Episode #145 – Kaden Sponhauer / Sicko Country | The Foiling Magazine

[00:00:00] Hey everyone, welcome back to the show. On this episode we sit down from Kaden from the Sickos to talk about their recent article in the Foiling Magazine called Sicko Country that is now available. So if you're interested in reading it, go to thefoilymagazine.com to learn more about how you can get your hands on it.

[00:00:17] We also chat with Kaden about the state of pair winging and hood and how it is a bucket list location for any wind lover. Also about their million subs. Congratulations guys, you guys have built a hell of a channel. We do hope that you enjoy this episode.

[00:00:35] Next, we want to say a big thank you to our team. We have Frank, Stefan and Pam. Thank you for your hard work behind the scenes that makes this show possible. Lastly, a big thank you to our sponsors for this season. We have North Foils, Mystic and On Kiteboarding. Make sure to visit foillifepodcast.com forward slash sponsors to learn more about them. Now I hope you enjoy the show.

[00:00:57] Welcome to Foil Life Podcast. Whether you wing, kite, parrowing, downwind, pump or e-foil, thanks for being here. Hey Kaden, thanks for joining me on the show, man. Yeah, thank you for having me. You guys are based in Hood River, correct? Yep, all in, born and raised in Hood River. One of the guys from White Salmon, but basically the same thing. Sick, man. What an amazing place to grow. It's probably one of my brother and I's favorite spots to head to.

[00:01:26] We spend a lot of time at Vancouver Island windsurfing and kiting and winging and stuff, but Hood is such a special place. There's so many awesome things to do and that river is sick for anybody who hasn't been there. Yeah, it's fun. We're lucky to grow up here for sure. And congratulations, you guys just hit 1 million subscribers, I imagine. You must have been pretty excited about that. Yeah, that was a big one for us and we've been working towards that.

[00:01:54] But basically this whole time, that's been our number one thing to do. And so now that we've done that, we are like, okay, we've done that and now we got to keep going and make sure we're not just like, okay, that's it. We got to, yeah. So that was a big milestone. Yeah, imagine. How did you guys all meet?

[00:02:15] So we all, most of us at least, are all a very similar age and Hood River is so small that basically anybody who is around your age doing the same thing, you're going to end up being friends with them. And so that was a big thing. But also just our parents knew each other growing up.

[00:02:34] And so it was kind of half the people, our family, friends situation, half of it is just seeing them on the river or mountain biking or skiing or at school, you know, you end up being in the same friend group. Yeah, fair enough. And then there was two of them, no, one of the youngest guy was, he's like four years younger than us. And he was a fan of one of the guys who did YouTube before and met up with him on the chairlift and told him he knew how to film. And we're like, oh, we need a filmer.

[00:03:03] This is right when sicko starting. And so we brought him in as a filmer. It turns out he doesn't know how to film, but he's a funny kid. And so that's how he ended up being part of the crew. So we kept him around. Nice, man. How do you guys come up with your creative ideas for everything that you're filming? It's super dependent. Sometimes we'll just see an Instagram reel or a TikTok or something. We're like, oh, my gosh, we need to do that.

[00:03:28] Some we try to do like four times a year before the season or something, meet up and just have we'll all just sit there and try to think of stuff. And maybe people have sometimes in the middle of the day, you'll just think of something, put it down in your notes. And then when you have a meeting, we'll all talk about what people have been thinking about doing. But a lot of randomly seeing something, deciding we should do that Facebook marketplace. There's a random thing on there.

[00:03:56] We'll buy it, make a video, try it, see a video online. All sorts of things. A lot of things we just get invited to and that ends up being its own idea. So that's nice. Yeah, it's kind of all over the place. You'd think it'd be this organized dialed program, but it's far, far from that. Fair enough. When did you guys start off in the water?

[00:04:23] Given the article, it's like about you guys downwinding and how hooked you guys are in parowing, which is going to be something sick that we can talk about. But when did you guys start off? Pretty young. I think I learned how to kiteboard when I was 13. I'm 25 now, so that's like 12 years. And I think similar for most of the guys, there's four of us who are done it forever, like our whole lives, and two guys who are still getting into it.

