Stab’s Most Viewed Stories Of 2022
E-Bikes are the new Laird.
We publish a lot of content.
Of course, stories involving sharks, Kelly Slater, e-bikes (the new Laird) fights, burns, and various jet-ski-related fuck-ups tend to get a lot of clicks.
But clicks don’t matter as much when you’ve got a paywall. These days, we’re more focused on delivering content that our Premium audience finds valuable — but it’s still fun to look back and see what went viral.
This year, we were proud to see a handful of our Premium projects mixed into the list of chaos. It’s encouraging, and it’s a direct result of your Premium support.
So, thank you. (if you’re Premium — if not, subscribe here!)
Now, without further ado, let’s see what piqued the internet’s interest in 2022.
#10: How Surfers Get Paid
This series has been our pride and joy of late. We went into the project uncertain of the depth or honesty we would get from each of our interviewees, and thus far, they’ve absolutely exceeded our expectations. Though we’ve only released 4 of our 6 episodes, the positive responses from our viewers (and notoriously critical commenters) have resulted in us already starting to film a second season.
Click here to listen to John John Florence, Jordy Smith, Kolohe Andino, Bobby Martinez, JOB, and so many others talk private jets, energy drinks, and cold-hard cash.
#9: Stab Highway California, Presented By Monster Energy
16 surfers, 600 miles, 120 challenges, 8 days, fear, blood, glory, airs, bad ideas, and so on.
Basically, it’s a week-long concoction of fun-loving (and ref-hating) characters on a surf challenge bender. Just be careful, once you’ve watched the first episode, you’re gonna watch all five.
#8: Kelly Slater Wins Pipeline, Becomes World #1 Not A Week Before His 50th Birthday
A special man, a special moment.
The final three minutes of this Pipe event featured some of the most exciting CT surfing we have ever seen. Back to back 9.77 and 9.43s with Seth and Kelly. We yelled. We cried. We bowed in his honor.
Our full breakdown lives here.
#7: Blue Star Surf Charter Boat Sinks In The Maldives
Whoops!
Boris Romann, a French surfer onboard explained, “It was pretty stressful to pack all our stuff while seeing all the water filling our rooms, so we’ve all lost some stuff in the rush but the most important thing is that everybody is now safe and we will all come back home with an unlikely story to tell.”
Click here for the full story.
#6: Stab In The Dark With Jack Robinson
Our marquee project, filmed in Hawaii, with one of the CT’s most exciting surfers.
Kind of a no-brainer.
Tap in here.
#5: Former CT Surfer Chris Davidson Passes Away At Age 45
Davo was an former professoinal surfer from Narrabeen. He defeated Kelly Slater twice as a wildcard in the 1996 Bells Beach event— once on a borrowed board without a leash. He also traveled the world with Tom Curren for the early years of the Rip Curl Search and amassed a reputation as a fiery, powerful rail surfer. Davo was on the CT in 2010 and 2011, and his top result was a semifinal finish at the 2010 Rip Curl Pro Portugal.
Our hearts are with Chris’ loved ones. Full story here.
#4: Cheat Codes: John Florence Will Change The Way You Duckdive
Who would have thought that John John Florence explaining how to do one of the most basic things in surfing could be this damn interesting?
Click here for the duckdive breakdown you didn’t know you needed.
#3: What “Incident” Was The WSL Talking About On The Margaret River Broadcast?
During a morning warmup at the Margaret River Pro (big mid-year cut energy), Zeke Lau and Jacob Willcox got themselves into a brief altercation. It captured the attention of, well, everyone so we dug into what exactly happened.
Full story — and both sides — here.
#2: Serial Surf Pest Takes DIY Jet Board To Crowded Shark Island, Catches 2 Waves In A Set, Kills Disgruntled Lineup With Shaka Kindness
It’s hard for your clicking finger to ignore a title like that. And, not a word of it was embellished.
One commenter wrote, “Tbh you have to give the man credit, he has been a pest at shark island for years however on Sunday during a bodyboard comp managed to run through the lineup for about 30 mins. Every single person there told him to fuck off and he just kept doing laps kinda finding it funny hahahahahahaha.”
Full story lives here.
#1: E-Bike Plague Hits State Parks
Southern California surfer-shaper Tyler Warren started a petition to save CA’s state parks from the ever-growing E-Bike infestation.
It fired off on every single one of our platforms, with hundreds of thousands of clicks within hours.
Unfortunately — or not? — if you decide to go walk into Lowers, you’ll still be passed by a million electro-pedaling 11-year olds with newer boards and blonder hair than you. Can’t fault Tyler for trying though.
2022 shall be remembered as the year e-bikes truly polarized our world.
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