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ShShSh
Miki Dora status
Reged: 04/27/06
Posts: 5000
Loc: Santa Barbarea
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Re: FISHCUIT...
03/29/08 09:49 AM
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Quote:
hey anyone notice bm wasn't riding a ci at bells? also kelly was riding a stickered board from another shaper. no?
(1) Kelly WAS riding an Al Merrick board at Bell's. He had his 5'10" swallow Flyer & 5'11" K with him on most days. He probably had a Simon Anderson floating in the background, but he didn't ride it.
(2) Bobby is sponsored by CI. He was riding a DHD. I don't think it means anything, other than he found a good board from Darren and chose to ride it in conditions it was meant for. Maybe he's leaving the team and will take $$$ from DHD to ride his boards. I hope not, but... maybe. So what. The MBM is a great board.
It's been said before, but it bears repeating. CI doesn't pay their sponsored riders -- none of them. It's true, not even Kelly is "paid" by CI to ride their boards. Rather, the best riders get a royalty off boards bearing their names, so it pays for those guys to ride the best board they can. It would not pay for them to ride a piece of sh!t just because it says, "Al Merrick." CI is what gives them cache value, and they stick with Al because he can consistently produce for them a winner. I don't want to be sticking my neck out here, but I respect Al Merrick & CI for what they've done. They produce consistent surfboards; no, they don't produce the latest flavor with all the bells & whistles -- rather, they produce what some may call a vanilla surfboard, but one that you know will work for you every time.
From time to time their riders may try other shapers boards because they can, but it doesn't mean that CI is on a downward spiral. It just means that the riders want to keep their minds and eyes open to trying other stuff. Chances are they're paying full pop to try that out, but so what. [Example: Andy Irons was sponsored by HIC for a while. He'd get boards at full price from other shapers, too (including Al Merrick, you might recall), and just put his HIC sticker on there.]
Now, with that done: I like bells & whistles, too. It's why I try different boards. What it comes down to is what you like, and what you're willing to try!
CI bashing simply for the sake of trying to cut the tallest poppy is senseless. They produce boards in the US, with US shapers and US glassers. They've made mistakes along the way to growth, but who hasn't? Try to keep an open mind. CI is not flooding our market with cheap Chinese pop-outs which will kill our domestic shapers. Rather, they're charging top dollar for domestically produced boards, which in turn probably HELPS our other domestic shapers by pulling up their prices but still keeps them reasonable to the average buyer.
Just another angle at which to view the landscape. 
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Gone. Send hate mail to me at: ShShSh
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