Episode #48 - Gary Siskar

[00:00:00] Hey everyone, welcome back to the show. Today's episode is with Gary Sisker from Ride Engine.

[00:00:06] He joins us from La Ventana, Mexico to introduce the brand, what products they are currently

[00:00:11] working on. We talk about a little how he got into the wind industry and how he fell

[00:00:16] in love with wind in the first place. I really do hope you enjoy it. It was a fun

[00:00:20] episode. Now if you haven't had the opportunity to listen to last week's episode is with

[00:00:24] Mario and Andreas from Levitas Foils. They joined us to share their personal passion

[00:00:30] wind stories, how Levitas got started, and then what the tricks are behind making a

[00:00:36] very fast foil. So that one's also a good one and I would urge you to listen to that

[00:00:40] one as well. Now don't forget if you want to support our show there are multiple ways

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[00:00:56] if you'd like those do go a long way. Now, if you want to help out in the day today,

[00:01:00] visit WingLifePodcast.com and click on support us to donate a few dollars or jump on a

[00:01:06] monthly subscription. We appreciate your support and we hope you enjoy today's

[00:01:11] episode.

[00:01:13] Welcome to the WingLife Podcast where we talk about wing foiling and the lifestyles of those

[00:01:25] who enjoy this great sport. Anyways, hey Gary, thanks for making this happen, man. Like

[00:01:30] I was awesome to meet you in hood and get to know your team. So yeah, super stoked

[00:01:36] to chat.

[00:01:37] Sweet. I'm stoked to be here, Lou. So yeah, let's do this. I'll know what we're going to

[00:01:41] talk about. We'll probably go off on some crazy tangents. We could talk about all kinds

[00:01:46] of things. Baja. We could talk about, I guess, winging a bit. We can talk about the brand

[00:01:53] ride engine. Talk about me. Talk about why wing and foiling is rad. I don't know.

[00:02:00] I'll let you go with it.

[00:02:02] Let's start with Baja because I'm going to be working with La Saladita Kite School up

[00:02:08] there. They got some wing foil gear waiting for me, so they'll show it for Ando. But yeah,

[00:02:15] how are the conditions been?

[00:02:17] Ando is one of my homies. He's amazing. So you're stoked. Yeah, I love that guy.

[00:02:22] Oh yeah, always full of happiness.

[00:02:25] Ah, totally. Much love. Dude, it's been epic down here. I mean, I've been, you know, I spend,

[00:02:32] I've been lucky enough for the past. What's going on four years now actually? This is my

[00:02:38] fourth year that, you know, ride engine slash seven nation which is like the mothership

[00:02:45] of the whole thing. They have encouraged kind of remote working during certain times

[00:02:51] of the year just so we could be in the market and be in touch with the market more. So we

[00:02:55] chose Lobbittana because it's kind of on the same time schedule as the West Coast. You know,

[00:03:02] we're only running about an hour ahead of what it is on the West Coast, you know, pack

[00:03:08] Pacific Time. And two, it's like an epicenter of everything that goes on in terms of our

[00:03:15] business, you know, from obviously all the wind sports stopped as a matter of

[00:03:20] kiteboarding, winging, you know, even the windsurf side of things are still a posse

[00:03:23] windsurfers down here and all things foiling. Like it does that you can get it all here.

[00:03:30] The Ando will probably get it all going for you to you whether it's winging downwind,

[00:03:35] the downwind gig. It's absolutely a magical place here because of the setup for the

[00:03:43] downwind side of things. And then on the deep end of the bay where all that swell ends up

[00:03:47] on the beach is actually some really good prone foiling and toe foiling and serving at

[00:03:52] the end of the day if there's a big Norte so hopefully you'll score one of those. You'll

[00:03:56] get the whole inch a lot of since we're in Mexico here. Yeah, it's Chile. My favorite

[00:04:01] what breakfast is Chilequiles. I don't know if I'm pronouncing that right, but if you

[00:04:04] had that before, you got to yeah, a bunch of tortillas, smear cheese and some eggs

[00:04:09] and sauce. Boy, that's very good. Steps up for a big night on the Mascala

[00:04:13] to Kila. There you go. We're gonna come visit. So you're down there. I take it then

[00:04:19] you're a big water sports fan given the fact that you're right at working for

[00:04:23] ride engine. So how did that all start? When did you kind of meet wind and fall

[00:04:28] in love with it for the first time? Yeah, man. Well, wind it's a weird one for

[00:04:33] wind will kind of start with the water sports thing, I guess because that's

[00:04:37] kind of the way it led into the to the wind thing. But I grew up in Southern

[00:04:41] California and as all kind of most coastal kids and by generation, we all

[00:04:50] shied away from the team sports side of things and really got into surfing

[00:04:53] and skateboarding and all that kind of stuff. And that was it right there.

[00:04:57] Surfing was kind of my first passion and started surfing at a young age and

[00:05:02] kept going on with that. And eventually I was lucky enough while I was

[00:05:08] actually going to university and so forth. I got a job offer in the

[00:05:13] surf industry with a sunglasses company. And so I was able to really mesh

[00:05:18] what I love, which was staying in the water and surfing and all the other

[00:05:26] things with skateboarding, snowboarding, all that kind of fun stuff too.

[00:05:28] But primarily surfing, I was able to mesh that with my career and

[00:05:33] that's kind of how it all got started. So, you know, kicked it off then at

[00:05:37] that point in time and then just stayed and quote unquote the action

[00:05:41] sports industry all the way through and through until I went on a little bit

[00:05:49] of a, I don't want to say a sabbatical, but my wife and myself, we moved

[00:05:53] to Peru and we opened a Yoban wellness retreat down there in 2006.

[00:05:59] And prior to that, we ended up there for surfing for the main thing in

[00:06:03] northern Peru in this town called Mancara. And Lombeola is windy

[00:06:07] there basically 200 days a year and all my Peruvian buddies were

[00:06:11] already kite surfing. And I was like, oh man, it looks like I'm

[00:06:15] gonna have to learn how to do that. And you know, one thing

[00:06:19] led to another and I fell in love with kite surfing and the

[00:06:22] windsport side of things. And as my career developed and so forth

[00:06:27] and a few brands that I was working forwards, kind of moving on to

[00:06:30] other pastures after I moved back from Peru, I was approached by

[00:06:33] another windsport brand to run their windsport division. And

[00:06:36] that's how I got into the business of the winds. Which I

[00:06:40] will say for the record, no matter what all you other

[00:06:42] industry people say out there, it's the hardest business I've

[00:06:45] ever been in right.

[00:06:47] Has it? In what capacity, I guess?

[00:06:52] You know, it's boy, I'd say what I think winging is the first

[00:06:57] time is probably the sport that could crack the code to one just

[00:07:01] creating a larger user group. I mean, that's what it is. Yeah.

[00:07:05] You know, windsports, you know, windsurfing, I wasn't a

[00:07:09] windserver so I don't know much about what happened there other

[00:07:12] than here, say from the ledges that are still in the, you

[00:07:15] know, in the industry. And it seems like windsurfing kind of

[00:07:20] the gear outpaced the participant at everything from a usage,

[00:07:27] ease of usage to expense to all that to where it just became a

[00:07:32] sport that wasn't that attractive anymore and basically

[00:07:36] crashed. I mean, that's from what I gathered from the whole

[00:07:39] thing. And then, you know, kiteboarding came along and

[00:07:42] that was like the next, you know, greatest windsport

[00:07:44] thing. And it really was. I remember, you know, before I

[00:07:47] was this is when I was living in Peru. And we kind of marketed

[00:07:51] the kiteboarding a little bit at our little resort and so

[00:07:53] forth, you know, we had guide trips to all the spots and

[00:07:56] everything with guests that were staying with us. And, you

[00:07:58] know, I'd get these little articles like fastest growing

[00:08:00] water sport, kiteboarding, you know, it's the executive new

[00:08:04] golf, no executives don't want to go golfing anymore, they

[00:08:06] want to go kiteboarding. Yeah. So it's great. You know,

[00:08:10] it's like, hey, cool, this this sport is going to be the

[00:08:12] one, you know, to achieve the heights of what

[00:08:15] windsurfing was or, you know, you're going to eclipse it. But

[00:08:19] I think kiteboarding has some inherent things, you know, with

[00:08:23] it too, you know, one is you have to deal with lines and a

[00:08:27] kite and you do you have to take lessons no joke like

[00:08:31] it's sport that you just can't, you know, go on down to

[00:08:34] your local sporting goods store surf shop and buy

[00:08:36] yourself a kite and go throw that thing up in the sky and

[00:08:39] think you're going to survive. So not with

[00:08:42] kiting, you know, you do have to get some professional

[00:08:44] instruction. You know, and then it's limited in access at

[00:08:47] the end of the day, you know, you need a large space.

[00:08:52] You know, and then number two is it's what is really cool

[00:08:55] is the kiteboarding community is really tight because it is

[00:08:57] a community sport at the end of the day. You really can't

[00:09:01] be a lone wolf kiteboarder. I mean, they're out there,

[00:09:04] trust me, I was one in Peru, you know, or you could

[00:09:06] be self sufficient go to some far off beach self launch

[00:09:10] man, do yourself in a whole heap of trouble out of the

[00:09:13] water and survive it all with very few of those. It

[00:09:15] doesn't happen often though, which makes it a really

[00:09:19] you know, it's a little nature to cool sport though, you

[00:09:22] know, because you know, you want to buddy with you

[00:09:23] always looking out some help you do it but it's

[00:09:26] also a barrier at the end of the day too. It's like,

[00:09:29] okay, well now I need a buddy to go to the side

[00:09:32] rather just go right. So kiteboarding kind of

[00:09:36] plateaued out, you know, and so forth and the you

[00:09:40] know, now we got now we got we coming into the mix

[00:09:44] and just the whole foil thing in general, which

[00:09:47] which I think going back to my original statement

[00:09:53] of where this this industry or this market's been

[00:09:55] so hard is just, you know, we have a finite amount

[00:09:57] of participants, you know, globally, I think a lot

[00:09:59] of people can end up on some beaches, especially

[00:10:02] on the kiteboarding side like you drop into a

[00:10:04] place like, you know, Terefa in in, you know,

[00:10:08] Spain and you're like, Oh my God, kiteboarding

[00:10:10] must be the biggest sport on the planet because

[00:10:12] there's, you know, a couple thousand kitewaters

[00:10:14] on this small stretch of beach, you know, or you

[00:10:17] you show up on the hood river at the event

[00:10:18] site on a busy day and you're just like,

[00:10:20] well, man, it's crazy. Kiteboarding must be

[00:10:22] huge. But you know, the end of the day, it's

[00:10:24] like, it's it's a it's a small user group.

