What’s black, pink, has a box and is excessively hairy? You guessed it, the cover of August / September issue 11.7 featuring Matt Manzari’s flawless back lip shot by our own Garrett Cortese. Matt’s style on the water is unmatched, but dang kid, what has Tennessee done to your hair!? Ha.

Inside issue 11.7 we introduce two brand new authors to the Matters and Reason columns. Keith Lidberg and Silas Thurman. Both are highly respected veterans in our sport who are kind enough to share their insights with the rest of the wakeboarding community. Silas see’s hope for an X games appearance and Keith inspires us with the idea of judges are actually paying attention to grabs. If this is the case, things are looking to be on the up for us all…

Next up is a 20 question one on one interview with West Coast wakeskater Grant Roberts. Read and you will find out that Grant owes his entire career to his mom and those totally radical “cut off finger jet skii gloves!” Grant once ended a relationship when the girl made him chose her or his mustache, and is also a huge fan of wakeboarders…Who is his favorite you may be wondering? You’ll have to read and find out.

On page 70 come along for the ride to Cologne, Germany with the Alliance crew as we go behind the scenes for one of the most prestigious rail events, O’Neill’s Wake the Line. 3 pools, 9 Unit obstacles, and over 8,000 fans combined to create one of the most progressive and high energy wake contests to date. The German’s unveiled secret weapons Felix Georgii who ended up taking 4th place in the wake event, and also wakeskaters Jan Kissman / Andy Kolb who rounded out the top 3 in pro mens wakeskate. Congratulations to German Nico Von Lerchenfeld (wake) and Thailand’s Daniel Grant (skate) for their first place finishes. Sure there were technically only two champions at this event, but with the amount of free beer they dished out over the weekend we all felt like winners as we boarded the plane back to America.

Finally the issue rounds out with a two man showdown in the Dustpan for an epic game of W-A-K-E-S-K-A-T-E. Ben Horan and Yan Lecomte go head to head both on the water AND on the concrete to find out who is the king of boarding when your feet aren’t attached. We knew these guys were good at skateboarding, but had no idea it would turn into a mob of fans and a full autograph session at the skatepark. O.K., maybe not, but we did have one fat sweaty kid ask if they were pro’s.

Grab issue 11.7 and get it while the gettin’s good…