Konstantin Mikhaylov
Los Angeles Wake has been operating wakeboarding, wake surfing, water skiing, and tubing at Castaic Lake and Lake Perris in Southern California since 2015.
Customer demand for boardsports and outdoor hardgoods and apparel has grown, and so the team recently announced plans to open a seasonal Wheels and Waves boardsports pop-up at Castaic Lake, followed by a permanent Wheels and Waves bricks & mortar location in Playa Vista in LA County.
We checked-in with company partner Konstantin Mikhaylov to learn more about the expansion plans.
Q: For readers who might not be aware, can you tell us about your business — how you started, what you offer, and where?
A: I had a chance to build a boardshop retail chain in Russia with 10-plus doors across from 2005 to 2022, and now partnered with LA Wake last year. Now we plan to build a new project with LA Wake partnership here in Playa Vista.
It’s a retail project where we would like to call it a CLUB or Community hub where people can try different things. It’s surf, skate, foils, and electric bikes with different approaches from cargo to downhill and more.
Q: What did you hear from customers that made you decide to open the seasonal pop-up and permanent store?
A: We want to be not just a wakeboard club, we would like to offer people a sense of boardriding and show them related brands and other interesting things. During wakeboarding you create trustworthy relationships and we would like to be guides to other activities with our friends and families.
Q: What brands will you carry, and what product categories?
A: We don’t have final list and let’s say we want to keep some intrigue about it. We want to find the best combination and it can be different to each place. Of cause we will try our best to create a new trend and find our own killer combo with a surf, bike, yoga, outdoor approach and some selective brands.
We can offer some indie running brands like District Vision which is kind of local in California, MAAP from Australia, DB from Norway for luggage and I really fell in love with CAKE bikes for example.
I’m sure there is a place for all the majors and we all know them well and they are transforming quite hard to reach new generations.
Good examples for me are Dakine, 686, Oakley and many others who try new categories/collabs and new approaches to the market.
Q: Have you noticed any brand preferences from you customers? Any differences between men and women, girls and boys?
A: In mens, everything is good for now, the biggest opportunity is still in womens and our goal is to find the right balance.
Q: What’s the seasonal period for your Castaic Lake pop-up — when will it open, peak, and close?
A: We’ll operate during the Spring and Summer 23 season to try things.
Q: When do you plan on opening your Playa Vista store — and why did you select that location, which seems distant from your two lake-based operations?
A: We’re looking to fall 23/24 for Playa Vista.
Playa Vista is a new IT or tech hub with a lot of newcomers and and we see how people want to try new things and combine different sports from really different worlds — it can be triathlon and surfing for example. A killer combo right now is BIKE + SUP, where your upper and lower body are well balanced and you can do it really hard, with carbon products everywhere. You can compete and race and you can commute to work and catch the waves after. Â Our goal is to offer a “best for you” or “killer combo” and have one place to do it!
Q: Anything else you’d like to add?
A: Thank you guys for the ability to share theses things. To readers, if you want to share ideas or locations or you would like to offer your brand, send me an email and I will be happy to discuss all the opportunities.