[00:10:27] So and you have a lot of brands fighting for

[00:10:30] that user group also. So you definitely do.

[00:10:33] You know, I think the barrier barrier to entry,

[00:10:37] you know, from a manufacturing side

[00:10:41] is probably quite low.

[00:10:42] Like you and me could go start a kite brand

[00:10:44] tomorrow and probably get some kites made or

[00:10:47] some ways for that matter.

[00:10:49] So the barrier is quite low.

[00:10:51] I think it's it's a shiny, rad thing that a lot

[00:10:54] of people want to get involved with.

[00:10:55] There's always kind of money floating around

[00:10:57] it that people are like, yeah, let's let's

[00:10:59] invest in this in this type or anything

[00:11:02] and start a new brand.

[00:11:03] And so there's just a lot of brands.

[00:11:04] So you're fighting, you know, it keeps stacking

[00:11:06] on top of each other and we just need to get

[00:11:08] more participants, you know, and that's one

[00:11:10] thing that we're trying to focus on it at

[00:11:13] riding age will not just ride in just

[00:11:15] really seven nation, which is the mothership

[00:11:17] they'll slingshot ride engine.

[00:11:19] You know, we run from a marketing standpoint.

[00:11:24] You know, even and from a product

[00:11:25] standpoint, pretty autonomously.

[00:11:28] We run off separate everything.

[00:11:29] You know, we have our own teams.

[00:11:31] We share team riders.

[00:11:32] We share marketing plans.

[00:11:33] We share events.

[00:11:34] We also do our own stuff.

[00:11:35] OK.

[00:11:36] But a big objective is as these two brands

[00:11:39] is really trying to grow the participation

[00:11:43] pool, you know, and educating people on

[00:11:46] on, you know, we actually all the sports,

[00:11:49] but I think Wayne is the one and foiling

[00:11:52] is the one that can really drag some

[00:11:54] people in from the surf community,

[00:11:56] the sailing community.

[00:11:58] You know, it can bring people off the

[00:12:00] coastal side of things into the inside

[00:12:03] of like lakes and so forth, because the

[00:12:05] accessibility is a lot easier than

[00:12:09] kiteboarding, so to speak.

[00:12:10] The gear is a lot more, I will say

[00:12:14] what I believe friendly that windsurfing

[00:12:16] gear and kiteboarding gear, you know,

[00:12:19] so it's it's kind of cool.

[00:12:21] And you don't, you know, obviously

[00:12:22] lessons get taken some lessons from,

[00:12:24] you know, and will accelerate your

[00:12:27] advancement and progression wing foiling

[00:12:29] to becoming a professional wing foiler.

[00:12:31] But it is a sport that, you know,

[00:12:34] you could teach a buddy or you can go

[00:12:36] out there and try to muster it on your

[00:12:38] own. Obviously learning curve will

[00:12:39] will take a while.

[00:12:40] But, you know,

[00:12:42] you you can go do it if you can swim.

[00:12:45] You can do it.

[00:12:46] It's less.

[00:12:47] Yeah, you got less access issues,

[00:12:49] less danger in the sense of getting

[00:12:51] dragged windsurfing safe, but you got

[00:12:54] so much equipment.

[00:12:55] It's really expensive.

[00:12:56] It's difficult to drag around.

[00:12:58] But now, yeah, we're curious to see

[00:13:00] if it's going to jump that like

[00:13:02] sub chasm that something came around

[00:13:05] with and we would love to see

[00:13:06] winging and foiling reach that where

[00:13:08] it's like every single person had a

[00:13:11] sub.

[00:13:12] That's what we're hoping for

[00:13:13] winging because it is kids are

[00:13:14] getting into it.

[00:13:15] And I don't think we've seen like

[00:13:17] actually maybe you're the better

[00:13:18] person to tell me.

[00:13:19] Have you seen such an accelerated

[00:13:21] growth in younger kids?

[00:13:25] In sports in a long time?

[00:13:27] Then

[00:13:29] you mean specifically wing foiling

[00:13:32] or wind sports in general or wing

[00:13:33] foiling compared to kiting or

[00:13:35] compared to windsurfing even because

[00:13:37] like you got 14 year olds competing

[00:13:39] on tour now or 14 15.

[00:13:42] And but windsurfing, you can't

[00:13:44] really get the hang of that until

[00:13:46] you got some body strength and

[00:13:47] some different stuff.

[00:13:48] You get eight to 10 year old

[00:13:49] starting like I know.

[00:13:50] Lessons on Vancouver Island.

[00:13:52] They start at minimum eight.

[00:13:54] But this is something

[00:13:57] that's so much easier for kids.

[00:13:59] Oh, absolutely.

[00:14:00] No. And I think, you know, we're

[00:14:02] seeing more and more kids.

[00:14:03] I see a ton of kids.

[00:14:04] You'll see them next week down

[00:14:06] here in Lavantana.

[00:14:07] We see a whole crew obviously in

[00:14:10] in Hood River and Christopher

[00:14:12] is leading that charge on

[00:14:13] influencing a lot of kids to

[00:14:15] to, you know, get into the

[00:14:17] sport and so forth.

[00:14:18] I do believe youth is like the

[00:14:20] lifeblood for sure.

[00:14:22] Like I think getting more and

[00:14:24] more kids involved in

[00:14:26] in the sport of winging is going

[00:14:28] to be really important for the

[00:14:30] longevity and the health of it.

[00:14:31] And so forth, making sure that

[00:14:33] it's a ton of sports, so to

[00:14:35] speak, or a retirement sport.

[00:14:37] Yeah.

[00:14:38] Would be absolutely amazing.

[00:14:39] But, you know, think about it.

[00:14:42] The winging still is like full

[00:14:44] man. It's really new, right?

[00:14:46] At the end of the day.

[00:14:47] I mean, yeah, it's like Tony

[00:14:48] Lagos. He was probably the first

[00:14:49] guy to, you know, legitimately

[00:14:52] use an inflatable wing, you know,

[00:14:54] and go hide the foil later.

[00:14:55] He was trying it with a wind

[00:14:56] server way back in the day.

[00:14:58] But, you know, what the sport

[00:15:00] is like really legitimately

[00:15:02] been around for like four or

[00:15:03] five years. Yeah.

[00:15:04] Maybe maybe.

[00:15:06] Maybe. Let's maybe even just

[00:15:08] call it three years in terms

[00:15:09] of the acceleration and like

[00:15:11] what people are finally the

[00:15:13] gear is like hit this

[00:15:16] you know point of

[00:15:18] like everything's already pretty

[00:15:19] good. You know, I mean, it

[00:15:20] still keeps unfolding and people

[00:15:22] are discovering new stuff

[00:15:23] and how to develop new products

[00:15:25] to make it easier or make the

[00:15:26] performance higher and so forth,

[00:15:28] making more durable.

[00:15:30] But it's still really young.

[00:15:31] Yeah. So need to keep

[00:15:34] kind of pushing the sport and

[00:15:36] and getting youth involved and

[00:15:38] into creating a pathway.

[00:15:42] You know, to have access to

[00:15:44] the sport I think is really cool.

[00:15:47] You know, I watch this

[00:15:49] documentary, which is kind of all

[00:15:51] windsurfing on of you see is called

[00:15:52] Broken Moles.

[00:15:53] It's a it's a Red Bull documentary

[00:15:55] flights or, you know, family

[00:15:57] and all that stuff.

[00:15:57] And it's it's really insane to

[00:15:59] see out like what they like

[00:16:01] one is I didn't know windsurfing

[00:16:02] was even born in Southern

[00:16:03] California. That's really weird.

[00:16:05] There's like not much wind, but

[00:16:06] there it is.

[00:16:08] But it was really interesting to

[00:16:09] see how like they got out there,

[00:16:11] you know, with this new sport

[00:16:13] and like took it to these areas

[00:16:15] and obviously Europe is what lashed

[00:16:16] onto big time

[00:16:18] and doing these events that were

[00:16:20] like, you know, we're a general

[00:16:24] you know, participating can go

[00:16:25] and have a good time.

[00:16:26] And I think that's one of the

[00:16:28] things that we kind of

[00:16:30] I don't know what the answer is

[00:16:31] for that. What type of event it

[00:16:33] is. Maybe it's an event without a

[00:16:34] foil.

[00:16:35] Maybe it's something like that,

[00:16:36] you know, just to get people

[00:16:37] introduced to that first

[00:16:38] sensation of like

[00:16:41] you know, harnessing the wind

[00:16:42] and screaming across the water

[00:16:44] or putts and across the water

[00:16:45] or whatever because definitely

[00:16:47] that's.

[00:16:48] You know, a sensation

[00:16:50] and a hook that gets into you got

[00:16:51] into me for for Kyboarding

[00:16:53] and now I'm winged.

[00:16:54] Oh yeah. You know what I mean?

[00:16:55] So it's like being

[00:16:56] that energy is absolutely

[00:16:58] amazing.

[00:16:59] And I think if you could,

[00:17:00] you know, administer the first

[00:17:02] hit of that for sure people get

[00:17:04] addicted.

[00:17:04] Yeah, I think so.

[00:17:05] Like it's such a

[00:17:06] such a therapy for like

[00:17:08] you've got a wide range of

[00:17:09] people and reasons why we do

[00:17:11] these sports, but it's such a

[00:17:12] therapy for a lot of people.

[00:17:14] And it keeps you getting up.

[00:17:16] It keeps you keeping yourself

[00:17:17] in shape like all these

[00:17:18] different things that you need

[00:17:20] that keep you off some other

[00:17:21] paths that that

[00:17:23] you would quite easily go down

[00:17:25] if we didn't have this stuff.

[00:17:26] So I'm really thankful for it.

[00:17:28] I am kind of curious though

[00:17:29] what it's going to be.

[00:17:30] Is it more so

[00:17:32] all the brands come together,

[00:17:34] give a bit of more money,

[00:17:35] marketing money to something

[00:17:36] like AWSI that found

[00:17:38] like the association?

[00:17:40] Is it them that start to put

[00:17:41] out a bit more information

[00:17:42] how friendly this stuff is

[00:17:44] because like if everybody

[00:17:46] like it's such a

[00:17:47] it is a small pool,

[00:17:48] but I do feel like

[00:17:51] I don't know.

[00:17:52] It could be the thing that helps

[00:17:53] us get over that

[00:17:54] because you can do it with us up.