[00:04:51] But yeah, the four of us, I mean, I was going down windsurfing when I was learning how to walk because that's what my dad was doing. And then that evolved into kiting, which evolved into kite foiling, into learning to wing, and now the parowing. But yeah, we've been on the parowing in the past two or three years, so we were pretty much on it right when it started becoming a thing. It's blowing up there, isn't it? Massively. Massively blowing up here. It's like what the majority of people do now. But you guys were what?

[00:05:21] You were towing before, like behind the ski and seeing how long you can rip on a foil, and you were mentioning, I think it was like 30 seconds behind the ski with something massive, but now it's like changed so much. Exactly. Exactly. We would go out kiting, like go out east or just out front of town and go kiting, and sometimes we'd bring the jet ski and just throw in the foil. And after a whole session, we'd go do some toe foiling on the jet ski on horrible old foils, but they worked good enough.

[00:05:51] Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, we would just toe into the bumps out there and see how far we could ride, and you'd go 30 seconds, and you'd lose your mind and be like, this is incredible. Oh my God, it's so fun. And then now it's funny how far that's come. But that was the initial downwinding that we did. Oh. And then winging to parawinging, what do you think? You guys like parawinging a lot more?

[00:06:17] We like it a lot more just because I think we're all super obsessed with surfing. And so the parawinging, getting everything out of your hands and just being able to surf the foil is our favorite. But winging is still fun to go do. We just don't like having to deal with the wing while you're trying to do turns or something like that. More condition dependent, I guess. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. But winging has its pluses too.

[00:06:46] We're just a little into the surfy feel of parawinging right now. Yeah, that's fair, man. What gear are you riding? Any company in specific? Right now, I'm loving my, I have an apple tree board, and I'm just loving that thing. I've gone through testing quite a few things, and so far, that has been my favorite. So that's what I'm riding now. That's what a few of the guys also ride. And then I'm on an F1 skate foil.

[00:07:16] Love that thing. Those are good, eh? Yeah. And then the Ozone pocket rockets, and I still need to, I'm on the V1s right now. I need to upgrade. I'm hearing good things about. Nice, man. And how do you guys organize filming, work days, all that kind of stuff with riding as much as you can? Yeah. Kind of mixing it. We, if we could, we would just make foil and wind sport videos, and that's it.

[00:07:42] That's, if we could just do that for all of the videos, that's what we would ideally do. So, but unfortunately, we need to come up with a little bit more than just that to try to get a bigger audience than just the water. But yeah, honestly, it'll be like two days ago, we pushed back a filming day because it was so windy. So there's a lot of times where we'll be needing to get something done, and it's so windy that it just gets postponed.

[00:08:09] And luckily, a lot of times that's okay, but it can extend things and make trouble. But yeah, we definitely plan filming days around when it's not windy. And when it is windy and you're going to film and you're just driving away, you're just heartbreaking looking back at the river. It's so good. Boy, I'm assuming you guys have a lot of people to, like sponsors and different people to make happy, right?

[00:08:37] So you got to make sure to book your business stuff in to make sense. Yeah, yeah, that too. Definitely. How does it feel like to be a full-time YouTuber in that sense? Is that something that was on you guys' radar when you were young or you kind of just fell into it? Honestly, it was not really on the radar when we were young. Yeah, I don't know. It almost just kind of fell into it. Me and two other guys were doing filming and editing for our jobs. And so we got the camera work, the editing work, and we knew how to do that.

[00:09:07] And we were always filming stuff when we were growing up, but we didn't know where to put it or what to do with it. Maybe you'd make like a little Instagram edit out of it. And then one of the guys ended up going off and getting a full YouTube job with Jamie O'Brien. And so he kind of saw the whole YouTube side and was like, well, YouTube can be a career. And he was like, we've always been wanting to film stuff and put it somewhere. Maybe YouTube is the best place to be doing that if that can be a job.

[00:09:36] And just the stars aligned with COVID and stuff for us to be in a position to just try. And everyone would come home for the summer. And so our idea was, while everyone's home for the summer, let's just try a YouTube channel and go super hard on actually doing it. And then the summer ended and we're like, let's keep doing the YouTube channel. And now here we are. So it was never necessarily my life dream to be a YouTuber, but I'm glad I'm doing it now. So it's fun.

