Riding Giants

I started thinking about this blog the moment I left the house this morning. As mentioned before, there's a steep series of downhill roads on the way to work. Going down the hill this morning I watched as my odometer slowly climbed up to 35 mph. My first few times riding this hill I always felt unstable. The crosswinds made my front wheel twitch and hitting my brakes at these speeds caused the bike frame to shudder and flex. Now, after a month of the same hill, I felt like I had mastered it. I leaned forward over the bars a little more to cut the wind and hopefully bring the speed up to 40 mph. Even with a full messenger bag, I managed to squeeze out a few more miles per hour before looking over my shoulder, crossing two lanes of traffic, and leaning deep into a lefthand turn to head east towards my office. This morning was a good one...

Anyways... What I was thinking about flying down the hill was the movie I saw this weekend – Riding Giants. Riding Giants is a new documentary about the history of big wave surfing. The movie chronicles the history of surfing as it evolved from its historic origins in native Hawaii to the 1960's Gidget inspired, surf scene of Southern California. Most of America visualizes surfing for its tanned bodies, mellow culture, and Dick Dale beach tunes. This is where the movie departs from common knowledge.

Riding Giants documents the migration of the first generation of California surfers who moved to Hawaii specifically to ride big waves. Keep in mind, this is the mid-1950's with a "Leave It To Beaver" conservative middle class growing in America. The thought of young Caucasian men with no jobs, living on the beach with the only goal of surfing 8 hours a day was completely foreign to our nation. Jack Kerouac had just gotten in the car...

Riding Giants does a great job of telling us the early adventures of pioneering big wave surfers such as Greg Noll. It follows their progression from Makaha to Waimea Bay in search of bigger and bigger waves. The audience visibly flinches every time one of these guys fall 20 to 30 feet and is crushed by a massive wave. You can hear the gasps as the movie shows increasingly bigger and bigger waves.

The movie progresses into the modern era and discusses the evolution of Laird Hamilton's tow-in surfing. The key to conquering even bigger and badder waves is developing higher speeds at the lip in order to beat the curling wave that is falling over on the surfer. Hamilton solved this in the late 1990's by having a jet ski pull him into the wave while standing on his surfboard. This changed all the rules... Hamilton starts riding 60 to 70 foot waves on a regular basis. The footage is amazing. Hamilton look like a toy racing down a mountainous wall of water. This is truly extreme sport!

And that's what I like about this movie. There is no X-Games for big wave surfing. No million dollar sponsorships or teen idol worship. Guys like Hamilton are simply riding for the rush. These guys are testing the limits of their body and their fear. Also add the fact that Stacey Peralta, Director of Dogtown and Z Boys made the movie and you walk out of the theater with a mellow high feeling that you don’t quite get with the latest blockbuster thriller.

There’s no way going down a hill at 35 mph on a bike even approaches the thrill level that the big wave riders in Riding Giants experience. If I didn’t ride down the hill; however, everyday life would be a little more mundane. If you ever want to try and understand why someone climbs a mountain, surfs a wave, or rides a bike then you might want to check out this movie.