[00:17:55] You can like add that little

[00:17:57] you can add in and I

[00:17:58] skag a little bit like

[00:18:00] you can you can have

[00:18:01] a decent time on that

[00:18:02] like Slingshot came out with that.

[00:18:04] The sub sub window there

[00:18:05] a couple of years ago.

[00:18:07] So there are some of those

[00:18:08] floating around

[00:18:09] like there is

[00:18:11] some aspect of that

[00:18:12] that could be brought on

[00:18:13] to everybody.

[00:18:14] So I don't know.

[00:18:14] I'm curious though.

[00:18:15] The gears getting way better.

[00:18:17] Like I'm

[00:18:18] everything is accelerating

[00:18:19] at such a rapid pace.

[00:18:20] Yeah, you know, because I think

[00:18:22] the barrier right now

[00:18:23] would be a fear of the foil.

[00:18:25] There's definitely a fear of foil.

[00:18:26] Yeah.

[00:18:29] It's a pretty foreign thing.

[00:18:31] And that that's

[00:18:32] probably the only barrier

[00:18:33] to it right now

[00:18:34] because I don't think people

[00:18:35] are necessarily afraid of the wind

[00:18:37] and all that kind of stuff

[00:18:38] when it comes to a wing.

[00:18:39] But yeah, I don't know

[00:18:40] if it's AWSI, you know,

[00:18:41] AWSI is super focused on,

[00:18:43] you know, just internal trade show,

[00:18:45] you know, trade industry stuff.

[00:18:46] The GW potentially.

[00:18:49] Yeah.

[00:18:51] But honestly, I mean, I think those guys,

[00:18:53] you know, that whole crew,

[00:18:56] Jurgen and crew are doing

[00:18:57] an absolutely amazing job

[00:18:59] at running events

[00:19:00] and creating a pathway for

[00:19:04] for professionals,

[00:19:05] which obviously if you're a kid

[00:19:07] and you get super into it

[00:19:08] and you want to become a professional,

[00:19:09] they're creating that,

[00:19:11] you know, that pathway

[00:19:12] to where you can, you know, have a career

[00:19:14] and, you know, as a professional athlete,

[00:19:16] hopefully in winging.

[00:19:17] So that will grow.

[00:19:18] That is true, actually.

[00:19:19] Yeah, that's a good point.

[00:19:20] Yeah.

[00:19:21] And then that could, you know, fan out once,

[00:19:24] you know, those stories start to get out

[00:19:26] and, you know, people are starting to,

[00:19:30] you know, have a career

[00:19:31] in something they love like winging,

[00:19:33] you know, on the participation

[00:19:35] on the professional level,

[00:19:36] then hopefully that would,

[00:19:37] you know, drag more people into it,

[00:19:39] you know, from, you know,

[00:19:41] those in the lakes and waterways

[00:19:43] and all that stuff and get into it.

[00:19:44] Yeah, and they're like,

[00:19:46] they're bringing on a bunch like that.

[00:19:47] This year was their first year

[00:19:48] they had their surf discipline.

[00:19:50] They had their big air discipline.

[00:19:52] Like they partnered with Red Bull just on big air,

[00:19:54] but still that's pretty cool.

[00:19:56] So like to see all those different disciplines

[00:19:59] to slowly grow and grow.

[00:20:02] Yeah, it definitely gives kids an opportunity

[00:20:04] to see the world a little bit right

[00:20:05] and then push that sport

[00:20:08] and then everybody can kind of hop on.

[00:20:10] But how does the ride engine story start?

[00:20:14] My brother's a huge kiter

[00:20:15] and I started my wind sports

[00:20:17] and windsurfing and I still windsurf

[00:20:18] and so we have that friendly camaraderie

[00:20:21] and a family, but he's riding.

[00:20:24] He's riding your harnesses, loves them

[00:20:28] and does a lot of surf and stuff.

[00:20:29] So has been definitely liking that.

[00:20:31] But yeah, what's the story behind ride engine?

[00:20:34] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:20:35] No, it's a super interesting story.

[00:20:38] So Colman Buckley is the founder

[00:20:42] and he was in Santa Cruz.

[00:20:45] He's first and foremost a surfer also

[00:20:47] when he ended up in Santa Cruz.

[00:20:49] He grew up just I think north of the Bay Area

[00:20:52] and planted himself down in the surfing epicenter

[00:20:57] and he also fell in love with kiteboarding

[00:20:59] and the windsport aspect of it

[00:21:01] and go to Waddell every day there.

[00:21:04] And he felt like there was,

[00:21:08] as the equipment of kites and bars and boards

[00:21:14] that was progressing the technology and harnesses

[00:21:17] were the same harness people were using for windsurfing

[00:21:22] back in the 80s.

[00:21:22] I guess she thought of me like there wasn't

[00:21:25] really a lot of advancement in harnesses

[00:21:28] other than putting a bunch of crazy colors on them

[00:21:30] or more layers of fake leather and stuff like that.

[00:21:33] And he was really the first one that brought in

[00:21:38] the very high performance aspect to the harness

[00:21:41] which is a very important piece of equipment

[00:21:43] because it's around your body, right?

[00:21:45] It's the thing harnessing your power

[00:21:47] whether you're on a windsurfer

[00:21:48] and you're using a harness or whether you're with a kite.

[00:21:53] I mean, you're hooked in 99.9% of the time.

[00:21:56] It's like it's a very critical piece of equipment.

[00:21:58] So Coleman started to, he has an engineering background

[00:22:03] and he started to make custom harnesses for people.

[00:22:07] And that's slowly but surely he was doing them in his garage.

[00:22:10] He would basically send you out a packet of this stuff

[00:22:15] called Instamorph.

[00:22:16] You can go buy it at your local hardware store.

[00:22:18] You would create a slurry of that molded around your back,

[00:22:22] heated up that thing.

[00:22:23] It would harden, you'd send it back to him.

[00:22:25] He would create a mold off of that mold that you sent him

[00:22:30] to be able to do a carbon lamination around it,

[00:22:34] do a carbon lamination.

[00:22:35] Boom, you had this custom harness that was built specifically to your back.

[00:22:42] He's very similar to having a custom harness all you have done.

[00:22:46] Yeah, yeah, custom skates, all that kind of stuff.

[00:22:47] Yeah.

[00:22:48] Basically the same.

[00:22:51] He grew the business pretty well with that

[00:22:54] but he was a one-man show building harnesses in his garage

[00:22:59] and breathing a lot of resin and all that kind of stuff.

[00:23:04] Yeah.

[00:23:04] And it was like, let's figure out what he wanted to do

[00:23:07] and that's when the Slingshot crew approached him

[00:23:09] and he ended up merging with Slingshot.

[00:23:12] No way.

[00:23:13] And Slingshot ran from Coleman

[00:23:17] and at that point in time it was called Ingen

[00:23:19] and then when it got into the fold with Slingshot

[00:23:21] or under the Seven Nation it turned into Ride Engine.

[00:23:25] And this all started going down.

[00:23:26] I think Coleman's first harness he built was maybe in 2014.

[00:23:30] Oh, no way.

[00:23:30] Yeah, 13.

[00:23:31] Whoa, so this is new.

[00:23:32] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:23:33] He was one of the young guys doing this stuff

[00:23:37] and it was right around 2016 as when it was brought into Slingshot.

[00:23:43] I think the first harness they released was like product year 2017 basically.

[00:23:49] And yeah, so that's how it all started.

[00:23:53] And I entered the mix into Ride Engine in 2019.

[00:23:59] They didn't have specifically a brand manager

[00:24:05] or a brand director specifically for Ride Engine

[00:24:08] and they saw the growth of the brand, how to trajectory.

[00:24:11] They needed someone to help that along.

[00:24:15] And luckily I got the call to do it

[00:24:17] and I was like, and it was a great time

[00:24:19] because I was looking at transitioning out of what I was doing

[00:24:21] at that point in time fighting too many battles

[00:24:23] that he didn't want to fight anymore.

[00:24:25] And yeah, so I was like, let's do this.

[00:24:28] Oh man, that sounds cool.

[00:24:29] The whole thing around to keep the brand ethos going

[00:24:35] that Coleman really out of his passion and his knowledge,

[00:24:41] keep those same ethos of high performance, best in class,

[00:24:48] innovative product, but expand upon that product line.

[00:24:53] So take it out of harnesses and move that into wetsuits,

[00:24:55] move that into accessories, things that help you connect to your board,

[00:25:03] things that accessories that help you stay protected.

[00:25:07] So going into protection deeper and stuff like that.

[00:25:10] And yeah, so that's where we're at.

[00:25:12] And we're just slowly harnesses.

[00:25:16] Can we talk a bit about those harnesses?

[00:25:18] Like what, getting picked up after a couple of years

[00:25:22] by Slingshot, that's quite a feat.

[00:25:24] Like not every product that goes,

[00:25:26] like what made his harnesses unique,

[00:25:29] comparative to everything else that was on the market?

[00:25:32] Yeah, so I mean really he invented what's called the hard shell.

[00:25:37] That's it.

[00:25:38] So by using a carbon blocking in the harness,

[00:25:43] that's what created a harness revolution

[00:25:45] and made everyone fall back on their heels ago.

[00:25:47] Oh my gosh, here it is.

[00:25:49] The better mousetrap has been built.

[00:25:50] Yeah.

[00:25:51] And it really obsolete everything on the market

[00:25:55] had everyone scrambling.

[00:25:57] So that's really it right there.

[00:25:59] As simple as that sounds, it was really difficult,

[00:26:03] amazing idea born through building custom carbon backplates

[00:26:09] and sewing neoprene around them for individuals.

[00:26:13] So then it turned into like when it was brought into

[00:26:17] to be the sister ran a Slingshot,

[00:26:19] how do you commercialize that?

[00:26:21] Because obviously custom molding harnesses

[00:26:24] is going to be really tough when you start scaling out.

[00:26:27] We want retail distribution, retail partners

[00:26:30] and international distribution partners and all that.

[00:26:32] It's like, oh gosh, beauty about Coleman is he definitely keeps

[00:26:38] a lot of things around stacks of surfboards,

[00:26:41] stacks of blanks and stacks of people's molds.

[00:26:44] Oh no, it's pretty much.

[00:26:48] He pretty much kept every, I mean he kept every single mold

[00:26:52] that he was taking.

[00:26:53] He didn't know what to do with them.

[00:26:55] He didn't want to send them to the landfill.

[00:26:58] He's a very environmentally savvy individual

[00:27:02] that's conscious of all that.

[00:27:03] And he's like someday I'll figure out something to

[00:27:06] don't I'll do with these things.