[00:10:05] I was listening to a bit of your episode with Kai and Ridge, and they had mentioned that he had helped seed a little bit the channel, right? Just to get that thing going. And then you guys just took off from there. There's a lot that goes into YouTube, though. And there's a lot of analytics. There's a lot of like, there's a lot of that stuff. And you guys are paying attention to it because you're looking at, obviously, making sure your channel grows. But is that something that came easily? Or did you guys have to study it outside? I mean, we're still studying that.

[00:10:31] We still are learning more and more and more about YouTube, and it's constantly changing. But early on, that was a big thing is just figuring out how stuff works at the most simple level. So like the whole first year, almost, we only had Jackson. We only had one guy who could actually talk to the camera without it being super awkward. He would say everything to the camera. And so, yeah, we're always diving into all the analytics we possibly can.

[00:11:00] Because if you're not, it's just you're missing out on a whole side of making your channel perform better and do better. And so it's kind of a funny thing when the six of us get together and we're all trying to nerd out on stuff. And someone thinks one thing, someone thinks the other thing. And no one's necessarily wrong. Like there's not a perfect correct answer to what you should be or how you should be doing something.

[00:11:25] So it's a balance of doing what we think is fun and what we want to do and what we also think is going to do the best on YouTube. So, yeah, there's a lot of that going on. A lot of that. And you can get lost in trying to do too much of the analytics that you lose the whole soul of your channel on what you're actually trying to do. So we try to balance that.

[00:11:48] Not missing out on doing things that could perform and make things do better, but also staying true to what we like to do and how we want to do something. Do you guys have a boss and hierarchy kind of thing set up? Do you guys just free for all? We're right now. It's it's all technically it's even like business wise. It's even but we Jackson has come into being our boss as of lately.

[00:12:16] He's the he's the leader role. So we're all a level playing field legally on the contract, but people fall into their positions. And Jackson has been kind of the boss. We call him the boss because he is kind of our glue keeping things running. I'm technically the second in command. So if boss is gone, things go to me. But it's more of a joke. Like all of that stuff is more of a joke.

[00:12:45] Now, I'm sure you guys have because you're kind of trying to plan stuff around wind. Do you know the most expensive meeting that you've blown off to do a downwind run or something like that? I don't know. We're not that fried. We're not that fried. You know, I mean, wind is great, but we're not going to do something that dumb, you know? All right. That's fair. That's fair. Yeah. Yeah. That's fair. And who's the best foiler?

[00:13:14] Ooh, that is a controversial question. I honestly, I don't know. I mean, I think me and Will have been doing it the longest, but Jackson and Charlie are really good. I'm just going to say we're even. I think we're all even. And everyone has things they're a little bit better at here and there. You're going to stick with that. I'm going to stick with that so I don't get murdered. Fair enough.

[00:13:42] You guys ski and mountain bike and all that good stuff, obviously. How good is Mount Hood in the winter? Honestly, Mount Hood in the winter, it's not that amazing. Like, it's my favorite ski resort to ski at because I think it's really fun and I'm used to it. And I do think it is great. But in terms of snow quality and days that are good for filming and just terrain that's good for filming, a lot of times we have to leave Oregon to go film specific videos.

[00:14:13] And it can just be so gray and rainy here that you definitely have the seasonal depression moving in. Like, that's almost the curse of year is if it was one degree colder, it would be like the best snow day in the world. But it's that little variable that makes it not quite as amazing as it could be. That being said, I love it. And I love skiing here and I love being here in the winter.

[00:14:38] But I wouldn't necessarily put it as like a winter travel destination, you know. Yeah, that's fair. Where is your favorite? Because there's a lot of good ski resorts in the area, right? You can go north to Canada. You get a bunch of stuff in Colorado, Utah, all that stuff. What's your favorite? We, our favorite is Whistler up in Canada. That has, we've gone there the past two or three years now and it's turned into our annual filming trip. Just for the snowmobile access and the mountains they have there.

[00:15:08] And it's like a seven hour drive from here. It's the best place we've found for us to film and we can get the most done. So we'll do like a 10 day trip there every winter and try to film like five videos. Nice. What, foiling or powder skiing or boarding? What do you think? So, geez. We, I think we'll always fall back into the water side of things. We'll be the favorite. So yeah, foiling. What was your favorite downwind or on the river? Where do you guys start?

