her down to Malibu from Santa Cruz. With her temperamental attitude and sometimes hairy braking, We try to make sure there's always plenty in the tank, lest we give her another reason to cause trouble. 

We pulled into the Malibu parking lot around 2:00am. My apologies to the people that woke up to Bettys thumping engine as we parked and let her cool down. We set up camp in the back- grateful that the police didn't seem to be ticketing the parking lot for camping this year... as has happened in the past, it's not a cheap ticket. 6:00 am rolled around too quickly and we awoke to the sound of cars pouring into the parking lot, people excitedly talking about their upcoming heats and of course Ozstar's car alarm going off... it was sort of an Alarm clock for the whole parking lot... just in case someone managed to sleep through all the other noise. Apparently he had locked his keys in his truck.... it took quite awhile for it to get turned off. Luckily everyone made their heats in time because of it. 

For the most part almost all of the Santa Cruz crew made it though their first round heats. Pedro Point did well too, spirits were high, and we were celebrating, drinking cold Coores in the parking lot by noon.
The waves turned out to be much better than forecast, with a steady knee to waist high swell pushing in.

One thing that I love about the Longboard Coalition is seeing all our old friends. Here's a picture of Waylon and I with Jeff Belzer. We've been competing against Jeff for more than a decade. Jr. Mens, Mens, and now we're all Sr. Mens... the battle wears on. Jeff has to be one of the most charismatic outgoing friendly people that I've ever met.
 Saturday evening was dinner followed by drinking a few beers and hanging out talking story, calling each other out and reminiscing about old times. Apparently Agent Orange was playing across the street at the Malibu inn... but we took a pass, knowing that there couldn't be much of the original band intact.

This shot of the parking lot illustrates the feeling of community that you find at the coalition contests. That's Bruce King sitting on the tailgate of his truck to the left. :)

Sunday is the day of Semis and Finals. The small swell was still holding. Here's a shot of Waylon on his way to winning his Semi. The Crew got whittled down to a handful still in the event as the day wore on. People started to hit the road as they were eliminated, figuring it was best to get back on the road as soon as possible. Many thanks to Asi, Ryan, and the Pedro Point crew for joining us. Also, Radar, Amy, Brooke,
The Borgesons, The Hegerles, and Rachel.

The final conclusion was Waylon 6th, Andrew Buck 4th, and myself 3rd... all for Santa Cruz. Much respect to Tommy Dane and Jeff Belzer, 2nd and 1st place respectively. Kaizer Medeiros also got 3rd in Jr. mens. for Santa Cruz. Looks like Waylon has Buck in a headlock... best smile award goes to Tommy Dane on the left...

Here's a pic of yours truly with trophy in hand trying to pretend like I don't care :)

After the awards presentation, we all hit the road, with only a stop at In & Out burger to break up the trip. once again getting in at 2 am... my bed sure felt nice. Looking forward to September.

Not Just Longboards

It's been a good week for me, Im back in the Maldives doing my surf guide gig again. The Maldives are a great place to test out boards in the perfect reef passes. As much as I like longboarding, nothing is more fun than pulling into tubes. One more trip to go before heading back to Hawaii for some of those South swells. - Nick

Malibu here we come...

We're packing up the wagon and heading to Malibu this weekend to attend the Malibu Boardriders contest. We'll be updating the blog, so check back. Looking forward to see all our friends again! See you there. -C 

Barrett Hegerle

Here's one of my favorite team guys hanging about as tight as a 5 as possible... Surfing the hook in Santa Cruz recently. Great work dude. -C 

Welzie should have read this a long time ago

I hear that curiosity has a tendency to kill cats. Following my lesser judgement, I read this little booklet after we happened across it. Our our trashman by day, shaper by night friend aka Fergie brought it home from his route. Welzie took one glance at it and refused to look inside. I couldn't resist. Apart from discovering that making surfboards is probably really bad for you, I also learned that Welzie shouldn't have sniffed all that glue in middle school. Really, nothing that we didn't already know. Luckly it seems that the effects are generally only temporary. Except for the brain damage. But like Welzie says, life is damaging... When you think about it, he's right... in the end you end up dead no matter how you spin it. Wise man, maybe I should start smoking. Peace- C 

Laminating the Biscayne

Sorry about the delay in blogs, I lost my power chord for the computer... booo. Here is a quick video of us glassing the Biscayne model down at the shop.  - Nick

The Shaping of the Biscayne Model

Last night we shaped our most recent addition to the Two Crows Model list with the Biscayne. Named after our recent road trip to Southern California in our 66 Chevy Biscayne "Black Betty" . After talking to all the shops we realized that people are looking for an affordable log for the small summer surf. Here it is. It's basically a cross between what I ride and what Carl rides, the balance of opposites. Stable, turny, trimmy, and noserides in the pocket and out. Were keeping the glass job simple using similar colors Chevy used in the interior of their Biscayne station wagons. Keep posted as we head into the shop tonight for some crowlerwork.- nick

