But come and revel in a new competition. One built
for you and for me!
Before becoming The Man of the People™ I loved
Stab magazine’s Stab in the Dark featurette. It
was such a simple concept so elegantly packaged. Ten shapers
shaping anonymously for one professional surfer. He riding all then
choosing his favorite. The winning shaper lauded. The losing
shapers shamed.
Then in year two Stab blew its wad and had Dane
Reynolds do it.
This year it was Jordy Smith and while Jordy’s personality
sparkles who really cares what he thinks about surfboards?
Do you? I don’t. His opinion on functionality, hold, rail, curve
etc. doesn’t interest me. A 1% surfer’s critique clanging like a
gong in the ears of the 99%.
Jon Pyzel won for the second time in a row and how much do you
think this irks other shapers? Does he lord his superiority over
them over drinks? He should. The only remaining question I have,
though, is can Mr. Pyzel shape a board for me and for you?
Does he understand the people?
And it is with the humble honor that you have bestowed upon me
as your voice that I announce our upcoming Grit is for
Mark™ competition. BeachGrit will find the most
average surfer in the entire world. Average weight, average height,
average build, average ability with an average name (Mark) and we
will have him ride average off the rack boards in slightly below
average beachbreak.
He will choose the one that allows him to maaaaybe complete his
cutback. The one that allows him to get the tail of his board above
the lip for his flyaway airs. The one that allows him to slip
inside a closeout tube. The one that doesn’t so easily ding when
being wedged into the backseat of a ’17 Porsche Panamera. The one
that gives him a little extra squirt as he is taking off. Enough to
make it up to, but not around, the SUPer dropping in down the
line.
These are the things the salt of the earth need to know before
plunking down their blue-collar dollar for a new surfboard.
Stab can keep its Jordys and advertisers and private
boat trips. BeachGrit doesn’t need luxuriant Macaronis. We
live on the simple bread of the people.
Grit is for Mark™ will premier at next year’s U.S. Open
of Surfing.
The champ's shaper on biases that keep us from
nailing the perfect board…
I’ve learned by now that unless a surfboard
conforms to a set of very narrow, and specific,
strictures, I’m screwed.
It’s gotta be short (five-six for little waves; a five-nine if
I’m gonna chance my arm in waves up to six foot), wider than the
norm but thinner than recommended, almost no entry rocker, a dirty
big straight section through the guts and a pretty wild kick in the
tail. Outline-wise, I like curves. I get my speed from the
rocker.
If I get a board from a new shaper and he deviates from the
formula, I’ll surf it on one wave, maybe two, then throw a For Sale
sign on it.
It’s not that I won’t try, I just don’t…know…what to
do.
Sweet spots are sweet if you can find ‘em. If you can’t, surfing
becomes tedious, difficult, impossible.
Which is why I lit up Jon Pyzel, John John Florence’s shaper
since the champ was five. I wanted a shaper’s angle on how we
should approach different boards purely on technique. It’s true
that kids should come with an instructional manual. Surfboards
ain’t any different.
Here’s how it would work in my perfect world.
You’d buy your model, Stubby Bastard, Bottom Feeder, Sub-Driver,
Toledo 77, whatever it is, and you get a square of paper, folded
six times, that clearly states in diagrams and words where the
sweet spot is, how you should apply your stance (is it a
fixed-stance sorta board, do you need to roam up and down?) and
where the board can and can’t go.
For example, is it a straight-up-into-the-lip sorta shape or a
nurse-your-bottom-turn-but-tons-of-down-the-line speed sled? You’d
read, you’d ride and adjust your game accordingly to the
manual.
I got more questions, theories for Jon, too.
Let’s clear up a few mysteries.
BeachGrit: I’m going to posit something. We all lose our
minds over volume but I believe a forgiving rocker can solve a
multitude of evils in a board. Tell me your
opinion.
Pyzel: Volume is so hot right now! People are getting
volume obsessed and overlooking the other aspects of design that
make a board less or more user friendly. Yeah, sure, added
volume (read floatation) can make a high-performance design more
user friendly but as you theorise bottom rocker plays an essential
role as well. A flatter rocker equals a faster board while
surfing and paddling and is your best friend in
average-to-below-average surf (most peoples’ day to day).
BeachGrit: And coming from the other angle, a beautiful
board (perfect outline, foil, bottom curve, foil etc) can be
unrideable to a certain surfer if the rocker is too
high-performance.