[00:15:37] Or does it just locate or wind dependent? My favorite, I mean, it is wind dependent, but my favorite place to go always is Rufus. Out east is just as dreamy as it gets. The waves are so big. And I just like, I like the country vibe out there. Like it doesn't feel like you should be basically going on a surf trip. It's so dry and feels like you almost could be in North Dakota or something like that.

[00:16:06] You know, you're like surfing in the Great Plains almost it feels like. And I was laughing. I was there two days ago and I was laughing about it because it's right next to like this big junction travel center. And there's just like the big, beautiful, amazing river with awesome waves that we just came out of. And the town with it is just like five gas stations and like a Cinnabon and a subway and a McDonald's and a bunch of semi trucks. And that's all there is around there. And it's just the best vibe. I love it.

[00:16:36] I love it. It just doesn't feel like you should be scoring amazing waves. And then that's where you stop to get some food, you know, not there. I think that was one of our probably our better sessions was in Rufus. And I think that's the first time we saw a lady was coming in on a four meter kite, I think. And she was coming to swap it out. And we thought she was out of control. She said, no, no, no, it's fine. I'm just grabbing my three. It's like pushing close to 40. It's freaking it's insane there.

[00:17:05] It's quite advanced there, but it's a beautiful launch site. Any kind of close calls filming in the river? In the river. Not a ton. I've so far, knock on wood, knock on wood. I've been pretty lucky. But Jackson has cut himself like three times and had to get stitches. I've had other friends cut themselves and get stitches.

[00:17:32] Me and Jackson, like our foils hit underwater a few times while we're filming. And he goes flying off or something. And that's a little scary. But otherwise, not so much. So I'm trying to think if there's anything like in the kiting days, but not as much. There'd be a lot of days where we'd go out and just all try to get tangled on purpose together. Just five of us. And that was a little hectic.

[00:17:55] But otherwise, foiling seems like it's been the most dangerous just with your underwater knife under there, you know. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff. Like I'm teaching right now in Mauritius. And funny enough, I got my wing tangled up in two boats today somehow. And my foil cut up in three tow lines. So it's just like random shit like that. And you're trying to coach this guy not to do that. You're just not paying attention, right? My brain was in something else. But anyways. And you got some barges.

[00:18:25] You got to pay attention to barges and stuff in hood to make sure not to get kind of caught up in that. But for the most part, it's a pretty safe and nice river. That's what I like about it too is it's different than the ocean. Like it still, of course, has all of its dangers and need to be safe. But it's nice that you don't have to worry about getting swept out to sea in the river. That's right. You know, and you don't have to worry about getting attacked by a shark or something like that. So that part's pretty cool. Cool.

[00:18:53] I've just, I've always felt like as long as for some reason I got separated from all my gear and I'm in a fine, healthy state, worst thing, you just swim to the side of the river, you know. But that's also maybe easier said than done. I've never had to actually do that. So that might be a false hope. I mean, you'd get swept a little ways based on current, but eventually you'd breathe. Yeah. That's why some flip flops may be on your harness. Yeah.

[00:19:23] You could try that. Yeah. They're pretty good for that there. I've seen several people get toned in and for the most part, your kiter is your best friend, even if you don't kite. Exactly. Everyone's super helpful and nice, usually. How was your progression with pair winging? How did you find learning? I learned how to do the sup first, the paddle downwinding. And that was like horrible. That was a horrible, horrible learning curve.

[00:19:50] And it was frustrating, too, because I had already foiled for so long that I was like, oh, it's going to work like instantly. And it was so different and so hard that it was so it was probably the most frustrating thing I've ever learned. But then once you get it, it's that much more rewarding. So that was fun. But I learned the sup first, which I think helped me like read the waves for downwinding and stay on waves better.

[00:20:18] So that then when I did switch to pair winging a few months later, I was able like the first day it just worked out. And I was like, wow, this is so much easier than doing this up that what have I been doing this whole time? And it's so nice that you can ride the smaller board compared to this up. Yeah, that's true. So the pair winging learning curve worked pretty quickly for me just because of thanks to that learning the sup first.

[00:20:45] Well, reading that swell and staying on it right is the hardest thing for when you're stowed away. Like mowing the long is not much different than kiting. It's pretty easy. But as soon as you stow it, that's where it really begins for you. Right? Totally. And there's plenty of hard things to do even before you stow it too. Just like you're trying to just do a turn or a jibe and your wing is ending up behind your head. And so there's always little things to learn how to get better on that. Yeah, definitely.

