Last Thursday was the annual Ticket to Ride Rider Day, which brought together previous and potential riders with a big chunk of the Ticket to Tide Team, for a jolly good grilling and some surfing fun in the welcome sun.
Being 11 years since our first ever Gap Year Surf Instructor course in South Africa, the event saw a nice mingling of proper past and present ‘Riders’. Some of whom now have young families and the other end of the spectrum still teenagers themselves, but with a shared interest and common topic to hit of on. So our eclectic mix all enjoyed a burger, Alibi and a pre-surf chat up on the Trebarwith terrace, followed by a surprisingly decent surf in Newquay Bay as the tide raced in, bringing with is some decent sized waves.
Post-surf we headed up to Gilmore’s for Wavelength Surf Magazine’s 35 Birthday Bash and enjoyed some delicious Mexican Food, washed down with complimentary beers courtesy of Swifties, before hitting the putting green. The hour’s showdown saw some technical putting prowess and a fair amount of sloppy golfing mess, but it was great fun and we were very proud to have out very own Julian Price make the podium. I’m not really sure who won but everyone in the final picked up some very slick prizes courtesy of sponsors Finisterre & The Critical Slide Society. Nice one.
The highlight of the night though had to be the unexpected but inspiring, captivating and straight up legendary Sam Lamiroy speech. Sam took to the mic and talked about the making of Wavelength’s 35 year anniversary issue (which is out now) but also addressed the subject of the surf industry as a whole, which included all of us at that party right then. We are the industry he told us. This was an important message, as the surf industry is usually seen as an elite group of pro surfers/ brand owners/ reps etc, who travel the World living the dream, but this isn’t the case any more. Pro Surfer’s (like Sam) are having to dabble with other ways of supplementing their incomes (like helping us run this trip to France) and it’s the closing of this gap of ‘exclusivity’ that is bringing the industry closer together. It’s great!
Sam has lived the dream at the top of the game, but spoke passionately about how we are in this surfing thing together, no matter our skill level, it’s all about the love of the sport, the waves, the ocean, the “felling of gliding along a moving body of water whatever the craft”, your fellow surfers, the big bad brands, the small cool ones, the shops, the magazines, the cafes that stock the magazine, anyone who reads the mags, we are the industry and we’re in it for life!
Anyway I’m rambling now, so I’d like to say a big thanks to everyone who came from everyone at Ticket to Ride and thanks Wavelength for having us, here’s to 35 more years in the ‘industry’ for both of us!