[00:27:07] But the short story on that though is those molds provided

[00:27:13] a data set for ride engine that not another

[00:27:17] harness brand on the market has.

[00:27:20] So we were able to scan all those,

[00:27:22] all those molds didn't scan them all because they were.

[00:27:26] How many did he have?

[00:27:28] Just boy it was probably just over a thousand,

[00:27:31] I want to say maybe just right around a thousand.

[00:27:34] But we were able to scan a lot in the team of hundreds

[00:27:38] to basically get that what we call an average Joe

[00:27:44] or an average Jane and two bits of information came out

[00:27:48] of that scanning the back plates is the lower lumbar shape

[00:27:54] in human anatomy is the same for men's and women's.

[00:28:01] So that lumbar and the shape of the spine

[00:28:03] and everything is actually the same.

[00:28:05] Obviously men and women from a body standpoint are quite

[00:28:09] different but realize that that to make a mold,

[00:28:14] to make a carbon shell, we can basically average all that stuff

[00:28:18] out and fit.

[00:28:20] You know what we feel is probably 99.9% of the people

[00:28:23] out there with a lot better fitting harness for kite boarding

[00:28:26] and windsurfing than any other harness on the market

[00:28:29] still to this day.

[00:28:31] So we feel ours fit way better and I think the consumer

[00:28:35] feels so that our harness fits way better than

[00:28:39] than most of our competitors out there.

[00:28:41] Plus it comes with a lot of other benefits too.

[00:28:43] You know, if you think about a shoe,

[00:28:45] if you didn't have an insole in your shoe

[00:28:47] or in your ski boot or your snowboard boot,

[00:28:49] your foot would kind of move around quite a bit.

[00:28:51] You know that filling that arch space

[00:28:53] locks your foot in.

[00:28:55] Well, it's the same thing in your lower lumbar.

[00:28:57] Filling that lower lumbar backspace

[00:29:00] which something that's actually more rigid

[00:29:02] with support not just was filling it with solid

[00:29:04] creates a lot more support around your body.

[00:29:09] So especially with kite boarding,

[00:29:10] you have the kite above your head a lot.

[00:29:13] The kite's pulling to the side a lot

[00:29:15] and that shape of the harness will lock it into place

[00:29:19] hence our technology called lumbar lock.

[00:29:22] So you get a lot less twisting,

[00:29:23] a lot less rise creating a harness

[00:29:25] that's way more comfortable and way higher performance

[00:29:29] than a lot of harnesses out there.

[00:29:31] Down in no way.

[00:29:32] So that's it.

[00:29:33] Okay.

[00:29:34] Yeah.

[00:29:34] We're all we're expanding this stuff.

[00:29:36] We're expanding this stuff.

[00:29:37] You know, we did expand the line of harnesses.

[00:29:40] So now we have multiple flexes.

[00:29:42] We realize that people there's riders out there

[00:29:45] that want a harness that has a bit more flex

[00:29:47] but we keep that ride engine lumbar DNA through all that

[00:29:51] because that data transfers even into how we make our soft harnesses.

[00:29:55] And we're actually using that wingfoil harnesses too.

[00:29:57] Yeah.

[00:29:58] I was going to ask about that.

[00:29:59] When we're coming in new harnesses

[00:30:01] that we're releasing with shaping and so forth

[00:30:03] we're putting in some materials like curved material

[00:30:07] which is a composite material that you can thermal form

[00:30:11] that stays extremely rigid.

[00:30:13] It's not carbon.

[00:30:15] The beauty about it is it's really light,

[00:30:17] doesn't absorb water.

[00:30:18] You don't have to laminate it with a bunch of resins

[00:30:20] and it's perfect for wingfoil harnesses.

[00:30:22] And we can make an ultra lightweight wingfoil harness

[00:30:25] with a ton of support

[00:30:28] and you don't have to crank it down and it stays in place.

[00:30:31] Oh nice.

[00:30:32] When did you guys start working on that kind of thing?

[00:30:36] Oh well we were the, I want to say, I mean,

[00:30:41] boy, we've released our first wingfoil harness three years ago.

[00:30:46] We felt, hey, we know harnesses are going to be used.

[00:30:49] It's only a natural progression.

[00:30:50] Yeah.

[00:30:51] A lot of the testers for Slingshot

[00:30:53] were already using harnesses so they could be on the water longer,

[00:30:57] test up wind performance, do all that kind stuff.

[00:31:00] It was a way also to see how the wings are balanced and so forth.

[00:31:03] So we were, I want to say the first brand of,

[00:31:10] if you want to call it magnitude or scale or like large distribution

[00:31:14] that did a wingfoil harness, I will say NSI and Hood River,

[00:31:17] you know they came out of the wingfoil harness pretty quickly

[00:31:20] and so forth.

[00:31:20] So I got to give those guys high fives.

[00:31:22] We were pretty much, I think, developing at the same time.

[00:31:25] They were a little bit more nibble and getting it to market kudos to them.

[00:31:30] But yeah, it was pretty much just us and them and now you look at it

[00:31:33] and every major brand out there that makes wind sport accessories has wingfoil harnesses.

[00:31:40] And I do feel-

[00:31:41] Yeah what goes into making like a good, like from all the RAD that you guys have been doing,

[00:31:47] what do you feel goes into making a good wingfoil harness that you almost,

[00:31:52] you don't really want it there.

[00:31:54] It's only there when you're doing a certain purpose and then you don't want, obviously,

[00:31:59] you don't want your board getting damaged if you're crawling on to that thing.

[00:32:02] Like there's a lot of variables that come into that, right?

[00:32:04] Yeah totally.

[00:32:05] And in the very beginning, what we, I think what wing foiling, especially for me,

[00:32:12] the big draw is the freedom of it.

[00:32:17] You don't need a harness at the end of the day, really.

[00:32:20] Like and truth be told, I'm kind of 50-50 on the harnesses.

[00:32:25] Like I'll use a harness if I'm going upwind to grip.

[00:32:31] Like if I'm say at home in Hood River and I don't want to drive around to the hatchery

[00:32:37] and I just want to launch from the Hood River side and beat my way up to the hatchery,

[00:32:41] it's way easier to deal with a harness.

[00:32:42] Oh yeah.

[00:32:43] So without getting gassed.

[00:32:44] Yeah.

[00:32:45] Well, upwind like that.

[00:32:48] In certain surf situations, like we do, I go to Peru once a year normally in September

[00:32:55] to chase waves for and a lot of the waves are super long, offshore conditions and it's really nice

[00:33:05] to like, warp yourself in a harness and just give right back up to the point extremely quickly

[00:33:12] and without smoking your arms.

[00:33:14] So you're pulling yourself in the next wave.

[00:33:16] So it's like, but then again, if I'm going out for a downwind or like if I'm just going to plop

[00:33:20] in the water and go for a downwind or I'm using the wing a bit to give me into a piece as well

[00:33:26] and then pull obviously the game there is to try not to touch the wing as much as you can.

[00:33:32] Just keep connecting both.

[00:33:33] In that situation, I will use a harness, but I do think at some point,

[00:33:37] like we always say it's not kind of if you're going to use a harness, it's when,

[00:33:41] I think the everyone you start looking at or start to use harnesses more and more

[00:33:48] and it's like once you use it once, like it took me us having to develop it and be like,

[00:33:54] okay, cool.

[00:33:54] We're going to make a harness and then me using a harness to be like, oh my gosh,

[00:33:58] this is pretty insane.

[00:33:59] And our designer Julian, he won't even go.

[00:34:02] He likes, he will go with our harness.

[00:34:04] He feels like, no, it's all on the beach.

[00:34:08] But yeah, so what goes into it?

[00:34:13] You know, when we first started developing, we wanted to emulate that freedom.

[00:34:18] You know, we want to make it the least obtruse of we actually were just like,

[00:34:22] it doesn't need a hard shell or anything like that.

[00:34:25] We want to make it versatile enough to where you can, you know,

[00:34:27] hook a board leash to the back of it or hook your wing leash to it.

[00:34:30] So, you know, you could eliminate say just your webbing wing leash.

[00:34:35] You know, if you're using a webbing waist leash to your wing or using a waist

[00:34:39] leash to your board.

[00:34:40] So we had features in there like that.

[00:34:42] The other thing like you pointed out, you know, sliding hook was critical.

[00:34:45] So, you know, whether you got a paddle out in the beginning,

[00:34:49] you know, through surf, you can move the hook out of the way.

[00:34:52] So it doesn't, you know, if you won, you're not laying on it, right?

[00:34:55] As a person, that's pretty uncomfortable.

[00:34:57] And so when Dean, your board or if he gets stuck with no wind and you just

[00:35:01] have to paddle for a paddle, you know what I mean?

[00:35:03] You can move the hook.

[00:35:05] So that was critical too.

[00:35:08] So we made in the Vinaka harness just a very minimal, yes, supportive.

[00:35:15] So you weren't point loading a ton, you know, because you still get a,

[00:35:17] you know, some pull through the harness line.

[00:35:21] You know, wing harness and now what we've been doing is realizing that

[00:35:26] a little more support is great.

[00:35:28] We could actually use a little less material to achieve it by taking some of our hard

[00:35:33] shell knowledge from the hard shell technology and applying that to a wing harness.

[00:35:37] So now we can eliminate layers of neoprene or other padding or points where we have to anchor,

[00:35:47] per se, the webbing and so forth because it's all integrated with our shell technology.

[00:35:51] So we can make a lighter harness, more support that is actually more

[00:35:56] simple overall than our first harness that we made in the Vinaka.

[00:35:59] So it's kind of cool the way that stuff is evolving.

[00:36:03] Yeah, definitely.

[00:36:05] Yeah. Plus there's a lot of cool things coming out.

[00:36:08] I mean, everything comes around right like, you know, chest harnesses,

[00:36:11] that's like starting to become a thing, I think, you know, here's some comment.

[00:36:16] Or a couple interesting reasons why a chest harness is a little bit

[00:36:22] nice for use in a waste harness.

[00:36:23] You can leave the length of the harness line.

[00:36:26] So you don't have to pay into the butt.

[00:36:27] I don't know if you use them hardest yet.

[00:36:29] I just didn't lock off the harness.

[00:36:31] I didn't look to look...

[00:36:33] Yeah.

[00:36:33] When you're starting.

[00:36:33] It was a freaking line.

[00:36:35] It's like, I didn't like the fact that they were so long.

[00:36:37] I didn't want to get caught up in them if I fell.

[00:36:39] And then I already get slapped in the face with when I'm pumping.