Pyzel: Unrideable is a strong term but I agree that the
lower-level surfer could be losing out on too refined a
board. Average drivers don’t drive F-1 race cars to the
market, so why would an average surfer choose the F-1 version of a
surfboard? Here volume can help. If the surfer is a
little better than average, surfing in good waves and trying hard
to improve, a bit less rocker (especially up front) and a fuller
outline and foil will give you a huge advantage and turn struggle
into joy. I can’t tell you how often I paddle by some guy on a
“Pro” type board who is not having any fun. I wish I could just
hand them the board they need and change their whole way of
looking at surfing.
BeachGrit: Now, I want our readers to up
their ability. I want ‘em better after this interview.
Tell me. How do you ride a high-performance board, a JJ special?
And don’t just say y’gotta do turns. Give me specifics, Jon, I
know you got the key…
Pyzel: You can have the same characteristics of a
pro-level board, sensitivity, carveabilty, quick response and
liveliness, but this brings us back to volume. Everyone can
ride the same designs that I am making for John John, but they need
to super-size up a bit. Add some width and thickness (how you
adjust volume) and you are gonna have a board that paddles better
and carries speed easier.
BeachGrit: It ain’t as easy as that. God I wish it
was.
Pyzel: Of course. And then you have to put in the effort,
work on wave selection, wave positioning, keeping the board in the
power zone, keeping your weight in the right place, centred, not
pushing too much on your front foot and bogging. Yeah, it’s harder
but the rewards can be huge too.
BeachGrit: Now let’s talk stance. Where the hell do your
feet (going fast, doing turns) have to be on…
a.) A board with a continuous rocker, fair bit of
a nose and tail kick.
Pyzel: Centred to back-foot weighted is the best call. Keeping
your speed up and pivoting off the tail through turns.
b.) A board with a three-stage rocker, not much nose or
tail kick
Pyzel: This type of board allows for a lot of movement and has a
large sweet spot so you don’t have to overthink it. Weight
forward for speed, step back onto the tail to turn. Just the
basics.
c.) A goddamn super-curved high-performance
board…
Pyzel: If I have to tell you where to put your feet, you
shouldn’t be riding this board.
BeachGrit The fabulous Terry Fitz famously said, build
your style around your boards, not the other way around, unless you
rip. What do you think?
Pyzel: That is rad! He’s right. If you’re riding a board
that is good for you, it’s gonna lead you in the right direction
and help you improve. Maybe the best thing you can do is to
really take a look at how your board is working for you,
paddling and surfing-wise, and see if you can’t imagine
something better. Maybe a board that would help improve the chinks
in your armour. Are you struggling to catch waves? Do you have
trouble keeping speed and making sections? Can you wrap through a
smooth cutback without digging rail? Do you want to smash the
lip harder and more vert? These are things that a surfboard
design can help you with. Don’t keep riding that piece of shit
your friend left in your garage two years ago!
Goddamn!
BeachGrit: Are the old beginner, intermediate, advanced
surfer categories outdated? I know intermediate surfers who can
rotate, advanced surfers who throw their boards away? Do you think
there are better, and more specific, categories? Front-foot, former
skater, back-foot-learned-to-surf-in-the-nineties kinda
guy?
Pyzel: Surfing is a rainbow of styles, abilities, skill sets and
desires. I’m the same as you. I see kooks land airs and
rippers doing old-school cutbacks to the beach. There is merit
to the beginner, intermediate, advanced categories, but who really
even cares? Go surf. Do what feels good. Try to have some
style when you do it. Style is always in style.
BeachGrit: Average guy, wants to be front foot, but
mostly isn’t. Surfs terrible beachbreaks eleven months of the year,
three days when it’s six foot and goes to Indo once a year.
He’s five-ten, 78 kilos? Describe his quiver.
Pyzel: The Ghost 6’1” x 19.63” x 2.63” x 31.70L round pin, for
his Indo trips and when his beachie has a decent bank. He’s
gonna get in easy and can push it into the two-times overhead range
in clean conditions. It’ll fly, turn on a dime and hold as
hard as he can push.
Voyager 1 6’0” x 19.00” x 2.44” x 28.80L squash, for
the good days at home and the fun-sized days in Indo.
High-performance with a touch less entry rocker to keep it
flowing. This is JJF’s new shorty he debuted at Snapper.
Stubby Bastard 5’11” x 19.50” x 2.44” x 29.30L squash for your
every day board. The volume and width pushed up front, relaxed
entry rocker for speed and paddle power, plenty of tail rocker to
keep it loose and snappy. High performance with hidden
help.
Sure Thing 5’9” x 19.63” x 2.44” x 30.10L double-bump squash
with baby channels. The Electralite EPS construction for a great
strength-weight ratio and lively feel. For weaker, slower waves or
just to liven up a normal session. Take it to Indo and get
loose or make the most out of blown slop at home.
BeachGrit: What about a teenager, average ability,
sixty-five kilos? What’s his dream craft?
