At about the same time at beaches around the world german surfers showed up who still had difficulties with the take off but once on the wave surfed surprisingly good. Stunned locals soon found out about that mystery. The standing wave at the Eisbach gave those city surfers the opportunity to riversurf their boards that much that they got board control really wired. The Eisbach locals now do almost every move and trick known to the surfing world (besides tuberiding) at their river and they have plenty of time to practise. The only thing they cannot learn at home is judging the ocean waves and get familiar with steep drops.

During the ninethies local shapers started to build boards designed for riversurfing. And in the new millenium the city of München started to show river surfing at the Eisbach in official commercials for tourist purposes. The Eisbach had allready become a renowned tourist attraction, despite surfing officially still beeing illegal here. But the surfers were now tolerated.

The local szene even established a river surfing contest and later on the surf industrie jumped on that train with holding contest with invited top surfers.

But at the moment, the Eisbach standing wave is again threatened, this time by a proposed deconstruction (see related article). 30 years of surfing in the city culture are in danger to get destroyed! We would be very happy if anyone reading this would help saving the wave by signing a petition list.

About surfing the wave:

The river bed is very narrow (about 10 meters), has a concret floor and is boarderd by concret walls. The water comes out of a tube with a lot of speed and hits a concrete step that creates the standing wave. In front of the wave the river has only about 40 cm (1 foot) depth. All this together creates a standing wave with - depending on the amount of water coming out of the tube - about 1 to 1.5m of face. The speed of the current and wave size and form allow all kind of manouvers with plenty of speed. But dond´t underestimate the challenge of surfing here! Many a traveling “real” surfer tried it and at the beginning got humiliated by the wave quite a bit! It´s not an easy task surfing that wave and it takes some experience to get it wired. In any case be very carefull, when surfing here. The water is very cold - hence the name “Ice-river” and the concrete floor and underwater obstacles (especially to the left side of the river) not only damage boards. If you fall make surf to hit the water flat. Wearing a leash is absolutely necessary if you don´t want to chase your adrift board throughout the whole english garden.

In any case respect the locals and the rules that they have implied on river surfing. It´s necessary to handle the crowd problem and it is crucial for safety!

there is some more pics in the gallery

usefull links:

Grossstadtsurfer EV