[00:36:45] So I'm cold water.

[00:36:46] I switched to hooking up my wing harness to my belt because I run a belt from my board.

[00:36:51] Yeah.

[00:36:52] So that I found has helped a little bit.

[00:36:54] I can kind of keep it out of the way.

[00:36:55] But then it just seemed like it was, I was already tied to the board for most of us who

[00:36:58] are riding leash because if you're on a lake and you lose, if you fall off, your board's gone.

[00:37:02] And I lost it this summer and it was a big ordeal.

[00:37:05] And thankfully it ended up at the bottom of the lake.

[00:37:08] And I didn't get...

[00:37:10] Like the wind didn't shift overnight.

[00:37:13] As I said, I already have two ropes.

[00:37:14] I don't know if I want a third.

[00:37:16] But if you're looking at a bit of a higher harness than shorter lines,

[00:37:21] and that might not be, yeah, I think you're saying.

[00:37:24] Huh?

[00:37:24] Yeah.

[00:37:25] Totally.

[00:37:25] Totally.

[00:37:25] So there's, there's all kinds of things.

[00:37:27] It's ever evolved.

[00:37:28] Yeah.

[00:37:28] And we're, everybody was chasing it.

[00:37:30] Right?

[00:37:31] We all are.

[00:37:32] Well, yeah.

[00:37:34] So it's, it's, um, it's pretty cool on that front, you know, in terms of

[00:37:40] hoes, how the sport, you know, how our product line is evolving with the sport and how

[00:37:45] we're, you know, trying to push new innovation technology the same way to make,

[00:37:51] you know, the sport more enjoyable, make the user experience on the water more enjoyable,

[00:37:56] make everyone progress faster.

[00:37:57] I mean, that's what everyone's chasing, right?

[00:37:59] Like you chase your first jibe, then you're chasing your tack, and then you're chasing

[00:38:04] swell, and then you're chasing whatever, you know, it's like, yeah, we want to try to

[00:38:08] make that easier overall, you know, with the accessories.

[00:38:11] That makes sense.

[00:38:11] So what else is there in the wing world at ride engine that people should,

[00:38:17] should be sure to know about?

[00:38:19] Yeah.

[00:38:20] Totally.

[00:38:20] Well, um, obviously everyone probably uses a wetsuit that's not specific to winging,

[00:38:26] but we make a phenomenal wetsuit.

[00:38:30] Obviously I'm biased.

[00:38:31] We feel like it's the best in the world, but it is backed by, by material science and

[00:38:37] and construction.

[00:38:38] Like it's, it's just, you know, it's kind of like when you look at a great

[00:38:42] outerwear jacket, you know, you don't, bad or not, like if you want the best

[00:38:46] outerwear jacket, you know, on the market, what material do you get?

[00:38:50] Gore-Tex pride, right?

[00:38:52] So like when you look now at, at neoprene, you know, we're using Yamamoto number 40,

[00:38:59] which is the highest grade, uh, sustainable limestone based neoprene known to man.

[00:39:07] It has proprietary geometric structure that's warmer.

[00:39:11] It's highly elastic, easy to get on and off, which that plays in the elasticity.

[00:39:18] We use recycled, you know, lamination for our lycra.

[00:39:21] So, you know, neoprene is laminated on the inside and the outside.

[00:39:25] We use really nice smooth, silky, uh, lamination of the lycra that makes it easier to get on

[00:39:32] and off.

[00:39:33] Less fatiguing has a higher memory value.

[00:39:35] So you buy one of the right in Johnson suits.

[00:39:38] You probably have it for a few, you know, a few more seasons than a lot of other ones out there

[00:39:43] because it was just last longer and doesn't get stretchy or is not as impacted by,

[00:39:48] you know, salt or debris or getting super stiff.

[00:39:50] I don't know if you realize you like your wet suits kind of sit over,

[00:39:55] say the summertime though.

[00:39:56] So you go try to squeeze into that five, four, three, like for your first session

[00:39:59] of the winter, you're like, what world's going on here?

[00:40:02] I hit the gym.

[00:40:02] It's working.

[00:40:03] Right.

[00:40:04] Yeah.

[00:40:04] Yeah.

[00:40:05] We walled out with just the material silencing, using an absolutely amazing neoprene.

[00:40:12] And then, you know, construction wise, you know, construction for wet suits,

[00:40:17] we're using a gluten blind stitch fully taped suits.

[00:40:21] I mean, our, we did have a line of suits that had the single power seam on them

[00:40:24] and there's still a few out there, which is like a rubberized seam on the outside.

[00:40:28] And just through longevity and durability, that seam tends to crack.

[00:40:33] If you leave it in UV too long, like are you drying, you know, out in the baking sun

[00:40:38] here in Mexico or whatever.

[00:40:39] So we wanted to create a more durable wet suit and just having a true gluten blind stitch

[00:40:46] seen with fully taping on the inside for the waterproofing is the way to go.

[00:40:50] And yeah, so we make amazing wet suits.

[00:40:52] So which is needed for waiting.

[00:40:54] Yeah, especially here.

[00:40:55] And the pre-

[00:40:56] That's my sorry.

[00:40:57] Yeah, yeah.

[00:40:58] Then, you know, one big thing, you know, since I've been on board is like increasing our

[00:41:03] protection category and I really feel like when you look at it, you know, kite boarding,

[00:41:12] you know, people were kind of not like, if you're wearing an impact vest, you're

[00:41:16] all as viewed as back in the day now.

[00:41:18] Yeah, even now still.

[00:41:21] You're kind of, yeah, you're a wuss.

[00:41:23] Yeah, you're kind of thinking as you're wearing impact vest.

[00:41:27] It probably means you're not confident or whatever.

[00:41:30] But you know, when you look at winging, it's pretty much standard like uniform.

[00:41:38] Yeah, like an impact vest and helmets.

[00:41:42] But you got more things going on when you fall.

[00:41:44] Like inevitably, even if you're an absolutely proficient, amazing wing

[00:41:50] toiler, you're probably going to scissor over at some point in time.

[00:41:53] Right?

[00:41:53] Something's going to catch you off guard.

[00:41:55] You're going to like end up going over one side of the rail and the foil is going to come up and

[00:41:59] you know, you might catch the foil at a place you don't want to catch the foil.

[00:42:03] So, you know, having an impact vest is, you know, something that's highly recommended

[00:42:09] obviously a helmet, you know, getting hit by your foil or your board

[00:42:13] is not going to do anyone any good.

[00:42:16] So, it's a really critical part of our line that we're developing more and more around.

[00:42:21] We did develop a specific, we were really the first ones to develop a specific

[00:42:29] impact vest for hydrofoiling that crossed through all sports.

[00:42:33] So it's called the Defender HF, which HF stands for hydrofoil.

[00:42:37] And we took over a hard shell technology and through a bit of analysis, crash analysis,

[00:42:46] talking to our pro riders, talking to our lessons centers that were teaching wing foiling,

[00:42:50] where people were kind of taking the most strikes overall.

[00:42:53] Interesting.

[00:42:54] We put the hard shell protection underneath the actual soft protection.

[00:43:01] So you get a little extra layer of defense on there and then we designed that impact vest

[00:43:07] kind of crossed into every sport.

[00:43:08] So like the way that the protection is laid out, it's really easy to paddle with.

[00:43:13] So if you had to paddle wing foiling, you don't have a bunch of stuff in your sternum

[00:43:18] or your lower abdomen.

[00:43:20] If you're pro in foiling, it's really unobtrusive.

[00:43:23] It doesn't have a ton of soft padding, but it's not a life vest.

[00:43:30] That's not what these impact vests are for.

[00:43:32] No, they're not rated for that.

[00:43:33] These impact vests are there.

[00:43:34] No.

[00:43:35] Yeah, they're better to protect you from impact, whether it's from your equipment

[00:43:40] or any environmental impact, fall over on the beach I guess.

[00:43:44] But yeah, we're really proud of that one.

[00:43:47] And you know what the most interesting part that when you're talking to a ton of our riders,

[00:43:53] other pro riders and the people teaching lessons that they wanted was actually

[00:43:59] packed like a hard piece in the shoulder because it carried your foil.

[00:44:02] Oh yeah.

[00:44:02] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:44:03] You know, you actually have a little piece of hard shell protection

[00:44:09] there underneath the soft protection.

[00:44:11] So like, you know, you can throw your board over your shoulder and your mask isn't just going to

[00:44:18] absolutely dig into the top of your shoulder.

[00:44:21] Oh yeah, no, because that is one thing.

[00:44:22] Like I carry it down.

[00:44:23] It must be like almost, I don't know if it's a kilometer, but I normally throw the impact

[00:44:28] vest on which is super thick on the shoulder, but then as soon as it rub, obviously, yeah.

[00:44:33] That helps.

[00:44:35] And the other aspects of it impact wise, yeah, that makes sense.

[00:44:39] I've scissors twice.

[00:44:40] Year number two, I was tax both sides, went both ways and I was teaching clients what not to do

[00:44:46] and I just did that.

[00:44:47] So definitely saved my butt because I fell, I gutted myself and obviously almost took the foil

[00:44:54] to the back and talking helmet.

[00:44:56] Yeah, yeah.

[00:44:57] Everybody did the same thing last year, ripped his head open because he didn't have one on

[00:45:01] and he was just in the water.

[00:45:03] His foil came up.

[00:45:04] He wasn't paying attention to it.

[00:45:06] He looked away.

[00:45:07] The foil, just all it did was fall down and that's all he needed.

[00:45:11] He got rushed to the hospital.

[00:45:12] So for everybody out there, I think we are big proponents of using both those pieces of equipment.

[00:45:18] It's good that there's some good R&D as well going into that because it's just going to

[00:45:22] make people's lives a bit easier and more comfortable.

[00:45:25] And what are you thinking helmet wise?

[00:45:27] Like how far down on like what are you guys taking into consideration when you're

[00:45:32] making one of those now?

[00:45:35] Yeah, yeah.

[00:45:36] Don't want to let the cat out of the bag too big.

[00:45:38] Something's already out or whatever.

[00:45:44] But what is, I do think back to the neck protection is really important.

[00:45:51] There's a soft helmet brand out there that has like a little back to the neck protection thing

[00:45:56] which is really smart in my opinion and we're looking at working in a hard shell helmet

[00:46:03] with having better EVA and hard shell protection overall that's more specific to surfing, hydrofoiling

[00:46:11] than kind of those bobble head ones right now that are out there.

[00:46:16] You look at it like Gaff is doing an absolutely amazing job.