Pyzel: Get ‘em on 25 to 27 litres. This may sound like a lot of
foam, but it’ll be helpful at that stage of their surfing. Get into
waves early, flow through turns. It’ll allow them to progress
faster then if they struggled through on an overly refined piece of
equipment.
BeachGrit: Tell me, how do you feel about fins? Are they
the classic Pandora box? Dare we open?
Pyzel: How do you feel about wings on an airplane? Fins are
important and complex because they can play a giant role in
the performance and feel of your surfboard. I’ve had people
tell me that they weren’t happy with their new board until they
switched out the fins and it became their Best Board
Ever. That said, fins can be both overwhelming and confusing,
so I always like to try my boards with the same fins (setting a
baseline) before I change ‘em. That way I am always feeling
how the board works first and then I can fine-tune to
maximise performance or adapt to different surf conditions.
BeachGrit: Should boards come with a fin-type
recommended by the shaper?
Pyzel: Man, you’re better off finding a set of fins that you
like and use those as your baseline. Everyone has different
approaches to how they surf and having one set of fins for
everything can work, but it’s nice to be able to play around and
change the way a board performs and feels. Also, and this is a
generality so don’t shoot me, but you are going to want bigger fins
in smaller surf and smaller fins in bigger
surf. Counterintuitive, no? But listen. If you imagine fins as
wings on an airplane you get a good idea of their effectiveness.
A fighter plane (think gun, big waves) going super fast only
needs small wings because the speed is creating a lot of lift. A
larger, slower plane (grovel board, slow waves) needs big wings to
help keep it up in the air.
BeachGrit: Customs still worth persisting with, you
think? Or are we all better off chasing a pre-existing
model?
Pyzel: First. It is really cool to connect with a shaper
and talk about what you’re looking for in your board. He
can guide you in the right direction and for some the anticipation
of waiting for that board to get shaped and glassed is a gratifying
part of the process.For others, the joy comes when you walk in the
shop and choose the board that feels good. Right here, right
now! You can walk out of the shop and go straight into a surf. If
you’ve done your homework and are dealing with someone with a bit
of knowledge you should be able to get exactly what you would have
ordered anyway. And, with the beautiful benefit we all love,
instant gratification.
BeachGrit: Okay, how about this. Local shaper who
actually touches your foam or a board that’s been sliced by a
famous brand’s ghost shaper?
Pyzel: How about I explain something. As the local shaper grows
his business he inevitably finds that he needs some help keeping up
with orders. He finds another local shaper who doesn’t have
that sort of problem (volume!) and takes him under his wing and
shows him where he likes his rails tucked, his edges crisp, his
round-tails just right. You have to know that both the local
shaper and the ghost are doing their very best to make a great
board. The big difference is the ghost is making a board designed
by someone with (usually) more depth of experience and a higher
level of development that has been, hopefully, tested and refined
with the input of talented surfers. I am certainly not saying you
will not get a great board from the guy down the street, because
there are a lot of highly talented shapers around the world that
just keep it local and do their thing! Every well known shaper
in the world was that guy too.
BeachGrit: Tall, skinny guys. Any particular angle you
take with ‘em?
Pyzel: A touch wider, but thinner is route that works. Being
tall gives you a higher centre of gravity so you can easily go rail
to rail on a little wider board, but being light you benefit from
as thin a board as possible for sensitivity’s sake. The added width
allows for the thinness while still retaining enough foam to float
you around.
BeachGrit: Tell me a
secret about surfing technique you’ve learned from
your phenomenal team rider.
Pyzel: Never claim
John John not claiming, post-oop in
Bali.
(Note: This story first appeared in issue number 336 of Surfing
Life magazine, which you can buy here.)
Surfing is a trivial pursuit. A sexy sabbatical
from the monotony and minutiae of life.
Of course, there are tedious stories of How Surf Saved My
Life and so on, mostly click-bait trash.
Then there is the rare occasion when surfing does pull a person,
people, away from the darkness.
This Netflix film, which is called Resurface, is
the story of how war veterans with post traumatic stress disorder
or PTSD (two out of every three vet gets hit with it, turn to
surfing to steal a little joy out of lives ruined by the spectre of
war-time atrocities.
“Surfing was on my bucket list. I was going to surf, and then go
home and commit suicide,” says one.
He ain’t alone. Twenty two vets kill ’emselves every damn
day.
Here, watch as men crippled, smashed, ruined by war find
quietude in the water.
“When I caught that wave it wasn’t death and destruction and
hell. The ocean is the one place I can go for peace.”
I don't like their tubes and I don't like their
turns.
