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Single-day professional big-wave surfing competition held at Maverick's, in Half Moon Bay, California; inaugurated in 1999, and sponsored by beachwear giant Quiksilver. The Men Who Ride Mountains event was conceived and produced by Quiksilver executives Bob McKnight and Danny Kwock, along with pioneering big-wave surfer George Downing and original Maverick's rider Jeff Clark; it was the second event designed specifically for big waves, following the Quiksilver in Memory of Eddie Aikau contest, held at Hawaii's Waimea Bay. Like the Aikau contest, the Maverick's event has a months-long waiting period, with invited surfers standing by to appear on a 24-hour notice. Both contests are paddle-in only. The debut Men Who Ride Mountains event was held on February 18, 1999, in wind-ruffled 15- to 20- foot surf. Rambunctious Santa Cruz surfer Darryl "Flea" Virostko, surfing with a close-cropped bleached- polka-dot hairstyle, was an easy and popular winner, and earned $15,000 of the $55,000 prize purse. In the finals, Virostko successfully launched an air-drop on one of the biggest waves of the day, earning a 98 out of a possible 100 from the judging panel—the highest score for the event. Thirty-eight-year-old big-wave veteran Richard Schmidt, also from Santa Cruz and thought to be past his prime, finished runner-up. Twenty surfers competed altogether; five of the top six were from Santa Cruz. The contest was the front- page lead story in both the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Francisco Examiner, was covered in the New York Times, Sports Illustrated, and the Los Angeles Times, and was featured on ESPN and San Francisco Bay Area news stations. On-site spectators numbered fewer than 500, as local police, for safety reasons, kept people off the flat bluff above the beach. The second Men Who Ride Mountains event was held on March 3, 2000, in well-groomed 20-foot-plus surf, and Virostko again won convincingly, this time taking $30,000 of a $75,000 purse. In a mildly controversial placing, six-time world champion Kelly Slater from Florida, riding Maverick's for the first time, finished second. Jeff Clark served as contest director, as he had in 1999. For the next three years, wave conditions didn't meet Quiksilver standards, and the event was postponed. Meanwhile, not everyone in the surf world was glad to see competition and commercialization imported to Maverick's, a harshly beautiful break that had remained a surf world secret until 1992. "A few years ago Maverick's was surfed by the right people for the right reasons," a Surfer magazine reader said in a letter to the editor. "Now they want to bottle it, can it, and sell it on the shelf at Safeway. They just can't let the beast be." See also: big- wave surfing, Darryl "Flea" Virostko.

Quiksilver Maverick's Men Who Ride Mountains

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Encyclopedia of Surfing

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Encyclopedia of Surfing

History of Surfing

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