I would love to see them come back, it would be good for wakeboarding as a whole and the overall health of the industry.
Funny side story about riding Double Up boards back in the day. In the early 2000's I was riding Hyeprlite gear, way before I was blessed with sponsors. During this time I would break boards like crazy and a local shop was always good to me helping with warranty. At any rate, I broke every 142 Byerly they had in stock over the course of a month, so they suggested I try a Double Up. By this point I was working directly with Paul O'Brien at Hype to get gear warrantied. I would send him pics, he would tell me to go to my local shop and grab a new board and Paul would send them a replacement for their shelves. Anyway, I broke the Double up, honestly it was within like 10 minutes of riding the board, Ironically I cased a double up and snapped it. I reached out to Double Up to warranty the board, the refused and said I was riding wrong and needed to learn proper technique, so I could stop being a "hack" (they actually had the tenacity to call a paying customer a "hack"). I was beyond pissed off at them, as I paid $450 for the board and it lasted 10 minutes. They would not even let my local shop send it back. My local shop manager came out to ride with me ta few nights later to see first hand what I was doing and how I was breaking so much gear. After my first set he whipped out a contract and signed me as their first team rider and from there helped me secure factory level sponsorship. Turned out the be the best $450 I ever spent.
|