[00:46:19] There's another brand out there called Simba that's doing a really good job in my book.

[00:46:24] And I think there's still some improvement that can be made in those styles of helmets

[00:46:30] that we just might be like.

[00:46:31] Okay.

[00:46:32] All right, we can talk.

[00:46:32] We can talk later about it.

[00:46:34] Then you got to tune into the Wing Life podcast to get that information of course

[00:46:37] but we can talk about that.

[00:46:39] And my buddy asked me because he saw the air box and he was like, what is this thing?

[00:46:48] And he wanted to find out a little bit more information about it.

[00:46:53] Yeah, that's something that I absolutely made here.

[00:46:56] Streams come true on the beach, right?

[00:46:58] Right.

[00:47:01] Boy, it was a while ago.

[00:47:06] Bad or not battery but like say 12-volt air compressor,

[00:47:11] little air compressor for your sup, they've been around forever.

[00:47:14] Right?

[00:47:14] They can plug into your CIGRATLayer or whatever and do your little 12-volt adapter in your car

[00:47:19] and you can fill up your sup next to your car.

[00:47:22] And it's always been one of those things right?

[00:47:25] I'm like, oh shoot.

[00:47:26] I would love to develop one of those but not the smartest engineers in the room when it comes to

[00:47:35] a little tiny air compressors and things like that.

[00:47:37] Yeah, that's true.

[00:47:38] All of a sudden one day I would always search out,

[00:47:43] might be like, someone's got to make a recharge like something.

[00:47:47] And then all of a sudden this thing popped up on this Kickstarter gig.

[00:47:51] You know?

[00:47:52] And I'm like, holding cows, someone's doing this thing.

[00:47:55] It's like this tiny little tube thing of like,

[00:47:58] is an air compressor and they're like filling up a sup and they're filling up a wing

[00:48:01] and I'm like, holy cows, I'm going to contribute to this thing and get one of these deals.

[00:48:06] This is amazing.

[00:48:07] And then I'm like, oh shoot, I'm actually going to call them up because they figured it out.

[00:48:10] Maybe we could do a collaboration with these guys for ride engine.

[00:48:15] And that was on a weird path and everything.

[00:48:18] And I started to get a little bit like concerned, like, oh my gosh, I think my pledge is probably going.

[00:48:25] Don't know if we'll ever see this pub and these people.

[00:48:28] Yeah, I don't know what's going on here.

[00:48:30] So we did shortly thereafter with more research, we did find a vendor that was already making a

[00:48:36] pretty compact pump already that had the technology to do that.

[00:48:40] And so we brought to market a rechargeable lithium ion battery pump that will work for every single

[00:48:51] major brand out there of wings, kites, fill up your subs, which is great.

[00:48:57] Yeah.

[00:48:58] And it's awesome.

[00:49:02] It depends obviously on the size but like wing-wise because the leading edges are

[00:49:05] pretty big and so forth. You probably get about six to eight wings out of the thing, kites you can

[00:49:11] probably get eight to 10, eight to 10, 12 kites out of the deal and you get probably to pay on

[00:49:20] the size of the sup or the inflatable wing board, you get anywhere from two to four subs.

[00:49:27] And what's really cute about ours for the air box because you can buy these things out

[00:49:34] there, now they're popping up kind of everywhere.

[00:49:40] Ours is very specific to the wind sport industry and even though other ones had a claim,

[00:49:47] yeah, other ones will kind of say like, oh, yeah, it's going to fill all this stuff.

[00:49:51] We all know that in wings and kites no one really has a proprietary valve.

[00:49:56] People have proprietary valves so now there's all these different valves out there,

[00:50:02] whether it's a dootote or a core or a slingshot or north, the list goes on and on.

[00:50:07] We developed a proprietary nozzle set that will work seamlessly with every single brand out there.

[00:50:14] So you're not going to buy one of these pumps online, you're going to get it,

[00:50:20] and then you're like holy smokes. Now I got to go in and put some duct tape,

[00:50:26] electrical tape on my gasket to make it fit with my dootote.

[00:50:30] None of that right out of the box is going to fit and inflate perfectly whatever brand that you

[00:50:34] have. Plus, we beefed it up a bit for our sports too. Like you said, you have to walk in

[00:50:42] what like a K to your place. Yeah, it's all off grid too. So in that walk, in that walk in,

[00:50:48] you're carrying pumps or carrying all this stuff like heck, you might drop it,

[00:50:52] it might go into the rocks, it might go to the grass, it's like whatever. So we

[00:50:56] put a shock case around it that protects it somewhat from the elements. It's not fully

[00:51:02] waterproof, but it does protect it somewhat from the elements and it protects it from

[00:51:06] impacts a lot better than just having like a regular polycarbonate or nylon case around it.

[00:51:13] That one nice man. Yeah, I think it's super cool. I'll tell you what, it's easy,

[00:51:17] you'll never want to inflate. Oh, I got another question too for it,

[00:51:23] like how accurate is it for, because all these different high material, like different materials,

[00:51:28] right? Like it'll be this will be up to 10 or nine or 12 or like with all the alula and all

[00:51:34] the different kinds of materials that people are using now. Yeah, I thought we were going.

[00:51:42] I was just going with that because it's interesting, right? So like, you know,

[00:51:47] the wings obviously, I use slingshot wings love them. And so does my wife

[00:51:52] and they need to be pumped to 10 psi and nothing against my wife, but it's really hard for her even

[00:51:59] with a sup pump to get a wing to the proper 10 psi. So she was always running her wings,

[00:52:06] you know, super under inflated, you know, good point. And so now this is like you set it to

[00:52:12] the 10 psi, you put the thing on walk away, go put your wedding on you come back and it's

[00:52:18] perfectly at 10 psi. The gauges absolutely the sensors are spot on. And there are a lot of wings

[00:52:25] out there I was in the mo to for a little bit, I think there's some of the, you know, little wings

[00:52:31] take a little less inflation because the alula is so stiff. There's also some that recommended

[00:52:37] to be a little bit like the strut to be all whips 12 psi at same situation to get a strut

[00:52:44] 12 psi can be pretty tough with a regular way. Yeah, you switch. Yeah, you switch from like two

[00:52:49] down to one. And then if you're like 120 pounds or less, it's pretty hard because like you could

[00:52:55] literally see them starting to lift off the ground a bit. Yeah. Yeah. So like I said, with this,

[00:53:02] you can just, you know, plug it in set the pressure and, you know, go do a couple other

[00:53:07] things come back and your kids ready to go. So okay, yeah, it's good to

[00:53:12] and weight wise, it's no, it's at 1.4 kgs of regular size, you know, manual pump is

[00:53:21] like at 1.4 kgs also other than the air boxes way smaller. So it's easier to travel with it is

[00:53:29] Ion lithium ion batteries. So if you do travel on the plane, you have to put it in your carry

[00:53:34] on. You can't check it in. So similar to like, you know, GoPro drone batteries, whatever you have

[00:53:41] to like carry them on. So you do have to, you know, do that but overall it's a pretty dreamy

[00:53:48] situation. Yeah, I think it's down here everyone's fighting for the ones that I brought down here

[00:53:55] on the beach. Nice move. Frank also asked he was curious about wingfoil bags. If that was

[00:54:03] something, yeah. Yeah, that was that we're thinking. Yeah, no, absolutely. So we make a full

[00:54:12] line of bags obviously for travel. We have the wingfoil travel coffin, we got three sizes of that

[00:54:23] which quite honestly you could overstuff. Yeah. Even the small one, you know, because

[00:54:30] the size of the wingfoil boards and then, you know, we made pockets and everything where you can put

[00:54:35] your, you know, your front wing, your fuse, your stab and all that kind of stuff. Plus you

[00:54:41] could put wings in there so you can get it heavy pretty quick. But yeah, we have a whole line of

[00:54:45] travel bags for, you know, for throwing on airplanes that we have a whole line of day

[00:54:50] bags too and what we call the thermal block bags for wingboards also and everything from,

[00:54:58] you know, tiny low volume boards all the way up to 150 liter, you know, seven, six and that stuff.

[00:55:04] They all got Velcro, mass tracks and dual zip. Super easy to get in a lot of. We do put different

[00:55:11] than a surf bag or surf bag, you know, normally they're always around four millimeters, three

[00:55:21] millimeters of closed cell foam. You know what is called the top lid and the bottom and then

[00:55:27] maybe on the rails, they'll put like a five millimeter foam around that. We do bump that up to

[00:55:33] where we're pretty much around the whole thing in our day bags. We're at seven millimeters

[00:55:41] on the top cap, bottom cap and then we're 10 millimeters around the rails.

[00:55:47] Just because they're more awkward, they're bigger, you know, kind of bigger to move around,

[00:55:50] you know, in those, you know, 70, 80, 90 liter boards and so forth. So it provides a little

[00:55:56] more protection over there. That makes sense. Yeah. Then our travel bag is 10 mil all the way around.

[00:56:01] And what do you recommend for people who in this instance, I'm not bringing gear,

[00:56:06] but there's a lot of people getting into travel. Obviously, you've seen a ton of it.

[00:56:10] What's the best way to pack your waging gear in there to make sure that your foil doesn't go

[00:56:15] through your board or how, what have you seen? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, boy, packing,

[00:56:22] packing to travel is an art in itself, right? Depending on what type of mass connection you have

[00:56:29] to your fuse, what your fuse is all about, what size front wheel you're running.

[00:56:35] You know, it's kind of nuts, but I'll be honest with you, I've traveled all over the world. Yeah,

[00:56:41] like I feel lucky. That's like part of my job. It's free, basically. Definitely.

[00:56:44] Peru, your butt's obviously went to Chile for work, went to Fiji for work. I mean, it's

[00:56:51] beautiful. I know everyone's envious right now, but it was work. It always is.

[00:56:57] But really, this is going to sound funny. I try to go as light as possible because you want to

[00:57:06] try to stay under whatever the weight restriction is of the airlines. Most of them are like 50

[00:57:12] pounds or 20, what's that? 23 kgs, 22 kgs? Yeah, they're about something like that. Right in there.

[00:57:19] Some of them are extending that a bit now for sporting gear where you can go up to 70 pounds,

[00:57:24] which those are great airlines that are doing that. But you're going to laugh, but I really use

[00:57:33] my wings to pad everything. Really? Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So do you have compression straps

[00:57:40] or tie down straps on the inside? And the bottom is really beefy of the bag, so you don't

[00:57:47] really have to worry about the bottom of the board or anything. So you chuck the board in there.

