Tour De France
By Frank Quirarte – publisher@mavsurfer.com
Photos and graphics – mavsurfer

It’s five in the morning. Cruising up I-5 leaving L.A., hopefully for the last time. We arrived back from France the night before. Eleven hours of flying time, two hours in customs trying to retrieve our boards, and Flea and I stuffed in this station wagon taxi with all of our gear just wanting to get home. We were exhausted from the last couple of weeks of over-funning ourselves. The sun is coming up over the Grapevine. It’s quite a sight. It’s a long drive. It will give me plenty of time to reflect on the last twelve days of my life . . .

This journey started over two years ago when a freelance reporter, Alain Gardnier, came from France to interview Jeff Clark for one of the French surfing mags. Alain is also one of the organizers of the Biarritz Surf Festival held in Biarritz, France. The reason Jeff was invited along with such notables as Flea, Titus Kinamaka, Clyde Aikau, Jeff Hackman, Mark Cunningham, Fred Hemmings and a holy host of legendary watermen from around the globe, is that along with the competition they wanted to honor the Grande Legends,” of surfing. They have been practicing this tradition since the festival inception in 93.

The idea of honoring surf legends came from Nat Young, a legend himself. He was involved with the Longboard World Championships. When they came to Oxbow in 92 the first invitees were Joey Cabell, Mike Doyle, Greg Noll, Donald Takayama, Buffalo Keaulana and Peter Cole to name a few. When the worlds went back to Hawaii, Robert Rabagny decided to keep the stoke by creating the Festival on the same idea. Since ninety-three names like, Sunn, Keaulana, Kalama, Tudor, Puu etc. have graced the festival presence.

We met the Southern California group at LAX and boarded the ten hour flight to Paris. After a long and eventful flight we arrived on time in Paris, but had a heavy layover before our last leg to Biarritz. Flea, Clark, Katherine (Clark) and I decided to hop in a cab and head into Paris to check out the Eiffel Tower and get some photos. We totally scored with our cabby. We had him so stoked about driving us around he ended up taking us all throughout Paris. What was even cooler is that somewhere in the French Countryside Lance Armstrong was charging his way to victory in the Tour de France. Our tour guide/Cab Driver took us to the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, and the Arc de Triomphe, even the tunnel Princess Di crashed in. So we tipped him heavily, tagged his taxi with Mavericks and Counter Culture stickers and pressed on to Biarritz.

Upon our arrival, the festival staff greeted us. It was a friendly welcome, but what happened next was every surfer’s nightmare. After waiting a few minutes, our luggage and board bags arrived. So far, so good? Not quite. What sucked was all the tandem teams that were invited now had board bags full of kindling. Air France had shredded their boards. Anyone who has ever traveled with a board has agonized over the possibility of arriving at an exotic surf destination only to discover some disgruntled airline employee who lost his last girlfriend to a stupid surfer has shred your favorite stick.

No exaggerations, some of the boards were completely busted in half. Danny Cortazzo was lucky enough to find a shop in town that repaired his board. The others were not so lucky. Their boards were toast. But, thanks to our gracious hosts, they found some loner boards and were able to compete. Our boards were some how spared. Golden!

Onto our first party. The welcoming reception was held at a casino located down on the beach in the middle of town. It was at this gathering that we were able to put faces to the e-mails and phone calls from the past few months. Among the attendees were Clyde Aikau, Fred Hemmings, Nat Young, Titus Kinamaka, and Michelle Larrond all big wave legends, lifeguards and all around watermen. Because we arrived at the function without passing “Go”, there had been no time for showers, and no time to unpack. Exhausted from the trip, we left the party and headed to our accommodations. Jeff and Katherine ended up at a cozy little inn overlooking one of the best views in town. They eventually moved to this mansion owned by Herve Chapelier a prominent French businessman. Needless to say, they were stoked. Flea, Jesse and I packed into a room close to town center. With surfboards, Skateboards, cameras and all our crap. It was a bit cramped but the location ruled, just a pubs crawl away from anywhere.

We finally got settled into our new digs and then headed down to the contest site. It was located on the south side of town at Cote des Basques Beach. Not a huge break but consistent which is a bonus when you’re trying to have a contest. Overlooking the festival grounds sits this beautiful castle. Castles are riddled all over the countryside and throughout the town. The architecture is a wonderful mix of traditional Basque stucco and terra cotta tile roofs with lots of Swiss and Spanish style influence as well.

The opening ceremony started with the Ho’okupu ceremony headed up by Clyde Aikau. This is where all of the invitees, as well as competitors, present seawater from their home breaks and mixed them into a cistern. They placed the cistern in one of the Hawaiian canoes and paddled it out to the main break. All of the remaining surfers and guests paddled out on their longboards and formed a circle around the canoe. Clyde Aikua then offered a Ho’okupu to acknowledge the aloha of all present. The circle splashed water and let out a great cheer. Everyone surfed back in for autographs and photos.

