Recap New Years Freeride

December 31st 2004

We arrived into Long Beach at about 7pm, got all checked in and started to track down the troops. One by one they started to pile in and it was on. The kids all got along great and the adults were ready to start a new year. We made a bonfire on the beach, lit some fire works and rung in the New Year with a great group of people.

January 1st 2005

We got up and rollin, we all ate breakfast and hit the beach. Everyone got paired up and some quick instructions were given out. it was stormy and a bit chilly, but everyone was out there having a great time. We got some sweet video and lots of great pictures!!! Keep your eyes open for these to start popping up. The local news came out, took some pictures and asked a few questions. the Astorian I believe??? (correct me here guys if I'm wrong on the name)
After a good day of riding we all went back and got cleaned up, and dinner was on!!! Jon's wife made an absolutly wonderful Turkey dinner for us all, we had Turkey, Stuffing, Potatos, Cranberries, Salad and more. Barry's wife made some Gumbo that was also very tasty, I was stuffed and I think everyone else was too. After we let our dinner settle we hit the pool and the hot tub. It was so relaxing.

January 2nd 2005

We got up and hit the beach at about 11:30 the sun was out, the sky was clear and it was several degreese warmer. Everyone got out there and rode hard again, Ryell sunk his SXR :-( but he kept going, What a trooper! As the day went on the waves got bigger and the airs and tricks started. I got some video and Barry got some video, we watched some of it last night and wow!!! some super sweet carving and surfing and hmmmm even some tubes?????? I can not wait to see this video edited.

I believe Christopher talked to a guy at the beach who is a Local surfer that had been watching the guys rip it up. He said he will join us next month.

Did I mention the AWESOME vids we got????

It was such a great weekend, there is no way I could recap it all. For those who want to fill in blanks, go for it. For those who feel like they missed out we will be doing this once a month so make sure you get there next time :-)

Thank you to everyone who made this weekend what it was. You are all AWESOME!!!!!

Don't forget Tony the go-cart guy for renting me the WHOLE place for all of us to burn it up on!

this is what I posted in the other forum about the Go Carts.

The go carts were a great way to end an already awesome weekend!!!! I was already in my cart and moving when I realized what I had gotten my self into, Note to self: Jetski racers make crazy go cart racers!!! , We will definatly have to do that again!

Next month??? Did I hear a mention of next month???? When and Where!! Whoo hoo!

Same deal, we are doing this monthly now. First weekend of the month @ Long Beach Washington. The places we stay might change a bit as we find better places to be, but otherwise, game on! All are invited, all are welcome.

I just got done unpacking!!! Oh well! At least I have a month to dry out Kevin's nike's and wetsuit. Bring it on! I am ready, and Joelle said she would be more than happy to run a camera again!!

This is Joelle, Dan's girlfriend. I had a wonderful time this weekend meeting everyone. If you ever need someone to take the pictures again, I'd love to do it!
Thanks for the great time.

Joelle, We need to get you a water proof camera so you can go out in the drink with us!!!!!!!!
You shot some fantastic pics!
Glad you could make it......now I just gotta make Dans boat run long enough for him to ride it......
Jay..........

Yea Jay, I'll go out in the water if you can talk Lisa into going too! HAHA. Good luck with that.

Good point, I do have to sleep with her..................... How bout if we get you something in the back of my truck that will give you a better vantage point and maybe some shelter from the elements?

Jay.........

She says DEAL!!!!!

Wait - where are Joelles pix??? I have not seen them

I think she shot them with Old442 (Dan C.) camera.