[00:57:52] And then I literally just start laying my wings out all around that board, adding extra around

[00:57:59] the rails. Like all the stuff on my wings around the rails. So like out of their bags and stuff?

[00:58:03] Yeah, yeah. Out of the bags. Definitely. I don't travel. The best travel companion you could have

[00:58:11] for wings, I believe are putting all your wings in compression socks.

[00:58:14] Okay. Yeah, I've seen that.

[00:58:16] Getting rid of the fancy bag that all these brands feel they need to put a fancy bag with

[00:58:22] their wings, probably because the wings cost so much. They're like, let's put this fancy

[00:58:26] backpack. But for traveling, the best thing you could do is put them in compression,

[00:58:31] just get some fried engine compression bags. They're extremely lightweight, they're durable.

[00:58:37] You can layer those in that bag, in your travel bag out. Keep your wings out of those. Use your

[00:58:43] wings as patty. I always put my mask right along the top of my board and I stitch it down with

[00:58:50] the straps, the webbing straps that are in the inside. And the masked plate will sit off

[00:58:56] the tail of my board. Okay, I was curious. Yeah.

[00:58:58] Now that's super flat, so that's not going to hurt anything. Our inside pockets on the top cap

[00:59:05] are big enough for pretty much everyone's fuselages out there. So you put that in there and then you

[00:59:11] put that all up and they just slam the front wing on the top of everything and close it up a lot.

[00:59:17] Do you take your hard handles off or do you leave them on?

[00:59:19] That's interesting when you say that. So I didn't have wings with hard handles until

[00:59:26] this last trip to Peru and guess what I did? I only traveled with two sets of hard handles,

[00:59:30] but five wings. So because some of the hard handles, especially the wings I'm using in the

[00:59:36] Slingshot, one's the smaller wings have smaller handles than the larger wings

[00:59:41] and they're super easy to take off and off. So to save on weight and so forth, I just

[00:59:49] took two sets of handles. Risky business if you lose a handle, right? But I don't think you lose

[00:59:54] a handle. But yeah, that's kind of a little tip too where I was just like, yeah, it takes a

[00:59:59] little extra and set up like if I have to jump from a 4 or 5 to 5 0 because those are the same

[01:00:07] size handles. So I was like, okay, let's move it up to this one but it's seconds to do so.

[01:00:13] Well yeah, they're all got super easy bolt on stuff now and it's but I could see how packing that

[01:00:18] could could damage some stuff so that that was curious. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, just undo that stuff

[01:00:25] and wrap in the wing. The wing material is supposed to be, it's bomber. It's supposed to be.

[01:00:30] Anyway, yeah, I'm telling everyone the rules but it's it's not you know, we packed it up all nice

[01:00:38] and tighten that bag, nothing's gonna happen. Your mask very rarely gets a rip hole in your wing,

[01:00:42] you know? If you worry about that like your, you know, your mask connection to your fuselage

[01:00:47] just throw your wetsuit top or a wetsuit around it, you know, just put something around the ends

[01:00:53] and put some clothes and stuff too. And like I've never had like traveling with windsurf gear,

[01:00:58] I would do it all the time and I never had any problems with it. I've seen some like

[01:01:03] danger videos though where they take that stuff and they just toss it and whatever. Everybody

[01:01:08] travels with it but I was curious because I haven't had the opportunity to talk or travel yet

[01:01:12] with this stuff so that was kind of cool. Is there anything else ride engine specific

[01:01:18] regarding wing foiling that you'd like to mention that you think people should have or at least

[01:01:23] shouldn't know about? Well, yeah I mean we touched on the harness, you know, we said like

[01:01:29] someday everyone's gonna be definitely try the harness and probably enjoy it. The

[01:01:34] protector side is absolutely critical on that front. We talked about wetsuits and bags

[01:01:39] and then we do have some really cool what we call like connection pieces so like

[01:01:43] foot straps and so forth. Yeah let's talk leashes. Yeah because that like I use a waste

[01:01:49] coil that's about whatever. For me I've never had a problem with it. It doesn't snap back at me

[01:01:55] because it's like a thicker coil. I like it because I feel like it's a bit safer because

[01:01:59] I've lost my board twice without the leash and I don't really feel like doing that again

[01:02:03] especially when you're winging by yourself on a big windy long lake you're not catching that

[01:02:06] thing so what are your favorite kinds of leashes for both? Man so leashes is a weird

[01:02:12] personal preference they yell on what people do. You know for me so for me because I'm a server

[01:02:19] I use a coil ankle leash to the board a really short one so we make a short coil ankle leash

[01:02:26] so it's not flopping off in the water you know and just making a much racket off the back of

[01:02:31] the board. Some people we also make a coil calf leash which is great so you can put it around

[01:02:38] your calf so that will also lift the leash off the you know off the deck of the board so you know

[01:02:44] step on it as much when you're doing foot you know when you're switching your feet it's not going to

[01:02:48] bounce off the back of the board in the water and so forth. So again it's a personal preference

[01:02:53] thing both of those leashes we have shortened them up a little bit specifically for for wains so

[01:03:00] we're not just using like standard calf salt leash and then like slamming it on your wing

[01:03:05] board mainly to keep that leash out of the water and bounce it around so it doesn't bounce around in

[01:03:10] between your feet so it's not causing a bunch of racket. And then we make you know wrist leash

[01:03:17] and waist leash wrist leash obviously would be specifically for the wing and a waist leash

[01:03:25] that can go one of both ways right like both our waist leashes can either go to the board

[01:03:30] or to the way. Me personally I use a waist leash to the wing all the time and I really got used to

[01:03:40] that because I love surf at the end of the day and when you have to paddle out for you a little bit

[01:03:47] of shore break you have to duck dive you got a paddle you got duck dive you got a paddle

[01:03:51] to get to a clean spot to go doing that with a wrist leash is a little bit

[01:04:00] yeah yeah so waist leash for me just is like super key and I've gotten so used to it because the

[01:04:07] wave aspect of it and then now I just use it forever but one key thing on our waist and

[01:04:12] our wrist leashes we did put releases on them okay adapting what is used in surf leashes for big

[01:04:20] wave cords because there's a you know like a lot of the big wave leashes they have releases on them

[01:04:27] in case your tombstone for a long time your board gets caught you know in the white wash

[01:04:33] ball and it's dragging you along like you know there's certain instances where you just want

[01:04:38] you know in heavy surf situations get away lose your board like you

[01:04:42] were just hoping for your leash to break you can actually get it away but why we realized

[01:04:49] especially this was here in La Betana there was a down here in Bah there was a stretch of time where

[01:04:56] there's a kind of fishing nets out in the water and really long fishing nets and inevitably people

[01:05:04] are getting stuck in these things all day so they would like run into them foiling they would go

[01:05:09] over the handwars they would end up on one side of the net their foil is stuck on the other side of

[01:05:15] the net their wing is flying on this side of the net something happened well you had to release

[01:05:19] something or get something off and we just that I was like man we should just make a releaseable

[01:05:26] leash and it's simultaneously these crazy kiteboarders sometimes they crash into you

[01:05:30] yes right so all of a sudden you're tying on your head and all these lines your leashes

[01:05:36] their lines they're not releasing you're gonna want to you know release at some time you know

[01:05:42] and the other side too is in the surf also if you get waded by a pretty good size way

[01:05:48] and you're taking a few on the head and you're using a wrist leash or even a waist leash for

[01:05:55] that matter and you're getting you know drugged by your wing well I was talking to Steve at

[01:06:01] uh No Limits there and he was saying like he was in Hawaii he took he went out on a pretty big day

[01:06:09] last wave of the day and then yeah like obviously he didn't have because it was an f1 wing he was

[01:06:15] running there's only a few I think the only brand that I had seen was the Ozone rodeo that had

[01:06:21] that release but it's cool to know that you guys do too now and his wing was just stuck

[01:06:26] he was getting dragged under for a good whatever 20 30 maybe seconds and he was like okay I'm gonna

[01:06:32] relax but he's like yeah like what the heck do you do with this because you don't want to

[01:06:36] like I've lost my wing just because like out of your hands right like you happen to fall into

[01:06:40] gusty day and I went to take it off my wrist to put it on my ankle so I could paddle in or

[01:06:46] something and it was gust into 30 and sure enough bobbles the wing hits and poof and there's

[01:06:51] like oh it's gotten that's so like that's on that aspect of things but the release would have been

[01:06:56] a lot easier just boom boom right yeah yeah no and it's you know I ran into a guy uh the other

[01:07:02] day here in La Ventana he had one of our waist leashes he was using it to the board but he was

[01:07:07] walking around the beach and he just had the waist leash on uh and not the cord and I'm like

[01:07:13] I don't think I'll see what happened to this guy you know like why he released it

[01:07:17] he's like oh no didn't you guys make it for that like I just keep the leash hooked to the board

[01:07:22] like it isn't it's so easy for me to just plug the thing back in and go yeah

[01:07:28] but oh my gosh our consumers they figure out those crafty things overall here we are we

[01:07:33] think we're so smart thinking of everything and this guy figured out totally different adaptation

[01:07:39] that is absolutely well it makes packing it easier because right now I have that fairly

[01:07:43] thicker green coil leash and the the waist I just put it in I don't take it off so I'll put it

[01:07:48] inside my gear bag but I always try to put it off to the side of the board because I don't want that

[01:07:54] thing like or any of those connections kind of smack in the back of it if something happens to do so

[01:07:59] it makes sense you don't want to be taking it off every time but yeah that's pretty cool

[01:08:02] yeah we're good with that and then um you know the other connection aspect is we have an

[01:08:06] amazing line of footstraps and we have footstraps for every flavor of you know wing footstrap

[01:08:16] lover out there from extremely minimalist just EVA ones which you know really were designed

[01:08:24] originally for prone surfing because they lay flat so you can lay on them

[01:08:29] and they don't feel like a mess on your chest and then right when you pop up

[01:08:33] they're supported by webbing and they pop up on their own so you can get your feet in there really

[01:08:38] quick but a lot of the wing foil crew love those two because they're so lightweight they don't

[01:08:43] absorb any water um and then we have a whole line of other adjustable straps with velcro

[01:08:48] d-ring adjustments with cam lever adjustments my personal favorite is this ultra light strap which

[01:08:54] is it's not the EVA one it's it's a like or laminated one that has a little more support

[01:08:59] around the top of the foot but you adjust it just by by the holes rather than having a webbing strap

[01:09:08] or a d-ring you know strap to tighten it around your foot and they're a little nice super comfortable

[01:09:14] easy to get your foot foot in and out of and obviously great not just for winging but you