Pin it

Pin it. After waking up on the 3rd with residual hangovers from the night before we decided to get home and get home quick. After packing the wagon, we sat down in the car only to find that it wouldn't start. Usually it would have been a sinking feeling, but after a week in full freestyle mode it was hardly even a problem. Securing a jump start from Miles and Leanna, we headed to the local auto parts store for a new battery. A quick swap out and an even hastier lunch and we were ready to roll. With the surf diminished, we stopped at a couple shops and decided that it was time to get moving. Skipping a stop in Costa Mesa we headed to Ventura. Our stop in Ventura was passed up also after finding that our would have been host was in Cabo. With blurry eyes from the nonstop drive from San Diego to Santa Cruz we pulled in around midnight, happy to be home. Crawling into a real bed was ecstasy, so much better than the cold sheet metal floor of Betty. After a good nights sleep, 4th of July was taken full advantage of, sitting around in the sun with friends and  reflecting back on the trip. I find myself happy, filled with lessons learned from being on the road in such close quarters with a good friend. Freestyle highs and lows, managing to keep it together when running on empty and finding that there's always another person out there with another interesting life, story and perspective. Sometimes it's as simple as having a full tank of gas and getting out on the road, even when you don't have any idea where you might end up. Viva la freestyle! -Carl

Airborne and Coores Light

Coores Light and Airborne. Let us stop for a second and ponder this picture. There is a duality to it that is so serene. One glass says chill out, the other says party time. Welzie drank them both. It's party time. After a pretty good stretch of being on the road the miles have apparently worn on one crow. Mentioning a scratchy throat he slinked off to the super and picked up an 18 pack and a package of Airborne. Tonight is a sort of 4th of July pub/bbq crawl for friends of ours down here in SD and Welzie is putting his game face on. Today was spent hopping around to surf shops in the San Diego area, none of which we found very appealing except for one. Surf Indian in Pacific Beach really caught our attention. The owner Chris was a great guy who seemed to be very hip to the surf scene and also charming with the ladies that passed through the shop while we were around. Our type of guy. We also checked out Sunset Cliffs for surf but it was pretty small so we meandered back to Nick's Cousin Miles and his wife Leanna's awesome house. One thing that is interesting about their house is that it is directly below the approach for San Diego International airport. As the planes come in the sound of their engines echo though the house... Miles and Leanna say that you get used to it, but I keep having Vietnam flashbacks... or something. I'm not sure, maybe it's WWII I'm remembering... either way I keep getting the feeling that I need to run out and man the anti-aircraft guns. Incoming airplanes are sketchy but bring back fond memories of hopping to-and-fro from Santa Cruz to Hawaii. Time to hop out to this crawl. Have a good evening- Carl 

Happy Days

We woke up in Oceanside after a well needed sleep yesterday. Loaded up Black Betty and hit the road for Cardiff. Along the way we stopped for coffee, which turned out to be right next door to the California Surfing Museum. Our friend and Malibu ripper Julie Cox was working and showed us around. As surfboard builders it was like walking into a history book. They had all types of boards from every significant moment in surfboard building. We were kids in a candy store, checking out all the different ideas and creative designs from shapers and craftsmen. My favorite board was Bethany Hamilton's board which she was riding when a shark got her. There was a serious chunk of foam out of that board. If your in the area, the museum is a great place to have a wonder.
Posting up in the parking lot at Cardiff we had some fun little logging waves. Sun was out and epic people watching. A few local groms took out the logs which was fun to watch, it's great to see kids growing up with a logging influence.
I ran into a good friend from Hawaii out in the water, making the day that much better. We had some drinks down at the Chart House then headed down the coast to my cousin's place where we caught up over beers and headed out to a pretty hip little bar around the corner. Another good night of sleep and we're back in action, headed to the beach then off to some shops. Happy Days. -Nick

Malibu Motions

CROWLIFORNIA ROAD TRIP: MALIBU from L.A. on Vimeo.

Here is a the last video from our "Video Guy" who is no longer with us. Notice the lack of surfing and high tide bump. The waves had been actually really good the two previous days, the best noseriding waves I have surfed in ages. After some freestyle highs and lows in las Angles we headed on down Thalia Surf Shop in Laguna Beach. A super styley surf shop with some really nice boards, perfect for the summer surf. We talked to Corey who works at the shop about surf, boards, and two headed llamas. I loved the Push Me Pull You inspiration from Doctor Suess.
We pulled into San Onofre for an afternoon surf. Pretty small but the sun was out. It was pretty cool surfing another spot with so much history in surfing. We let Mike try out a board, but I think the board is designed for a much faster and more hollow wave. Our California Noserider or The Lowrider model would have been perfect. We finished the day off with some good mexican food and margaritas in Oceanside with our old friend, spending a night in a house is great after a few nights in Black Betty.