Roar de France: Surf & Skate Expo

Chapter 3: Where adventures begin

24-26 July // Newquay, Cornwall

Guest written by Roarsome's new Chief Storyteller Ryan Libbey

Watch video highlights HERE.

Sign up for a future Roar De France ride HERE.

Official Partners: SeaSpace, One Atlantek, Pip Organic, Thousand, Early Rider, Yeti, Thule

We didn’t wear shoes for four days.

I only noticed on the drive home, somewhere the other side of Exeter, when I went looking for my trainers and realised they were exactly where I had kicked them off on Thursday morning.

Four days of sand, warm decking and the cold shock of a car park at seven in the morning.

Leo’s feet were filthy. So were mine. But neither of us had thought about it once.

I think that is the first thing worth saying about Cornwall. Not what we did there, but what quietly stopped mattering and slipped into the background.

We had travelled down for Chapter Three of the Roarsome Riders Tour: the UK Surf & Skate Expo in Newquay.

But we went two days early on purpose. The work side of the trip didn’t begin until Saturday, when the Expo opened its doors. But I’ve learned that the good stuff rarely arrives on the day you schedule it for. So Leo and I drove down on Thursday and gave ourselves two days beside the sea before anything was expected of us.

Two years ago, on a family trip to Fowey, we met Tim, the owner of One Atlantek.

He took us out on his boat for two hours. Within five minutes, we were surrounded by dolphins. They played beside us, surfed in the wake and pushed baitfish towards the surface while gulls dived like missiles into the water. It was one of those experiences that lasted far longer than the afternoon itself. We were still talking about it two years later.

So, on this trip, we went back out with Tim.

That is becoming one of my favourite things about travelling with Leo: returning to a place and discovering that he remembers far more of it than I realised.

The following morning, he had his first surf lesson. On his very first wave, he stood up.

The first one!!!

A few waves later, another threw him into a forward roll off the front of the board so complete and spectacular that, for a moment, I forgot how to breathe. He came back up laughing and asked to go again.

I’ve spent years around people who train hard for confidence. Leo seemed to borrow some from the water and give it straight back.

Perhaps that is what Roarsome means when it talks about raising wild children. It isn’t about asking children to be fearless. It is about giving them enough freedom, encouragement and room to discover that they can do difficult things.

Then Saturday arrived, and with it, everyone else.

The UK Surf & Skate Expo is only in its second year, but you can already feel something growing beneath it.

Seven thousand square metres of surf, skate, music, makers and families, gathered together near the sea. There was that particular hum a place has when the people in it genuinely want to be there.

Patagonia had its Worn Wear repair station. Passenger arrived with a converted school bus. There were established names, independent makers and small businesses carrying two boards and an enormous amount of heart.

And then there was the ramp. Eight feet high. Thirty-two feet long. Running from half past nine until the evening light began to disappear.

Before Cornwall, Leo’s skateboarding experience extended to rolling around Fulham while I held both of his hands.

Ten minutes with Paul and the TR7 coaches and he was dropping in, reaching the rails and climbing back up before anyone had finished clapping.

There was always a hand nearby and a coach skating alongside him, but something had changed. The fear had gone somewhere. For the rest of the weekend, it didn’t come back.

On Sunday morning, Roarsome hosted an under-12s session on the ramp.

Small people on skateboards at ten o’clock in the morning, absolutely sending it.

The ramp had naturally separated itself into sections: tentative first-timers at one end, more experienced skaters at the other, and every stage of courage happening somewhere between the two.

I stood back and watched, taking my opportunity when they came to snap a few action shots of the little shredders. 

I could see Roarsome Riders shorts moving across the ramp. Graphic T-shirts underneath pads and helmets. Caps on the heads of children waiting for their next turn and parents watching from the side.

It felt like a living mural of everything Roarsome represents: courage, play, movement, community and children discovering what their bodies, and their bravery, might be capable of.

I looked across at Roarsome’s co-founders, Ed and Will, and they both had the same knowing smile.

This was why we were there.

The Roarsome van stayed open all weekend.

This was the brand’s first appearance at the Surf & Skate Expo and, honestly, none of us knew exactly how it would land.

The whole Roarsome world had been fitted into one van on a field near the sea.

The wetsuits belonged in the water. The poncho towels belonged around salt-covered shoulders. The helmets and Riders clothing belonged on the ramp. The goggles, sunglasses and characters belonged on children who wanted their equipment to feel as full of personality as they were.

