03 said...

People are always asking what style you do?

The reply is 'I dunno, what ever i want'

Then you're a freerider. Even if you coincidentally do what wakestylers or freestylers do, you're not one of them unless you've consciously devoted yourself to their exclusive creed.

At their extremes, freestyle = PKRA and wakestyle = boots and sliders . Both will be unhooked for pretty much all tricks.

I used to think 'freeride' was something of a pejorative, and if it means you just mow the grass because you can't do anything else, then it is. But I've since acknowledged to myself that I'm a freerider and it's very liberating. I can hit kickers with my kite low, boost with it at lunch, work on the fluidity of my carving transitions and generally ride however I feel in whatever conditions I encounter.

Vive la difference!

Agree.

But I do think we need to establish a few subsets of "freeride" though, because, like djdojo has mentioned above, "freestyle" and "wakestyle" only really exist at extremes, and 90% of us simply fall in to that remaining broad "freeride" category which completely limits any clarity for anyone.

For a starter, perhaps we should perhaps consider the following:

1) Freeride - cardigan style: goes back and forth, never out of their depth, constantly perfecting their slide turns and refusing to take a chance on anything new.

2) Freeride - mouthful style: perpetually spends more time swallowing water than anything else.

3) Freeride - Macarena style: (aka. Los Del Rio style): learns one trick, then repeats it over and over and over and over and over and over and....

4) Freeride - Paris style: constantly jumps on the beach edge so they can hear the "OOoohh" from the onlookers. (note, paris style and mouthful style have been known to cross over on occasion)

5) Freeride - Danny Zuko style: takes it's name from, and just like in grease, obsessed with sandy; jumps more on the beach than in the water, much to the irate of the locals

6) Freeride - "that guy" styles: that one freerider on every beach who actually knows what he's doing and is pulling off some serious tricks


I'm sure i'm missing a few, but..