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Comment by donjoe | Hacker News Reader

As a river surfer surfing in Munich I'd love to see our river wave replicated more often. Rivers float 'for free' anyway. Why not just use its power whenever possible and reasonable?

https://youtu.be/fCJyyy97DyA

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Going to Munich - and not having heard about the downtown river wave - and then seeing people in wetsuits carrying their boards, dripping along the pavement:what, where, how!!!??? And then finding the wave and watching all the groms - and a couple of silver surfers - for a few glorious hours. And then my girlfriend (now wife) and I cycled up river, left our bikes and clothes and floated back down in our kecks. And then walked back to our bikes and clothes which were still there. Ahhhhh...European summers! And the naked people in the park...hahahahahah. Anywhere in the anglophone world you’d call the police if there were guys getting naked in the park...that is a great place!

... one of the reasons I moved back :) glad u liked it!

River waves are just not comparable to ocean waves. The mechanics are different and so is the shape and power. I only know of one river wave that reliably stands up and curls and is big enough to surf, and that's on the corner of a huge hydraulic on the Zambezi River in Africa.

River waves also tend to be sensitive to flow, changing pretty dramatically (or even disappearing) with more or less water. There are plenty of river waves that attract surfers, like the Lachine waves near Montreal. But even at their best, they're not like ocean waves.

Thanks for sharing! I do agree that's an awesome idea. I wonder why this isn't more popular. It made me think of flatland skim: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UpWbILAIec

I've been thinking about this as well. I suspect recreating a Munich wave would be harder, perhaps much harder, to do than my imagination suggests. Topography, water volume and speed, to say nothing of access and permits etc. But I want one in my town.

As mentioned before, there is a company found by some locals doing exactly that:

http://riverwaveproject.com/

Looks like they built a website but have yet to build any waves?

They already built one in Thalkirchen:

https://youtu.be/MFHYffdBNmI

As far as I know they're involved in several projects researching locations for new waves.

I thought that was the English Garden wave! Very cool.

That's amazing! Isn't the possibility of a head injury on that (stone? concrete?) embankment scary when getting on the board?

Yeah, there is some risk. It's not the concrete on the side though but some rough rocks on the bottom which can be quite nasty... That's why locals refer beginners to the second wave in Munich which is located in Thalkirchen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFHYffdBNmI

Some of the local surfers actually found a company which is constructing river waves based on simulation:

http://riverwaveproject.com/

What's up with the crazy dance club right next to that river wave?

It would be really cool to recreate that at Big Bear or Mammoth.

There are some river waves in Boise, Jackson Hole and a few minor ones, but the best are still in Canada, besides Munich, Austria, Swiss and France. As river surfer you don't really care for these expensive big machines, they are not sustainable. Like the Tokyo wave in the 80, which only lasted a few years.

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