[00:21:14] I remember I think the first couple times we were doing it in Mexico and lit out of our trees just trying to stay upwind. And you just like you just got to heal into it. How is it when you guys get overpowered there? I had to body drag to shore because there was no – I think it was 35 knots and it was a 3-meter V1 and I couldn't do shit. So it's like, yeah, it was way, way too powered. Hood obviously notoriously pushes big wind.

[00:21:42] Is there a limit that you like to go in? Yeah, I mean, to me there's a limit to when we won't do upwinding anymore. So if it gets to a certain windy, then we'll just be running downwind shuttles so that you only have your wing out for 10 seconds, 30 seconds, a minute. You know, the short – you're not trying to ride upwind. Because the worst thing is when you're trying to upwind and your wing's just folding in half.

[00:22:10] And then it unfolds in half and you fly off your board. That's so frustrating and your back is just getting torqued in half. But so I don't know. I would say – I actually tested this two days ago. I thought it was going to be too windy to upwind on the 3, but it worked out. I would say if it's starting to gust 40, then it's too windy to upwind and you need to do the downwind shuttles.

[00:22:35] And even then I'm realizing too when it's so windy that way, I personally would almost just rather go kiteboarding and then you can fully use the big waves to like their potential. Whereas with the foiling, I've noticed there's almost not a huge difference between when it's like big waves to really big. It's not necessarily more fun to go do the foil in my opinion.

[00:23:02] It's almost more fun to foil when it's big waves, but not really big. If it's really big, I enjoy the kiting and just hitting the big wave better. And whereas the foil, it can almost just be too scary when it's really big. Yeah, I kind of feel the same in big wind. If it's getting bigger windsurfing for me, my brother kites, but windsurfing for me just feels much more enjoyable.

[00:23:29] Even though you could crack out a smaller foil, but that makes sense. Right, yeah. Have you tested, given the fact that you're in the epicenter, have you gotten to test any gear that's not out on the market or test out new downwind foils? Because there's so much stuff flying around in hood. I honestly, I haven't done that much of that. I've done a handful of just like trying different brands. But this year it was nice.

[00:23:55] I felt like I found what I like the best for right now and didn't do that much hopping around. Because last year I was doing so much trying different boards, different foils, different all this. I felt like I never actually got used to what I was riding. And I think a big part of foiling and being comfortable is just being used to the gear that you have. And also... That's huge actually. Yeah, being used to it.

[00:24:24] And I think if you switch around too much, you start blaming your gear for too many things. So this year I've really enjoyed just sticking to what I have and riding it for a couple months. And really getting used to it and making it work with what I have. I think what I have, I'm pretty confident in that it's like up there with the best stuff you could have. So that is nice peace of mind to have. But once you are there with that, switching... The grass can always be greener, in my opinion.

[00:24:50] But some of the guys definitely like to really narrow down to what their best exact foil specifications are. And like try everything, try something different every time. Go in and change your shim and stuff like that. And I'm a little bit more like, this feels great. I'm going to stick to this for as long as I can instead of switching around. That's fair. I think there's something to be said about mastering the setup that you have and just enjoying what it provides. You don't necessarily need to be continuously.

[00:25:19] But that being said, there are people, like you said, that absolutely love doing that. More on the tech side of things, which is all right. And the thing with foiling is it does, it can make a difference. Like the new, a nicer, newer foil is a lot better than the last year one or the two years ago one. And it does make a difference to be on the newer foil, especially if you're downwinding and you're relying on your foil that much. Like that's the whole thing is basically your foil in the water.

[00:25:47] So it does make a difference, unfortunately. But sometimes I kind of wish that things would slow down and I could just be happy with my foil for a little bit longer before I'm like, oh, I need that new one now. Fair enough. What was your favorite trip that you guys did for the sickles altogether? Let's see. I would say I got two, but they're not super water related. One of them was Slovenia, underrated country.

[00:26:17] So fun and cool. The other one was the Azores, which is part of Portugal, but just those islands in the middle of the Atlantic. Good surfing. I would imagine they would have good foiling. Yeah, really good foiling, actually, now that I think about it. We weren't quite as into it yet then, but if I went back there, I'd bring my foil. So those were top two.