Ahhh, ok I saw those - definatly some great pix in there :-)

Most of my pics are up here: http://www.trippleateam.com/gallery/album27
Dan is busy working on his ski and editing pictures while waiting for batteries to charge so there should be a big batch coming soon. Thanks to everyone that came out and made the new year start off with a bang. Next month we will be back at it again.
I have never liked dry suits but after this weekend I think I may need one if I can find one that does not choke me. Another thing I need is a couple pair of ODI grips. Both my superjet and blaster had the grips coming off. Some people had problems with water in the hull,,, if you do not have a bilge pump,,, you need one to ride surf. The easy up was handy when the rain started on Saturday,,, we should have a couple more of them out there. The beach carts were getting plenty of use. Jay brought Ryell's and Christopher brought mine. I think two was enough???
As always we attract people when we go ride. So far everyone has done a great job representing the sport and talking to people,,, keep up the good work. We truly have an impact on the people that we meet and the hundreds (yes hundreds) of people that pass by while we are riding. Don't hesitate to say hi to all those people checking us out.
Surfers, jetski's and surfers have had problems in a few places. Go figure. a surfer doing the surf gig and a jetski comes crashing over a wave on the surfer. I wonder why there have been a few problems. To date we have never had a problem of any kind with surfers or anything else. I would assume that is because we ride with respect and that we leave plenty of space between surfers and us. Towsurfing is a sport that crosses both surfing and jetski riding. Here is a very cool site dedicated to Towsurfing: http://www.towsurfer.com/index.asp
I have been in contact with a few surfers in the past moth that are interested in coming out on one of our rides. With the super cool group we have going I am sure there will never be any problems but always remember these guys on surf boards can't move like we can on a watercraft so we have to be very safe when a surfer is in the water. Let's give these guys a big jetskinews welcome as they come out to hang with us.
Again, thanks for a very cool weekend,
Joe and family.............

I have added a few pics to the album, and have many more to post. Joe has the dubious honor of deleting many of them as they get old and timeworn. I am still working on getting the XP up and running. I feel I'm getting closer, and my main worry now is that the starter holds up long enough to get it running. The engine was full of seawater, and we added a lot of fuel, fogging oil, WD40, starting fluid, and whatever else was handy to get a good coating on the crank and bearings. I am now fighting all the chemicals, as with each revolution of the starter, another set of plugs gets fouled. If I don't have the engine running by this time tomorrow, it gets yanked out, cleaned up, reassembled, and back to the task of starting it up. So the pictures that I have will slowly appear in the album that Joe linked to above, and as I have time, I'll do more.

I just talked to Chris. He said some of you that were there for the Freeride were wondering which online person was Barry. That would be me.

My avatar picture is not me. It's Eric Malone in his winning performance at Havasu this year.

Thanks,
Barry B

Barry,
Thank you to your wife and you for the gumbo. It was awesome and Vicki said it helped since we did not expect as many people there that came. Which certainly proves Joe's point, more and more riders with each ride. The best thing we actually planned it, stuck to the plan, let everyone know the plan and meeting point. That worked out great.
Thank you Jetski News and everyone that showed up, made riding safer and had a great time. I am paying for it now, big waves kicked my butt..... have mild whip lash, cracked hull in 3 spots, but owe well I will be ready for next month.
When are the dates, location? different beach access this time? I like 38th since get pretty good exposure to people in town, but I am up for Cranberry launch, or even further up the penisula.
Thanks everyone we had a great time and look forward to seeing everyone again next month.
Jon, Vicki, Alie, and Stefanie.

38th Street is definatly THE place for us. I can't see any good reason to change that. Consider it out new home away from home.
These will always be onthe first weekend of each month. What are some things we could use that we didn't have? Barry and I last night were talkin about some way to warm us up on the beach. I'd like to maybe see some bbq action goin on there as well.

With more people coming, we could use more tents. When that big downpour happened on Sat, about 15 people huddled together. Also, maybe make a bonfire for the non riders and colder ones during break time. What about a call list for people who have RSVP'd for the event. Then it gets emailed out a few days before. That way we can make sure we all know how to get a hold of everybody when/if need be or if locations change etc.

Other than that, I think that all went smoothly. It would be good to hear how Melissa is coming on getting group discounts for rooms (maybe rooms that are all next to eachother or at least in the same building too!!).

Dan, I am going to be calling around this week and trying to get some great prices, and then I will run it by Bob at the breakers and make sure we get the best deal. I really liked having the kitchen it was very handy - I found a place that is basicly 12 littel cottages that sleep anywhere from 2 to 9 per cottage but.... that doesn't leave us alot of room to grow - I will keep you posted on what I find out.

