Start counting rotations! It's a sculpture in the sky!
Two days ago, you read here that the Maui surfer Albee Layer had hucked the first-ever backside 540.
In an interview with BeachGrit’s fabulous little Jake Tellkamp, Albee told us that he wished John John was still chasing spins (“He’s, like, changed to a full comp guy now practicing power turns. I wish he was putting his heart and soul into progression like he was a year or two ago”) and that surfing was now in its “racing stage.”
“Look at a lot of action sports,” said Albee. “Moto, mountain biking, skiing, snow-mobiles, they all start as racing being where all the money and time is spent and freestyle being a side show. But eventually, freestyle is all people really wanted to watch and people started figuring out how to make competitions based around progression and not sticking to the same formula of the last three decades.”
Anyhow, Albee held onto the clip until Monday, US time, rather than squander on the dead-air of the weekend, always a bad time to release anything into the wild.
Watch. You like?
Do you find hard, fast rotations things of architectural beauty?
As sculptures in the sky?
And, wait, is it a double spin, as suggested by Albee, or one-and-a-half rotations?
Surfers really are math-tards! Read story below!
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Does not look so cool after 5000 atempts.
Respect for the persistence (and the skills).
Now just need Slater to upstage him next day or so like he did with his wavepool on ADS
And a shout out to the filmers. After hundreds and hundreds of failed attempts over years, Albee lands one and there it is, focussed and pretty perfectly centred within the frame. My attention might have been wandering.
Some of those he almost made coulda been borderline more than a 540. Wouldn’t be surprised if he eventually lands the 720.
Yeah great, but when is JJF releasing his next clip?