[00:26:40] In terms of water trips, Hossegore in France, we did a lot of foiling, surf foiling in Hossegore, and that was super fun. And normal surfing, that was great. And I think they have this cool like cove harbor thing there. I don't know. I can't remember exactly what it's called, but I know they do a lot of winging and para-winging in there. And like the waves come in, but it's good wind. Yeah, those are my top. Otherwise, just home, favorite place to be on the water in the whole world.

[00:27:10] I just, this river is the funnest thing to me. Yeah, and the community there is so amazing to see such a wide age group of people showing up because we normally cover AWSI. So you show up to an event site with like 100 people on the river for us just to see the age group, right? And you got, that's the coolest thing about hood is there's so many people that have actually lived that life and they've just loved it for such a long period. And foiling has brought that out a lot too.

[00:27:39] I think there's a lot of people that windsurfed and kiteboarded. And when that was all you could do, they kind of retired from doing that. And now with winging and foiling, a lot of like parents and even grandparents are back on the water because that was their gateway to do it again. Closest call to the hospital. Any kind of super close calls with all these stunts that you guys have been pulling?

[00:28:08] I got to think about that for a sec because sometimes you just forget what has happened. Honestly, yeah, honestly, Jackson has had the worst luck with injuries. We've been pretty lucky that people haven't gotten that hurt. Knock on wood, geez. This is horrible, but yeah, we've been pretty lucky on the injury side so far.

[00:28:35] Max had a scary one actually a couple of weeks ago with the slip and slide thing. I don't know if you've seen that where we do the big jump. He got the tube, hit him in the face and it like knocked him out. And so he was flying and unconscious and hit the water and he went to the hospital just to make sure he was all good. He was okay, but he did get like a concussion and blew his eardrum. But we were scared it was something way worse.

[00:28:58] Jackson's had bad luck with his ACLs and he's had collarbones, but we haven't had a bunch of many big injuries while we're filming a video. So that has been nice. And I hope it continues that way because we're relatively, it might not seem like it in the videos, but we're more calculated than it, than maybe it comes off.

[00:29:19] And we try not to just blindly do something that could end up being a severe injury because you can't make videos if half the crew is injured. So we take the longevity side into things a lot. And if you're doing it every week. Very smart. Yeah. If you're doing it every week, you got to tone it back a little bit to make sure you can do it next week too.

[00:29:43] Do you guys bring in experts to work with you that are specific specialists in an area that can help avoid those kind of potential? We do that a lot in this, in for snow videos. Like anytime we're going into the backcountry with our snowmobiles or anything like that, we'll hire like a professional guide or we'll bring a crew of like the pro snowboarders that have done it their whole life and know everything.

[00:30:10] And so we're never doing anything like that alone just because we don't know enough. Um, and, but like on, in certain videos where there is big injury potential, we'll try to hire someone to come just be there for the day for the worst case scenario potential. Um, and we're also, it's like, um, incredible that we haven't already done this, but we're, we have, uh, we finally have like some wilderness first aid and avalanche courses.

[00:30:38] And we want to do like a lifeguard water safety course. We're finally going to actually do those in these next couple of weeks. So don't grow up too fast, boys. You're still, I know, but we've just, uh, there's too many things you can easily do to save someone's life that, uh, takes three days to learn, you know? Yeah.

[00:30:59] Especially in, in hood, like our buddy, he, like he did go through that near bleeding out situation, um, with a foil. I think the, it was the tail, I think that hit him in the calf. You never know, especially when people are doing more of these kind of longer down windows and stuff. So it's a lot more of that getting thrown into the mix. And it's good that you're mentioning, um, that stuff because people have, I guess they see and they try to do, and especially in the water, there's some basics that you should know before going too narrowly.

[00:31:29] But absolutely. I, uh, I think it's honestly incredibly stupid that we are more trained in, in this, uh, cheese and I, in this medical stuff and how to save just the quick tools on how to save someone's life. Like even just having a tourniquet or something in your car, um, you know, or even better if you have that cool leash one. But yeah, I'm a big advocate for just learning the basic stuff to help someone on the river because it does happen. I think you, we definitely have.