The sunglasses went first. Orange, apparently, is the colour of this summer. Then the graphic T-shirts began disappearing faster than we had planned.

But the sales figures aren’t the part I’ll remember. By Saturday afternoon, I looked up at the ramp and saw children skating in Roarsome T-shirts they had bought less than an hour earlier.

They weren’t saving them for best. They were wearing them immediately, scuffing them up, sweating in them and making them theirs.

A spreadsheet can tell you which products are performing. But it can’t capture the feeling of watching a child choose a character, pull on the clothing and immediately feel part of something.

They weren’t simply wearing Roarsome. They were joining the crew as official Riders, becoming a part of the Roarsome Kingdom.

Looking around the Expo, I realised Roarsome was the only children’s brand there doing anything like this. We were filling a space that should always have existed.

Surfing, skating and riding are full of colour, courage, individuality and play. All the same things children are naturally drawn towards.

Roarsome didn’t have to change itself to belong here. This was already its world.

For the first time, we were seeing the brand in situ, surrounded by some of the biggest names in outdoor culture. And we didn’t look out of place.

In fact, Roarsome looked right at home.

The part I keep coming back to, though, is the families.

Ed and Will were there with their wives, babies and boys. Nobody was performing. There were nappies, snacks, missing shoes and always someone holding someone.

I had Leo. Ed and Will had Rocco and Rex.

They moved around the Expo on their Early Rider bikes, wearing their Riders gear and different character caps, each of them absolutely convinced that his was the best one.

Technically, they weren’t meant to be riding their bikes around the Expo. But who was going to tell three small boys to stop having exactly the kind of fun we had travelled to Cornwall to celebrate? Certainly not us.

Later, all three of them were on the boat, wrapped in Roarsome poncho towels, their hair blowing wildly as we shifted across the Atlantic.

I watched them and thought, this is the real business we are in.

Beneath the partnerships, collections, launch dates and spreadsheets, we are three dads trying to build something meaningful while our children are still young enough to be at the centre of it.

We want to create a brand that matters. But we also want to make memories worth keeping.

The lucky part is discovering that those two ambitions don’t have to compete. Sometimes, they can be the same ambition.

You cannot manufacture a collision like that: like-minded people, values pointing in the same direction and our children playing in the middle of it.

The organisers had written in the programme that they wanted people to ditch the doom-scrolling and come together for a weekend.

I read it on Friday and thought it was a nice line.

By Sunday afternoon, I understood that it was the entire point.

Finding your people

Louise noticed something when we arrived home, before I had even put the bags down.

Not what we had done or who we had met. But the energy coming off me and Leo.

“You guys seem really good,” she said. And she was right.

This is what four days of open space, clean air, cold water and the right people can do. It doesn’t fix everything. Nothing waiting on my desk became smaller while I was away. But it moves you back towards the centre of yourself. From there, everything else becomes a more reasonable size.

Leo came home with sand in his ears and a new idea about what he could do. Adventure isn’t a sport. It is a way of seeing the world.

It is standing up on your first wave and laughing when the next one knocks you over. It is dropping into a skate ramp because somebody stood beside you and made you believe that you could. It is finding the people already living the way you want to live and going to stand near them.

That is what we found in Cornwall. A brand finding its natural home. A four-year-old finding his courage. And the rest of us finding our tribe.

Find us on the next ride

Cornwall was Chapter Three, but the Roarsome Riders Tour is only getting started.

The next stop is Rockwater in Hove on 16 August. Leo and I can’t be there for this one, but the Roarsome team will be waiting to welcome the next group of young Riders.

After that, we’ll be back together at the Malverns Classic from 20–23 August at Eastnor Deer Park in Ledbury, a full weekend of riding, racing, music and family adventure.

If your children are already confident riders, bring them. If they are still finding their feet, bring them too. That is the point of the Riders Tour. You don’t have to arrive feeling brave. Sometimes, you find your courage once you get there.

Join us at Rockwater, Hove →

Book tickets for the Malverns Classic →

Discover the Roarsome Riders collection →

Thanks for reading :)

Ryan 🧸

A home from home

Big thanks to SeaSpace for accommodating team Roarsome for the weekend.

An incredible family hotel offering amazing rooms, sea views, adventure playgrounds, swimming pool, games room, padel tennis, wellness spa and even a garden maze!

We highly recommend checking them out if you're planning a trip to Cornwall any time soon!