We'll miss you so much Greg - RIP Greg Griffin

Pico

Duke status
Aug 20, 2010
21,183
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SUP Nation
Here one day , gone the next. Once the book is closed there's nothing left but to go back and reread favorite sections. I really had no idea who Greg was. This Memorial thread really opened my eyes to what a great guy he was. Im sorry I never got to know him better. Our political ideology could not have been more apart. I should have tried harder to look beyond it. He certainly exhibited more humility than I did. Something to be respected for sure. Ive been thinking about him a lot since this happened. I just bought a new bike. XR650. I dont like street riding but I do like getting to the trails on a bike rather than a trailer. I used it the day Greg bit the dust . My wife needed the truck so I had to drive 34 miles RT for some work. I was terrified. I was constantly imagining my body getting mangled and skinned. I was in shorts. It was hot.

1981 I was in a bad accident at Avery Pkwy in Mission Viejo. I was 17. I was coming from Saddleback Jr College. My first semester. . Right in front of the Del Taco. No stoplights installed yet and a stopped long line in both left lanes to get on the freeway and the rights clear. I was in the right going to Camino Capistrano. Someone going in my direction in the left lane waved a woman in the oncoming direction through in front of them without looking to see if anyone was coming in the right lane. Which I was. I was going about 40. Sandals. No helmet. Book bag. I had about 5 feet to stop as she came through in front of the car on my left, not seeing me. I went flying. I was told later I did a full and a half summersault in the air before landing on my shoulder and rolling to a standing position. . Thank god I spent my youth skateboarding the hills in Dana Point and Shorecliffs. I only remember being upright and pointing at her car which she had stopped and I ran up and started beating on it. Someone came and got me to sit down. My shoulder was crushed. I was rushed to Mission Hospital. A cop came in later and yelled at me for not wearing a helmet. He was trying to make a point telling me about scraping brains off the asphalt. I later had some plastic parts and piano string installed to fix me up.

Ive been in a few accidents since then. All dirt pretty much. Still got some bits of a hematoma some 18 years later working its way out of my leg after not being able to get out from underneath a bike slipping out in a mud puddle in Makawao. The strangest one was coming around a corner in a cane field going around 40 and a van of hippies were in the middle of the road going down to Jaws. I ended up in the cane grass which wound me up and slowed me down harmlessly.

I knew this one kid in a gang of Nightriders on Maui who would race the Pali. There was about 20 of them and they would stall traffic enough behind them to get the clearance the needed to race through. One kid was our HVAC guy and I spoke with him about wearing a helmet...which is not the law in HI. I told him my crash stories. I tried to impress upon him the consequences not being worth the risk. He got drunk one night and mad at his GF and was dead by morning because he couldnt stop his bike in time. More often than not that is the cause. Not being able to stop the bike in time.

I was told by the lady at the Liquor Locker in DP when I was about 16...."Its not matter of "If" you go down...Its "When". She was right. Im sad for Greg. Im glad this post is a stickie. He deserves it. He was a good guy. A fair guy. Im glad you all loved him so much and its a pleasure to read your memories and thoughts.
 
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nimby

Gerry Lopez status
Feb 15, 2011
1,033
1,034
113
had some great jousts with GG over on Sway's over bottom contours and rocker. He was a 'low rocker/flat bottoms' shaper in a world of increased rocker concaves. I was in the camp that the increased rail rocker on concaves offered a tighter turning arc while the concaves through the bottom straightened out the water flow like a flat bottom. GG would reply 'hogwash', and go into a long one on why the flat bottoms were superior. Flat bottoms or not, his board outlines were outstanding
 

Muscles

Michael Peterson status
Jun 1, 2013
2,596
3,597
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California/Hawaii
Hard to process this one.

I was thinking today about how I found this place when I was still in HS. I'm almost 40 and have a family now so nearly 20 years. I didn't post much back then but lurked off and on to enjoy the craziness. GG was always there with his cryptic posts and trolling others for a long portion of my life. Hard to imagine that he was posting pics of Waikiki one day and gone the next.
 

racer1

Tom Curren status
Apr 16, 2014
12,920
14,981
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Honolulu, Hawaii
For those of you who love surfboard and fin design, I wish you could have met him in person.

He really enjoyed sharing his knowledge and explaining how designs worked. I guess you could kind of see that online, but it came across wrong. In person, it was like an appreciation he had for all the time he spent refining his designs, while online it felt condescending, boasting and/or bitter.

The first time I picked up fins from him we talked for nearly an hour about rockers, concaves, tail width, fin size, cant, rake, etc.
Every time I picked up fins from him you'd see him light up when explaining them. He fcking loved fins!
 
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Dekerwild

OTF status
Jul 28, 2017
333
343
63
Dang! RIP GG….was just in Nicaragua explaining to the crew how this guy just moved to NFL of all places and is a world class shaper and he shapes fins for the boars before he shapes the boars and how I was going to order one of his boars when I get home…..his ideas and intellect on design are the reasons for my Twonzer path with Roberts shapes. Ideas that fin design and placement might have more to do with performance than the actual boar itself. Changed my whole approach. I am really interested if he had any grasshopper students that can carry on his legacy and where to find them?? this place is special because of people like GG and the rest of the characters on here…dang :(
 
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Subway

Administrator
Staff member
Dec 31, 2008
13,497
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LBNY
Senor stoked who rarely/never really logs on anymore (3 young kids and a new big time job will have that effect lol) actually had a bunch of GGs, he called me this morning to talk about the surf, and of course GG. He was super bummed. Shocked really.
 

Subway

Administrator
Staff member
Dec 31, 2008
13,497
10,107
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LBNY
Sweet tribute and a sweeter quiver. Each of those boards looks funner than the last

also lmao at the “FU 2020” :bowdown:
 
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flyinraptr

Michael Peterson status
Dec 18, 2008
2,804
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San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua
I never met GG personally but our paths did cross indirectly .... it was the summer of '78 ... a few weeks out of high school i made my way with a one-way ticket to Oahu, a couple hundred bucks, a backpack containing my belongings and my surfboard ... a freshly shaped stinger single fin ... popular CA board at the time. After a couple weeks in Waikiki, i made my way to Sunset Point - rented a room in a house behind Bernie Baker's place. Of course .. middle of summer the NS was flat as a lake and i needed some extra $$ ... so one of my new roommates suggested i sell the board and indicated he knew a guy who lived in the neighborhood named "Greg" who could probably sell it. So i trusted the roommate to take the board (which had a really nice fin in it) to this "Greg" guy .... naturally the board never sells and about a month later the board is returned to me without the fin. I asked what happened to the fin and the response was "What fin?". I didn't pursue it any further but i had learned my lesson. GG often posted about how "Backyards" was the spot where he developed his board designs .... it was my favorited spot when i lived there and whenever he posted online about Backyards or Sunset back in the day ... it brought back fond memories of my stint there .... I am going to miss that. RIP GG.
 

feralseppo

Billy Hamilton status
Feb 28, 2006
1,469
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otf, surfwordz, GG, too many people from here whom i have met and surfed with in person are now gone. none of us are getting any younger. almost lost a couple of you who are reading this, too. i know GG and i had our beefs. rather epic, and pretty childish. well, i wanna honor the guy, and those others we have lost. another AB3 or something. a gathering of survivors of eunice and stuart lanning. something. some of you i wanna surf with one more time, or just meet for real. at a beach. in the ocean. on a board. you know, because we are surfers. let's do this. the GG AB3. what say you?
We’ll make sure there’s one 3 there. Only GG could make an inline 3 work.
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