(This piece first appeared on Breitbart News)
Call me racist but I don’t like watching short
people surf and this goes from Adriana de Souza all the way to
Silvana Lima. I don’t like their turns I don’t like their tubes I
don’t like their little arms holding trophies at the end of
contests. I don’t like any of it and this goes from Keanu Asing all
the way to Tyler Wright.
Go ahead. Tell me I’m a giant sexist pig but I ain’t backing
down.
Now, I don’t necessarily like watching tall people surf either
and this goes all the way from Owen Wright to Chas Smith. We look
like flimsy willows about to blow right over all elbows and
assholes but short people are worse. They look like they are garden
gnomes who have been glued to their boards.
Be my guest. Paint me a homophobe. It won’t stop the way I
feel.
Because I feel that there should be professional surfing height
limits like there are at Legoland. You must be over 70 inches and
under 75 inches in order to take the ride (for men) and over 65
inches and under 70 inches (for women).
This would be more pleasing for everyone. We could all truly and
genuinely enjoy the show. Sure it is not the “politically correct”
opinion but it is the right one. And one worth being branded a
xenophobe to hold.
Late at night, long after the sun has gone down
and you are laying in bed, do stray thoughts ever infect your mind?
Like, do you ever think, “I wonder how it feels to be a
professional surfing champion? To stand there, on the beach after
vanquishing foes while the masses cheer. Hoisting a trophy. Being
sprayed with champagne. Being forever known as a professional
surfing champion…”
For sure you have, right? But then you sleep, wake, drink
coffee, go surf and do a few hitchy cutbacks and think, “Well son
of a bitch.” Champagne dreams evaporating into a cold, handicapped
reality.
Well guess what. This Saturday and Sunday in Newport, Oregon
there is an event you are guaranteed* to win. Let’s read about
it!
In the competitive world of surfing, there’s a unique
language. First, there’s the weather, which doesn’t necessarily
mean rain or sunshine, but wind conditions, specifically the knots
and direction. Then, swells, including height and direction, a big
factor whether you’re a novice or advanced competitor. The swell
dynamic is also important- choppy or smooth. Small waves are
considered ankle busters. And, don’t forget the break- beach breaks
put you on the sand. A barrel or a tube is considered the ultimate
experience. Dumpers are not fun, they usually precipitate a
wipeout.
Most important to any surfer is the ride and what he or she
can do with it. The feeling of catching a ride or “taking the drop”
down the face of a wave is exhilarating to any level of surfer. The
combination of balance, stance, and agility can turn the experience
from a drop to a masterful spin or aerial maneuver. This is why
surfing draws all ages of men and women to gear up or enjoy the
thrills of being a spectator.
The Oregon coast offers dynamic surfing opportunities. The
rugged coastline, unparalleled views, and offshore winds create
ideal conditions. With the right gear, surfers acclimate to the
chilly 55 degree ocean temperatures.
On Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 30 and Oct. 1, the City of
Newport Parks and Recreation will host the second annual Agate
Beach Surf Classic for surfers of all levels. According to Mike
Cavanaugh, Sports Coordinator for the City’s Parks and Recreation
department,
“This is a one of a kind event. It is sponsored by the City
in collaboration with private businesses. Most people have never
seen this; surfing contests are usually put on by surf
shops.”
Cavanaugh says the iconic headlands and vast coastline make
Agate Beach a good location.
“Last year we had 92 contestants and we expect a good
turnout again,” he stated. Agate Beach is also ideal for
spectators.”
Cavanaugh encourages surfers to pre-register online at
www.newportsurfclassic.com. Fees
are $40, or $50 onsite. “We want to be sure we can accommodate
everyone,” he said. “Last year we had a huge boom of onsite
registrations, so we had to change a few heats at the last
minute.”
The competition is organized into the following divisions:
Youth 12 & Under (with or without parent), Stand Up Paddleboard
(non-age, non-gender), Junior Women 13-18 (long or shortboard), Men
19-49 (longboard), Pro/Am Men (shortboard), and Men 50+ in Honor of
Bear Club Legends (long or shortboard).
Each division is broken down into heats. Saturday’s schedule
will have sixteen 20-minute heats with four to six surfers per
heat. There are two preliminary rounds for each heat. Organizers
try to give surfers the most time available in the water to
demonstrate their skills. Second rounds give people the benefit of
competition, since conditions and sets vary. A competitor’s score
is a lump sum of their first two rounds.
I surfed in Newport a few times as a wayward Oregonian youth. I
saw some of the locals and while God blesses their hearts if you
go, enter, surf you will guaranteed* win. And you will be a
professional surfing champion for the rest of your life.
What is that worth to you?
*Margin of error is 50% in case you get eaten by a shark
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Jon Pyzel and Matt Biolos by
@theneedforshutterspeed/Step Bros
