Bungee Surfers Zip up American River 0
A non-traditional surf story but rad none-the-less.
The American River will play host this weekend to inland surfing enthusiasts who will use stretched-out bungee cords to fling themselves upriver as fast as 30 miles an hour.
As long as park rangers don’t see.
Bungee surfing, a budding extreme river sport, involves attaching a bungee to a rock on one end and a board on the other. It violates a Sacramento County ordinance that prohibits tying things to stationary objects, Chief Parks Ranger Steve Slenry said.
Slenry said he’s never seen people do it on the American River.
But Robert Geier, owner of Even Surfing Co., who patented bungee surfing equipment about four years ago, is promoting a bungee surfing event on the river this weekend.
He and his friends are coming from Idaho to experience what they call the “fast glass” of the river – strong current and smooth surface.
Tim Pepper, 23, of Orangevale, makes his own bungee surfing equipment by tying a rescue throw rope to a rock, attaching that to a bungee, then putting a wakeboarding handle on the end. He travels downstream, skim board in one hand, handle in the other, until the bungee stretches enough to propel him quickly upstream again.
Pepper said he’s only been stopped once by a ranger.
He said problems arise when there are crowds on the river. People on rafts laze by, and he worries about crashing into them.
“You could have some pretty good conflicts there,” Slenry said.
Pepper remembers only one. A younger boy let go of a bungee, and it hit a girl in the face.
Mostly, he said, people wear life vests and helmets.
Geier said he and his friends will be on the river today through Saturday, trying to gain exposure for the gear he invented.
Slenry said that if rangers come across bungee surfers on the river, they’ll ask them to stop.
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