Bryan Elkus

Author: Bryan Elkus

  • Gear Update | Slingshot Recoil

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    I grabbed the Slingshot Recoil wakeboard on closeout at the end of the season last year. This board is torn with me. Its by far my favorite board on sliders. But that’s about it. It sucks to go up wind. However, no other board I have rode works on sliders. The flexible boards are the only way to go when riding rails.

    Slingshot is supposedly making a new board, which should be half way between the Lenten Pro Model board and the Recoil wakeboard. This might do the trick for me. Another board I have been keeping my eye on is Jason Slezak’s new board the Liquid Force Influence. If they release this board in a size over a 140cm, it could be a serious contender to be added to my quiver for both slider and wake riding.

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    Photo: Tyler Gates – www.goodlifephotography.com

    This is the review of my gear from the 2008 season. These are just my two cents about the gear I have ridden and the experiences I had with it.

  • Buxton Trip

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    Chris and I took a quick road trip down to go pick up his car in Buxton today. On the way down we passed the sailboat that ran aground still hanging around. Then we checked out the REAL Buxton Shop, which is now closed. I finally got to take a look at a couple banners that were printed up for the Buxton location.

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  • A New Face

    BORED. Bored, bored, bored, I was bored with the look of the old blog. So, it was time for a little update, a face-lift if you will. With a little help from my buddy David Carson, I was off into the world of CSS. It quickly brought me back to my computer science classes at Kalamazoo College, and the countless sleepless nights learning to code. Evidently, I learned something at school, because learning to use CSS did not take quite as long as I had thought.

  • A Higher View

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    The clouds and lighting were great this evening. The South winds switched to NW and the clouds started to move. By sun down the front cleared over us. The sunset light up the front with some amazing colors.

  • Triple-S Sponsorship PDF

    The Triple-S Invitational is going on its 4th year. In effort to out do each year’s event, the Invitational is in need of additional sponsorship. In order to showcase the event and the events potential for advertising and sponsorship, the Triple-S Sponsorship Proposal Package was created. The Proposal Package was styled after Jason Slezak’s Rider Profile, this was only fitting as he is the creator of the event. The PDF portrays the event through text and images. Included is the schedule of events, list of invited athletes and past sponsors.

    The PKG also depicts some of the predominant coverage the Triple-S received from magazines, videos and online sites in past years. In order to effectively show the material and the event to the fullest, the PDF was made interactive with links to the full articles and video sections. The proposal’s final section is a list of opportunities for sponsor with explicit descriptions on how, what, where, and who each form of sponsorship has the potential reach. Check out the Triple-S PKG (3.8mb) HERE.

  • REAL Watersports PDF

    I spent a couple hours putting the REAL Watersports PDF together. There was a request for a collection of images to show vendors what the new shop looked like. The original PDF was just 5 or 6 images put together. Once I found out about the PDF, it was time for an upgrade. There wasn’t much time to change it, but I knew something had to be done. I grouped the property into different segments to show the different parts of the shop.

  • Ramp 23 Session

    The south wind has been blowing for a while generating us a little wind swell. It was a rather gloomy day. I headed out to Ramp 23 after lunch with Tommy, Matt, Stan and Ryan to take a session. There were a couple very fun waves but the current was pumping. I first rode the 7m LF HiFi again, but was very underpowered.  I think i set the kite up on the wrong settings because i had the thing fall out of the sky a couple times on the lulls.  It was a bit scary as we weren’t exactly riding on-shore winds.  

    I headed in and Matt let me borrow the 12m 2009 Liquid Force Havoc. I was more than powered, but getting up wind was not a problem.  The 12m Havoc was smooth, and pretty similar to the 08.  I think the 09 Havoc has better high end than the 08 Havoc, because i’m pretty sure that i would not have been able to hold down my 08 12m havoc in the same conditions.

  • Chilly Kite Session

    Sunday I woke up motivated. I was determined to go kiteboarding. It had been a while since I had ridden due to a number of terrible excuses. I woke up and headed over to REAL. I grabbed the 2009 Liquid Force 7m HiFi for a test. I rode behind the Slick on the WNW wind. Doing speed runs on a surfboard. I got really cold in the 40-degree weather, and decided to head in. By the time I tacked back up to REAL I became warm again. I decided to tack up the Kitty Hawk Kites and then made my way down to SDA. It was a fun relaxing session to get back on the water with.

  • OBR Catalog

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    The Outer Beaches Reality released their 2009 catalog. The catalog contains images and content about OBR’s rental houses on the Outr Banks for the 2009 season. In it you will find a couple piece of my photography along with two other local photographers. The book turned out rather well and was very cool to see in print.