Did everyone like the breakers? or should we really try to find a different place? I will be pushing for a much larger discount if we stay at the breakers again and I agree, were supposed to be in the same building I'm not sure whats up with us being scatterd all over.

We have a kerosene (sp?) heater that is for out door use, we will haul it along next time to have at the beach.

Joe, Did we get any pix from go-carting?

I really liked the breaker. Good location, nice private parking lot, plenty of room for the ski's. But, I am open to wherever we go. My family actually has two rental houses in Ocean City, but they were already taken for this event (My mom was in one of em and I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW IT!!) She didn't remember that we would be down there, so she didn't come to watch!!. So, I should have access to at least one of em, I think it sleeps 6-8. I will have to check.

We discussed the house rentals and the problem with that for the Majority is you end up speperated from the group - and it doesnt offer a place for new comers. So either way we need a "place" I just sent an e-mail to Bob lets see what he offers us.

If this is going to happen every month it has to be very affordable. People are not going to pop 2 or 3 hundred each month to go ride, I know I won't. I have a contact that keeps an eye on a bunch of rental houses. I will find out if there are a batch of houses that are very close. The house we were at is $100 for the weekend and has 4 beadrooms. That house split 4 ways makes it a $25 weekend for lodging,, that is hard to beat.
Joe.........

winter rates at the breakers is much cheaper than this past weekend.
There are cheaper places but parking sucks at most of the places.
I like Joe's idea on the house. If we can find rentals close to each other.

I have a propane heater that works wonders for keeping warm. You can put under a pit tent with sides and it will be toasty warm.
So next ride Feb. 5th and 6th correct?

I will bring the heater and hopefully pit tent with sides.
Jon G

I agree, this last weekend was a bit expensive, the winter rates are definatly alot cheeper than it was for new years. If we can get houses close enough together that would be super sweet. Let us know what you find out. Maybe we can get a tenative reservation for the 1st weekend of every month and just stick with it?

I was looking through the pictures and noticed we had every make of watercraft out there minus Honda. The only watercraft that had problems were Dan's 97 XP and Ryell's SX-R. Both sucked a bunch of water,,, well Ryell's SX-R sank. Oh ya, I almost forgot, Scott's Tigershark broke a throttle cable. For the amount of punishing these watercraft go through they held up well.
Joe...........

Did anyone score copis of the newspaper we were in?

Jet skiers ride Paninsula waves
SEAVIEW -- The waves at the Seaview approach were assaulted by a dozen or so jet ski enthusiasts last weekend as part of a weekend getaway for the members of the Jetskinews.com crew.
Jetskinews.com, which offers a forum with news about jet ski events and sponsors riders in some events, hosted the event, which consisted of members from around the Oregon/Washington area. They do an excursion, or "free ride" the first weekend of each month. This month, in conjunction with the New Year's holiday weekend, they chose the Peninsula.
"Some race, some are just recreational riders, but everybody's out here to have a fun time and ride the surf," said Melissa Riley, who along with her husband, is the co-administrator of the Web site.
They were last here late in the summer for another excursion. Riley said the Peninsula was a good "happy medium" for riders from Portland and Seattle, this time choosing the Seaview approach. For the trip they had some 30 people in all, with a dozen or so riding, from all around the two states. As for their Web site, they have almost 3,000 users.
She said one reason they chose this beach was due to the fact that they can drive on it, which makes unloading and launching their jet skis much easier.
"The waves are good," said Riley. You get a good combination of the lighter stuff and the heavier stuff depending on the weather."
In the summer they will camp at the getaways, this time of year they chose to stay in a local motel.
Once in the water, it looks as though it were a free-for-all, with jet skis ripping through the waves and flying off crashing breaks. But safety is a utmost concern for this group, as they follow the "buddy system," with one rider looking out for the other.
"They're out here to take care of each other and have fun and I think that the primary focus is that everybody goes home safe," said Riley.

Left them a msg, I wanna get a few copies of that bad boy!

They even featured a color picture of Scotty Parr ripping it up on the Tigershark!