The festival played host to the Mobicarte/Rusty Board Groms, the Simmer Cool Shoe European Longboard Classic, the Mobicarte International Longboard Classic, the Mobicarte Tandem Team Competition, the Fred Hemmings Masters Event and the Tanchee Wahine Contest. The groms started surfing on Tuesday, but the pros weren’t going until later in the week, so they kept us entertained until then.

The first activity they had planned was the team go-carting competition. What was funny is that they billed it on the schedule as “Friendly Carting Competition”. They had it set up so that countries would compete against each other, but the California contingent was now made up of about twenty-five strong–including Joel Tudor and Jimmy Gamboa, as well as some other longboard heavies. No one was going to be denied, so teams were made up representing the rest of the world. Jesse Lopez, Dan Cortazzo (Italian) and myself were team Mexico. Clark, Flea and Bill Parr from one of the Longboard Mags represented the Costa Ricans.

Basically, it’s a three-man relay racing against the clock. Each guy goes fifteen minutes and then pulls in the pits to tag off to their teammate. These go-carts are quick-often hitting speeds close to forty miles per hour on the fastest part of the track. Did I mention the track is indoors, and you have to don helmets and driving suits? It may be called the “Friendly Carting Comp”, but there’s nothing friendly about it. After you’re done using your neighbor as traction, everyone heads up to the bar for a cold one, all amped out from the Grand Prix de Freeforall. The Brazilians took this event followed by Tudor and the longboarders. Clark and Flea rounded out the field with a respectable third place finish. This one definitely pegged the fun meter.

Our second activity was Jorky ball. We had no idea what this was going to be. They said it had something to do with soccer. We arrived at yet another indoor venue. It was soccer all right, except it was in a racquetball style court-only smaller and hotter. We walked in the place and crawled out four hours later.

The goals are flush against each wall. You just boot the ball off the walls, trying to sneak by the goalie. I have never been booted in the leg and shins so much in my entire life. It was the most brutal game I have ever played. When the smoked cleared, the winners turned out to be the Australian tandem team, a.k.a. Chris and The Terminator. Chris’ partner, Ingrid, was dubbed “The Terminator” due to her numerous kicks to Jesse Lopez’s balls, and everyone else’s ankles. Curiously, the longboarders backed out of this event. Now we know why.

The nightlife was equally exciting. In Biarritz, folks don’t even think about partying until one or two in the morning. The favorite spot seemed to be Le Play Boy (no affiliation to the mag). It was an all night disco that played everything from disco, to techno, to rock. Whatever, they played it. One night, or should I say morning, things turned ugly when some dudes from South Africa didn’t approve of our dance steps and came out swinging. That wouldn’t be swing dancing either. A huge melee broke out–people ended up flying everywhere. We were doing pretty well until I took a bottle to the beak. After that, we stuck to more intimate settings, such as the street side cafes, where gang fights were less likely to break out.

So what about the surf? There wasn’t any. The conditions sucked from the first day until we left. Some of the longboarders ventured out and found a little something, and Flea and Jesse Lopez managed to find enough shore break to give the locals a taste of Westside Air. But, for an area that is famous for waves, it just wasn’t happening. Places like Hossegor just weren’t pumping. The contest went off as scheduled but in crappy conditions. Of course, after we left we got word a swell finally came through.

Since there was no surf we concentrated on just taking in the beautiful French scenery. Our host, Alain Gardnier, took us to Spain for a unique dinner at this Basque restaurant. It was in an apple winery on top of this hill in the Spanish countryside. Great atmosphere. They slap plates of fish, beef, cheese, bread and hand everyone a fork. In between bites you head back to the cellars to refill your glasses right out of the cider barrels. While we were there they had the running of the bulls so the vibe in Spain was definitely on that. We tagged the Spanish kids with some stickers and moved on.

The people of France have a true stoke for surfing. But none more than our gracious hosts Robert Rabagny, Juliette, Herve Chapelier, John Paul, and many more including our four angels–Sophie, Aude, Julie and Anne. These guys and gals drove us anywhere we needed to go, fed us, housed us, and translated for us. Whatever we needed. I have never seen or experienced so much great energy for an event in my life. The festival also had a night surfing exhibition, a huge concert, fireworks, surf classes, tandem classes — you name it. Throughout our entire stay, there was never a dull moment. The French were truly gracious and the festival was a great success.

This wondrous journey ended at Alain’s house with a classic send off. We draped a sheet over a couple of doors and pulled out a slide projector that was easily as old as dirt. After a few bottles of wine, and a nice little spread, we hooted and hollered to images of Jeff and Flea dropping into Mav’s glory . . . no translation necessary. # # #

“Every man has two nations, and one of them is France.” Benjamin Franklin