[00:31:57] And I think a lot of people forget that those things can happen, you know, the worst case scenario. And then as soon as it actually is happening in front of you, you go, Oh no, why do I not know how to do anything? You know? Yeah. Um, no, it's a good point. If you guys are pushing the envelope in certain areas, it only makes sense to have that background. Is there a dream trip or a dream video that you guys have been, or a concept or you don't want to give out too much, but.

[00:32:25] A dream one, honestly, this one we were talking about laughing about it a couple months ago is where you are right now is Mauritius. That's on our dream list. Yeah. We wanted to make a video just zero, basically forget about all the YouTube analytics and strategy. Just go to Mauritius and have some filmers come. And all we do is go have fun and surf and foil and kite. And it's just a purely fun shred.

[00:32:55] We'd call it our shred trip. We don't even think about YouTube and we just get clips and film. And, uh, that's our tree on our dream list right there. Well, it's a nice Island. We've been here for two months. We're going to be here for nine and I'm working with John Devalbach. He's an Olympic kite foiler. He has a school out here and we're looking for an Island to come to. So we're coaching with him, which is quite fun actually. And such a beautiful spot though. Yeah. It looks incredible. Yeah. It looks awesome.

[00:33:24] What, uh, yeah, there's a lot of different Willow, you know, Willow River Tonkin. He's like a kite pro. Um, yeah, he showed me around or just gave us a little bit of a, of an introduction to, to Lamorne, which is probably where you guys would be going. That place is pretty fun. Yeah. We got, there are some gnarly waves. Yeah. There's crazy currents and stuff, but I'm sure you guys can handle it. I know. I've heard some horror stories from there, but. Fuck even the pro. Who was it?

[00:33:52] Um, he was an F1 pro that came on the show and he was at one eye and it was a bigger day. And what happened with him? I think he ended up falling on the wave. His wing got blown to, anyways, he was just getting sucked out to sea. So that is one place that you can't fuck around as one eye. Apparently the current there is insane. So just make sure. But you guys are going to have safety crew with you, so I'm sure it won't be a problem, but. Right. It is such a beautiful spot though. Yeah. Yeah. It looks incredible.

[00:34:20] It does seem like a good place to have a friend on a jet ski or a boat ready, ready to help. I mean, I mean, not a bad idea. If you guys want to get some of the content. Right. That's cool. And, um, anything else you want to put out there about your article? Are you the one that kind of put all that stuff together? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I, I put that together and that was cool. Um, but yeah, it was fun to do that.

[00:34:47] And to, uh, it's, I'd never just like sit down and reflect and writing how I'm feeling about doing anything, honestly. Um, and so it was cool to do that about like the thing we care the most about, honestly, in the whole world. Um, and it was fun too. We, I had forgotten, we had a foil magazine, um, article or like a little mention in it, I think on their very first magazine. Um, and it was just like a picture of us foiling behind the boat.

[00:35:17] And I was like, Oh, that's like, that's crazy. It was like six years ago now or even longer maybe. And so it was funny to remember that. Um, yeah, it's a beautiful article. Thank you. The imagery definitely makes it pop. Sicko country. For those of you who have not, um, checked that out. It is out now. So it'd be pretty fun to pick up and pick up and read. Um, well, man, thanks for taking the time coming on and introducing the spot a little bit, just talking about you guys a little bit. It's much appreciated. Yeah.

[00:35:47] Yeah. No, thank, thank you for having me. It was great. I talk about this stuff all day. So yeah. And apple tree there, obviously their boards are kind of, their, their technology is different than the other ones. How do you, how do you love Vickers boards? That's what you're on right now. I love it. Yeah. It's, it's like the, of course, just the shape and the feel I've, I, I borrowed one from a friend before I had my own and I was like, I need to have this board now.

[00:36:16] I have the apple skipper downwind prone. Um, and I, I have a 50 liter. Um, and so, and I've been loving that thing. I have been loving it and it is nice too with the construction. You don't have to worry about it nearly as much as other boards. Um, yeah. So that's sweet. That's true. You're just like the whole getting a ding thing is almost eliminated, which is so nice and I have to worry about. Um, yeah, I've been loving those. I've been massively loving those.

[00:36:45] And a lot of the, a lot of my friends around here ride them too. And so we're kind of, I like to think of them as like the, the Darth Vader crew, you know, the all black. Yeah. It's kind of, yeah, it's a cool look. I like them a lot. Yeah. Have you tried that new tunnel? I haven't, but I've been seeing that around there. I haven't tried it though. Okay. Apparently there's some benefits to it. I haven't tried it yet. I'll probably do it next time I'm in hood, but it looks interesting. Yeah. It does look interesting.

