THE HARD WORD

Ryan Hardy's words, waves and wisdom tales from around the world exclusive to Reeflex, updated fortnighly.

March 21st 2011

Just got back from a week in Bali where it was HOT HOT HOT on land and in the water. Only got 2-3ft waves, but had a fun time otherwise playing tourist with the winner of the BBS 'win a trip to Bali with Hardy' comp. We checked out the uluwatu monkey temple, waterbomb park, whitewater rafting and caught a few little waves at Keramas and canggu in between. This was a local restaurant outside our hotel at Kuta...can't say I ate it but I thought it was worth a snapshot!

March 7th 2011

What If'n...

One of best things about coming home was being able to watch the recording of the whole last day of the contest on FuelTV! That's probably the single biggest advancement in bodyboarding media coverage since bodyboarding began in Oz and let's hope it's the start of bigger and better things to come!
This is me reminiscing on my quarter final knockout. Performance wise I felt i couldn't do much more than what I did with my waves so it was more being wave starved than anything that was my downfall. Either way a knockout is a knockout-frustrating as they are!...but not too long now and The box comp will be on...AMPED!! Can't wait.
-Balls

February 15th 2011

Buzzin for Hawaii...

In Syd airport travelling solo en route to Hawaiieeeeee, amped!!

Travelling solo is a pretty weird experience...you are surrounded by people, noise and busy activity but you can go up to 24hrs without holding a conversation longer than two words with another person and you get so deep in your thoughts, daydreams and headphone noise that it feels like you enter your own travel bubble where only you, your thoughts and your music exist.

But not for long! All going well Whitey's oversized grin will be greeting me on the other side at Honolulu Airport and my travel bubble will finally burst when I will be reunited with the WA boys in Hughes, Chaddy J, Stoney and Wingy
at our rocky point vacation rental and the Hawaiian assault can begin!!

Got myself a fresh buzzcut yesterday so I can't wait to hit the water! My hair was only barely getting in my eyes but I cant stand having to flick hair or the water dripping from it out of my eyes. To me it just feels like the half a second you spend doing the hair flick, after a takeoff, between barrel sections or coming up from a duckdive can be crucial in either blowing the wave/section or getting yourself out of danger, especially when the waves are serious...I love surfin with a fresh buzzy - it feels so streamline and not having to do the ol hairflick is a big treat!!

Mahalo's and here's hopin for some epic Pipe action for the 2011 Pipe Pro YEW!! - Hardballs

January 8th 2011

This was a fun summer box day with me, wing, Jimmy, Lewy and a handful of other bbers out. Summer means lower morning tides in WA and at box that means you're looking at most waves gurgling out at 5ft so you're Lookin for the 3-4footers mostly. and with Johnny B aka Rex Hunt fishing guru with wide brim hat in the channel barking orders of 'hit it!' me n wing were just trying to catch the rampy ones and get launched.

Once the wind had gone onshore by 11am, typical summer wind routine - we were on a mission with Johnny and Shannon to shoot all the new range of reeflex wetties.
This is me n Wingy goofing around in between pulling Terry tough cunt heads for the ad shots...shot 1 Wingy is using the chest drain holes to pretend piss on my face and I'm over dramatizing things...shot2 we are falling from rocks in a frozen stunned mullet erect posture...we both came up with headaches after landing flat on our face! Real fun.

The DK shot is from our final shoot day at south beach...before Shannon or Johnny came out in the water to shoot, we were both trying to get into some closeouts DK in practice for our upcoming pipe DK appearances...it was SO heavy this day though - I ate shit on this one - a second after this shot the bottom completely dropped out from beneath me and I slapped hard in the flats before getting sucked over and pressed into the sand for a rinse cycle haha.

New Years Day 2011

1-1-11....the first day of the year, the first day wearing my new reeflex wetties and my first time riding mitchells wedge in two summers - SICK!! I was real amped to ride wedge this day so I'd flagged any new years eve celebrations to committ to the early sesh with head honcho Reeflex guru Johnny Barker.
By early I mean 3:30 wake-up and checking from the rocks at first light at 4:15 to make sure that the wedge bank was on and would be our studio for the day.

It was big and chunky with a raw 6-8ft swell hitting the Margs coast overnight
and with the help of some strong offshores to compensate for the chunkiness of the swell, there were some sick heavy wedges coming through...just what we'd hoped for!
These two shots were taken about mid morning on medium sized waves which seemed to be the cleanest and best on the day. Riding clean wedges like these are so much fun and the bigger they get at mitchells the heavier and more challenging they are!

Lewy's wave is a bit bigger than my one and you can see it getting thicker and steeper...that looks like such a sick wave - I love watching wedge when you're either paddling out or watching close from the rocks - you can see it all forming up with so much water behind it and when someone's taking it on it gets me Sooo amped!!
From surfing with Lewy this day at wedge and other recent sessions he seems really keen on taking on heavy waves and heavy sections and I'm psyched to see what he can come up with this year and beyond.

The black l/sleeve spring Mr Dusk is such a sick, flexible, comfy wetty - I like to wear it around home on warmer days when it's a bit hot for a steamer.
L/arm springs are my favourite wetties cause you get the flexibility of short legs and I like the feeling of wetsuit between my forearm and the board.
This was my first time wearing chest zips on this day at wedge and I was loving them straight away cause there was no bunching up behind the neck or leaking water up the back and the zips themselves are out of the way when laying prone - brilliant!!