Griffin Colapinto Rinses San Clemente Groms For Poorly Executed Lowers Raid

World number #7, Griffin Colapinto has posted an Instagram story politely rinsing San Clemente groms for today’s poorly executed ‘Lowers Raid’. 

Today, at 9:10am, sixty odd surfers were spotted pinning it on e-bikes, Mad Max style, to Lower Trestles. Said surfers then proceeded to paddle out in a single giant pack, on a relatively uncluttered day with good conditions, filled mostly by locals who did not warm to their spirits. 

Per Griffin’s IG: “This is a message to the local kids from San Clemente who did the Lowers Raid today: First off, I want you to know there’s no hard feelings from us that were out there. I totally understand what you guys were trying to do, it’s super fun, all the boys used to do it when we were in High School. 

But here’s the deal: when you do the Lowers Raid, you want to do it in the middle of summer when there’s a lot of out-of-towners and it’s already super crowded, probably midday or mid-afternoon, and it’s a shitshow and it’s super fun. Today was hard because the waves were kinda firing and no one was out except the San Clemente locals. If you felt a weird, bitter vibe from some of the locals, that’s why. On my end I want you to know there’s no hard feelings… It’s all good, and if I seemed a little bitter out there, and I might’ve been for a second, I totally understand where you guys are coming from.” 

The first Lowers raid took place In June of 2011. The bandit crew was led by San Clemente’s Riley Metcalfe, who had been a comp grom for most of his life up until that point, with a stickered-up shortboard to prove it. The result was an internet breaking motion picture, capturing the most breathtaking surf session the world has ever seen. 

Repeated nearly every year since then, the Lowers Raid has been an amusing spectacle of chaos, about as far away from pro-surfing pomp as possible. 

Quite funny.