“Surf because you love it."

It wasn’t our first rodeo taking Bum Rush Tour to Jacksonville Beach, Florida —but our judges Carissa Moore, GiGi Lucas, and Kylie Pulcini made it feel like somethin’ special.

There’s a fabled sandbar on the south side of Jax pier that goes off when the conditions are right. So, after loading up on some coffee and breakfast sandos from Delicomb, we ducked under the pier and headed down the beach to see what the swell dragged in.

Dozens of pros were out in the water getting ready for their contest heats, but the waves looked way too fun to let that stop us. With help from Carissa, GiGi, and Kylie, we set up camp. Bum Rush was officially on.

One of the best things about Bum Rush Tour is that the judging criteria never really stays the same. Every time we decide to do it, our judges have the freedom to decide how they wanna go about picking the champ. But the one thing that always seems to make it on the scoring sheets time and time again, is the “fun factor”—the surfer who surfs like they love it and has the most fun doing it, always stands out amongst the crowd.

After watching a lot of waves with a lot of good surfers on them, there was one kid who kept catching our eye. It was definitely the combo of his skills and style, but as soon as we witnessed him do probably one of the best hair flips we’d ever seen in our lives, we hit the siren and waved for him to paddle in. “Hair Flip” aka Tyko Tran is a local grom who was just looking to get some fun ones with his family that day. He had no idea he’d walk away with a giant check for $1000 bucks.

We had so much fun and honestly couldn’t stop smiling the entire day.

Signing off with some words of wisdom from our latest champ— “Surf because you love it."

XO, SB