[01:09:19] know for toe surfing toe foiling all that kind of fun stuff so we have really really

[01:09:26] any strap that you would decide we got for it for sure do you find for freestyle or for

[01:09:33] because I saw like I will saw a video balls not that long ago where he was cinching his

[01:09:38] straps pretty close together so they're fairly narrow but they were higher so he could slip

[01:09:42] his foot out in case he was getting caught is there any strap you see more popular in wing

[01:09:47] foiling or is it pretty much whatever your flavor is you can go for it yeah i think it's

[01:09:52] a flavor one is island jub I'm definitely afraid of jumping more of a surfers yeah

[01:09:59] that's fair and I really don't use them in the surf I didn't use straps yesterday it was kind of

[01:10:04] interesting I flit straight in boards with my friend and he had some straps on there I was like

[01:10:09] wow this is amazing I need to start using straps again um just because it makes like you can

[01:10:15] fall man pumping like you can I guess you do push and pull right where oh yeah yeah I think

[01:10:20] it's like wearing a mountain bike right like you're I was just like this is absolutely crazy I

[01:10:26] could like just pump forever like so uh that was kind of interesting but yeah I don't know I mean I

[01:10:33] I worry sometimes about I get what balls is doing um so I have a kick through aspect to you like I

[01:10:42] you know as much as being able to be your foot out really quick um I've seen instances too where

[01:10:50] like your foot goes through the strap okay yeah if you have it too big which could be really bad news

[01:10:57] and so forth we also make a half strap um oh like sure you've seen those yeah yeah my brother

[01:11:03] learned how to kite foil on that because he went one strap in the front almost destroyed his

[01:11:09] hip slash knee on a rotation said forget that and then switched the hooks and the hooks were good

[01:11:15] for it for beginning and then he took them off later and now he brought just just strapless and

[01:11:20] I ride strapless on my board too because I'm more of a surfer so like that's what I do

[01:11:24] winging for it's the like the free flow stuff yeah and straps of I'm red to it freaked me out a

[01:11:30] bit in a sense that I didn't want to be because the white boats have been white boats and winging

[01:11:34] are hilarious they're just like these they're they're fine they're more catapulty than windsurfing

[01:11:39] because when you breach you just like I almost broke my teeth one time falling forward because

[01:11:44] you fall forward from three feet and I was like a four or five foot set in the Great Lakes

[01:11:48] so I'm falling like however many feet falling forward so I always just didn't like them for

[01:11:53] that a lot of people love straps though but anyways that it's personal preference 100%

[01:11:58] totally totally yeah yeah yeah that um that that kind of that sums it up for that

[01:12:04] I mean work cool yeah we'll work on a lot of other little sneaky projects which you guys will see

[01:12:10] in due time maybe you'll see some of them down here love and time oh nice yeah that'd be pretty cool

[01:12:17] but the other aspect of your job that we were talking about was the fact that you get to like

[01:12:21] go to all these amazing places with family and like are there any kind of highlights of that that

[01:12:28] you would that you would think that people should know about or um I mean Peru like travel wise

[01:12:37] boy I've been really lucky over the past few years to hit a lot of really rad spots especially

[01:12:42] um boy I'll tell you what my my journey to being a winger was that was a tough one

[01:12:49] I was gonna ask that too how'd that go right quit about no less than a dozen times and I was like

[01:12:56] four and then uh why am I word they clicked uh I should remember that day super vividly when I was

[01:13:02] just on the verge of quitting and then the the uh head of prod like a the director product for um

[01:13:09] slingshot this guy Matt Gus was in called Gus he was like Syscar you just need to do it this

[01:13:15] way it literally I wish you would have told me that like you know for weeks before what were you doing

[01:13:26] what were you doing wrong oh man I was trying to do everything too fast try that's one thing with

[01:13:32] we need is like in my boy she's going through right now and a couple of my friends from Sanclan that

[01:13:38] like where I grew up in California they're here in La Ventada learning and I ride circles around

[01:13:43] them and look at what's going on and everyone's trying to do everything so fast yeah they're not

[01:13:48] like trusting the glide of the foil they're not realizing like how far you can go and how you

[01:13:53] can slow things down you know and like you're just like in a jive like dude just cruise down

[01:13:59] win for a second like you're gonna keep going and then you can be like oh my god there's that

[01:14:03] and there's that oh I'm going the other way now yeah it's like and that's what Gus told me okay

[01:14:09] you do really so fast you try to like do kiteboard style transitions or you know surf

[01:14:14] kite style transitions he goes that's not here it's not what it's out he's like draw that stuff out

[01:14:21] I was like okay I'm probably out oh my gosh there it is saw the light there's how was

[01:14:27] tacking and stuff like heel side and toe side tacking for you for the first time

[01:14:32] good so here I am pretty deep in my wink thing toe side tacking is totally rad like it's super

[01:14:37] fine but I tell you heel side is a tricky one right super tricky yeah now still I'm not even

[01:14:44] 55 in honest age of the style I mean I'll go out and any surf for the most part I'll go rip down

[01:14:49] windows I'll do whatever but tell you what man heel side attacks is still freaking something I

[01:14:54] have yet to unlock to its fullest potential yeah I was practicing them last year I think it was

[01:15:00] my third season and I get like quite a bit of water time on the island in the summer and

[01:15:07] regular foot I was getting them goofy was still the struggle they finally started to unlock a little

[01:15:12] bit but it's such a tricky maneuver coming through twisting your body getting powered up to the other

[01:15:18] side letting your board come through without talk going it's like yeah I told was totally

[01:15:24] and like how you have to whip away yeah I mean it's so much easier the toe side right yeah definitely

[01:15:31] well like toe side again toe side is another it was one of those speed things right like you need

[01:15:38] you need to carry fair speed to go into like you know toe side tack yeah um

[01:15:45] but you don't need to come around super fast like you can like a bit cruzier keep your yeah yeah

[01:15:50] you can keep your upwind trajectory a lot longer than you think you can you know what I mean I just

[01:15:55] have that thing over that crap yeah totally but and I will tell you like so back to the travel thing

[01:16:02] like uh one is that that tacking really helps in the surf in certain situations especially when

[01:16:11] you're like I ride surf in my natural stance no matter what so I'm regular footer

[01:16:15] and Peru which is near dear to my heart which I think every wing foiler every

[01:16:21] foiler period needs to go to in their lifetime whether they go toe at Chikama and they'll just

[01:16:27] have their mind blown because that's like go foil heaven or whether you wing up in northern Peru

[01:16:33] at a place like Negritos or or Trace Cruises or something like that where you just get on a wave

[01:16:38] for you know forever you know and it's the wing sits behind you because it's off shore side off shore

[01:16:45] and you're just like what's going on here I'm just rode away for a mile you know yeah but I ride

[01:16:52] you know I'm regular footer they're all left in Peru and I still loved right backside like I never

[01:16:58] switched my feet I mean I switched my feet but like even kite surfing I wouldn't always just try

[01:17:04] to ride front side like I really would like like riding you know on my backhand and winging is the

[01:17:09] same way for me I still love riding waves on my backhand mainly because like when you carve

[01:17:17] backhand bottom turn it feels super cool when you come off the top you're like leaning down into

[01:17:21] the wave you know and it's yeah it's really cool but that upwind like toeside tack is pretty

[01:17:29] key when you're a regular footer and left yeah so you're not always turning away from the waves so

[01:17:34] you can actually turn it into the wave way quicker so oh yeah yeah going down the line like that you

[01:17:39] would have to yeah definitely you don't have really have a choice what are you gonna do

[01:17:44] jive now not really like it's easy yeah yeah totally huh all right so peruse now

[01:17:51] when you can just flick the thing over and like be right in the park you know right the right

[01:17:55] spot it's amazing yeah key word yeah I would say keyword it's amazing if you can get it done

[01:18:03] so yeah I would say Peru bucket listed for wing foilers and you know just foiling in general I mean

[01:18:13] this place we go to northern Peru like we unlocked a couple just absolutely amazing downwinders

[01:18:19] um there which you know I'm telling all my sub downwind buddies like it's it's mental you know because

[01:18:26] like sup downwinding you know in at the river is one thing and like that really short period kind of

[01:18:36] like high wind river type you know energy swell energy and then all of a sudden you get in a

[01:18:42] situation where you're like an actual swell energy like you know in Europe out in the middle

[01:18:48] of the ocean and you're riding like 21 22 second 1.5 foot swell you know it's like and you go forever

[01:18:57] it's just with a wing you know all that kind stuff it's like an absolutely different experience and

[01:19:03] there's some downwinders in northern Peru you know 14 14 18 you know geez you can go from this one

[01:19:11] place all the way to mancura 20 miles long that are just magical absolutely magical you can

[01:19:16] kind of get it all right you can get the surf go serve your foil you know wing foil and serve

[01:19:23] your brains out you go toe foil your brains out that you go downwind your brains out

[01:19:27] not so bad no and the waters and the waters reasonably warm like yeah what kind of suit most

[01:19:34] three two would be the max so man that's that's sunshine well hey man is there anything else you

[01:19:39] want to chat about or do you want to wrap this thing over yeah man no i mean uh it's been awesome

[01:19:46] awesome talking to you absolutely honor and you've reached out to have me on this

[01:19:52] on your uh podcast that's really cool and um yeah i'm just really stoked to be able to talk about

[01:19:58] ride engine and wing foil lead and how stoked on it i am myself man it's it's uh

[01:20:05] it's really weird like to witness i mean i feel like i didn't really witness the birth of

[01:20:10] kyboarding or like just because i kind of started late in the kyboarding but to see a new sport

[01:20:16] emerge and and be on the front edge of that because i work in the industry and be able to design

[01:20:23] you know products for that um and work with our designers and engineers to make us have a super

[01:20:30] cool you know growing our you know spreading this the the magic and the stoke of of this wing

[01:20:38] foiling thing and it's really important and it's cool that you're on that same wavelength you

[01:20:42] know to give more people you know not just involves or businesses on grow but just yeah

[01:20:48] fall because it's man it's super fucking fun yeah it gets insane i mean i've met people down

[01:20:57] here where it's like you know here we are this young wing foil thing it's like changed their lives

[01:21:01] like they're yeah you know chasing it reshuffled the whole deck of how they do their work so they

[01:21:07] could be here to just you know participate in wing foiling it's pretty rad so if we can keep

[01:21:13] spreading that vibe yeah it'll be good yeah definitely definitely well hey man well hey

[01:21:19] thanks for thanks for meeting today and chatting and uh thanks everybody for tuning in and we'll

[01:21:25] catch you guys all next time awesome man later