Witness: The Dawn of Mayhem!

Matt "Mayhem" Biolos is an artist at the height of his powers.

Matt “Mayhem” Biolos today is Lou Reed in 1967. He is Takeshi Murakami in 2000. He is Hedi Slimane in 2002 and Greg Louganis in 1988 and Fyodor Dostoyevsky in 1864 and Paul Bocuse in 1975 and Sir Isaac Newton in 1666.

He is an artist at the height of his powers.

And if you have never owned a Matt Biolos board you you will kick yourself in 25 years for missing out just like our parents kick themselves today for not buying Apple stock in 1980 for $22 a share. Of course you could get a custom shaped thing but why wait? His boards, off the rack, are as delicious as any. He is that good and your surfing will shine when guided by the brushstrokes of his hand.

You think I am prone to over-exaggeration? You think that Pac-Sun bought …Lost and BeachGrit and Futures fins and is driving an ill-conceived, poorly executed piece of advertorial down your open throat? Shame on you! Shame indeed!

(Dear Pac-Sun…I can’t speak for my wonderful friends at …Lost or Futures but let me introduce BeachGrit! We are as fun as we are fresh, anti-depressive to the core, and would make a lovely counterpart to the rest of your online surf wear sales business…)

I am not exaggerating at all! Matt’s boards are a revelation and maybe it is because he makes them for you and me and himself. He makes them for the average and then scales them for his stars. And maybe it is good that you waited, if you have never owned, because today is a new day and he in unveiling a new technology. Carbon Wrap! What makes Carbon Wrap so good? Let’s ask the master!

Why should we care about carbon wraps? Real talk!

Honestly, I fell in love with these boards when I first laid eyes and, immediately thereafter,  feet on. The combination of EPS foam and epoxy resin has long been a lively pairing for greater-strength-to-weight ratio surfboards, featuring a lively pop in small to moderate surf. The benefits of carbon re-enforcements versus the old wooden stringer have already proven popular, and fairly easily felt under the foot of intermediate to expert, and even professional surfers. What Dan MacDonald (the inventor of CW) came up with that is so unique is the carbon bands create an engineered flex focused just in front of the fins. This is the magic of CarbonWrap. The tail, under the pressure of the surfers’ feet and G-forces in the wave, loads up and snaps back with astonishing bursts of speed. Combined with the light, and relatively high strength-to-weight ratio, construction of EPS foam and epoxy resin, and a composite of multiple direction layers and weaves of fiberglass and carbon fiber, these boards are electric underfoot. There was a solid five years of hard core RnD that went into Carbon Wrap before  we got involved. Dan’s stroke of genius, The Wrap, had been through many incarnations. We got involved about 18 months ago. We began to build dozens of boards for athletes (and for myself and my crew of Domesticated RnD guys) and refined all aspects of the construction. Sure, the WCT might not jump all over it. It’s not necessarily about them. The thing about CarbonWrap is that it most benefits the average surfer. In small-to-moderate surf, it feels like it  does the work for you. Almost like pedaling one of those electric assisted bicycles up a hill.

What’s the smackdown, price-wise?

The boards are between $750.00 and $800.00 in the US with the price being right about the same but adjusted to Australian dollars in Australia.

What’s the difference, in layman terms, tween Hayden’s FF and the carbon wraps?

Look, Hayden really pioneered bringing this genre of construction to the global surf market. Before him, these boards were more on the niche side of board building. He broke down the door and figured how to take them to the global market. I was there. He made multiple trips to southern California , stayed at my house and introduced me to his construction. We traveled to Japan and built hundreds of those things in Chiba together.

That said, the way Carbon Wrap is engineered, with the carbon bands beginning at the nose, slowly splaying outward towed the tail then strategically “wrapping ” the rails and becoming a perfectly positioned tail patch, it’s is easy to see that the flex is engineered in a more focused and specific way. We also added the fused carbon strip in the deck which gives a little extra push-back and projection forward under the front foot and encourages the deck to eventually cave in and resemble that of your foot’s arch, and a standard wooden-stringer board, rather than having the entire deck caving in, rail to rail.  

For you, me, real life surfers, not Kolohe etc, what diff is it going to make?

Listen. Although our WQS team is raving about CW, and using them in comps, as well as re-ordering more of them the time, I honestly feel that these boards will in fact make a bigger “diff” for guys like us, than the top surfers. Surfing a already easy for them! We are just supplying  a board to help make surfing more fun, and hopefully somewhat easier, for the the real life surfer.

Go and get one now. And get one with a Futures box. Their fins smash those poorly engineered, poorly advertised FCS things. 11 Championship Tour Wins wins in 11 Championship Tour tries (2015). Who wants to surf like they are part of the World Surf League? Not John John Florence and he is even part of the World Surf League!

THE DAWN OF MAYHEM from Lost Video Productions on Vimeo.