[00:37:15] There's always a new thing like that, that does look interesting. And you're like, well, add it to my list that I need to try. Ways you can steal my money. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Oh, in closing, how was it to go see that Jackass premiere and stuff? Oh, that was funny. That was fun. Yeah, it was good. It was, uh, it was kind of a full, cause we grew up watching Jackass and are definitely inspired by Jackass.

[00:37:45] Um, yeah. And so it was cool to go like see all the people in real life and be in, uh, such a Hollywood setting. Like it was at Paramount Studios at the, at their, whatever you even call it, their compound. Um, yeah. Yeah. And it felt like you're like walking down a movie set and it was, it was good. Yeah. It was cool. It was a funny, funny trip for sure. Fly down to LA for the most like Hollywood thing we've done. Oh yeah. Oh, that's sick. That's sick.

[00:38:13] Any, um, anything planned like your next video? Is there a spot that you guys are heading to next? Let's see. We are, we're trying to go back to Hasegore this fall. Um, and then we also have some plans to go to New Zealand and Australia, uh, like November time. Um, and then after that it'll be into winter. So I don't know. When's the best time to go to Mauritius?

[00:38:41] I mean, it's, it's windy now. Yeah. I think the wind more dies down in our winter in Canada, U S and stuff. I think the wind more dies down, but, uh, but yeah, I think right now, it was a good time. And, but let me ask you out tomorrow what the, what the swell is like come December. Cause we're here till March, I think. So you never know though. You just need to, if the forecast lines up, it doesn't matter too much. It'll be fun anyways. Right. Right. Sure.

[00:39:11] There's plenty of things that you guys can throw yourselves off. That'll be pretty fun. Yeah. Yeah. No, that would be good. Yeah. Otherwise we'll just be here the rest of the summer and foiling and being on the river and stuff like that. So, um, but yeah, it's been fun this whole summer to see how many more people are getting into it and, uh, just how much it's growing, which is a funny combo too, because like being

[00:39:38] here and seeing it explode more, you're like, this is awesome. And also at the same time, you're like, it is getting crowded and hard to park. So you're like, but I've always thought the whole, like too much angry localism thing is just like a terrible vibe. And I, I like how wind sports doesn't have nearly as much of that as surfing. Like surfing, it'll just be so angry and then go on a kite trip and you're like, everyone

[00:40:06] is the nicest person you've ever met or a foil trip or anything like that. And it's so much, such a better vibe. So I'm, I'm happy that here, that here is a better vibe around that too. The only ever time you get angry is in the parking lot and you're like, oh, there's 6am, uh, at least it's like, it's, you have a lot more room to play on. You're not just fighting over one wave, uh, which is beneficial.

[00:40:34] And I'm finding foiling is kind of connecting, kiting, windsurfing and all these sports together, right? Cause we're kind of all uniting under this foil, which is interesting as well. Cause before I was a lot more separated. Totally. Totally. Yeah, man. Yeah, I agree. That is cool. Well, my friend, thanks for coming on. Hope you enjoy your summer. And I guess it's starting to get, you still get good wind into what mid, I think I got some good sessions mid September. Yeah. I mean, this past week has been like my favorite week of the whole summer, honestly.

[00:41:05] Um, which usually I'm more of a May, June, it's a little colder, but way windier typically. Yeah. But this past week has like been incredible. And so, um, yeah, I think as September rolls around, it'll turn and start turning into fall quite a bit more, but you can still get some, some big days in September. So fingers crossed. Yeah. We'll see. Enjoy. Um, all right, man. Well, Hey, we will chat with you soon. Thanks for coming on. And yeah, Mauritius a nice spot. So you guys better come out.

[00:41:35] Yeah. Maybe, maybe we'll, uh, meet you there and we'll do another one with all the whole crew. That'd be fun. That would be fun. All right, man. All right, Luke. Thank you. Thanks for having me. You're welcome. Talk to you later. Take care. Hey everyone. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode. We do hope that you enjoyed it. We'd love it if you could subscribe to our Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok channels to help our show grow. We are constantly putting out some great content there. So that would be awesome if you could do that for us.

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