Should you be on an asymmetrical board? Should we all be?
Swell arrived in southern California yesterday for the first time in 1037 days and crowds descended upon my local breaks like a rabid horde. Men drooling and jabbering while forgetting how to parallel park. Women decapitating each other with 9 foot longboards. It was madness. Out of control. But I had a job to do and neither cockamamie Jeep Patriot nor fiberglass guillotine could stop me.
I had to properly gauge the value of asymmetrical surfboards for all of humanity.
Around a month ago, maybe even more, David Lee Scales of SurfSplendor fame and I met in San Clemente at Album Surf for our regular chat. Album was one of the finer surf shops/shaping arenas that I have ever seen. Very well appointed and worth your stopping by.
In any case, Album does many asymmetrical boards and had never quite understood the concept thinking the boards were meant to go right or go left. Matt, Album’s owner/operator gently set me straight. You can listen here or let me quickly summarize. Asymmetrical boards are shaped around the idea that surfers don’t surf the same frontside as they do backside. Frontside has toes facing the wave. Backside has heels. I am a regular footed man so the right rail is longer and the right side also has one giant twin fin. The left rail is shorter and the left side has a mini quad set up.
Very interesting but would it work?
I surfed it very often in tiny waves, having much fun but not being able to gauge it properly. It felt both looser (going right) and stiffer (going left) and I thought I might really like it… maybe.
And then 1239 days later swell hit and I risked life and limb for an accurate assessment.
I paddled around loosened funboards, careening though the whitewash like dumb bombs. I sat in a pack of 346 hungry souls. And I somehow got a wave. And here is what I think. The way the asymmetrical board is built makes it virtually impossible to not have your back foot right in the sweetspot over the fins. I didn’t fully realize how much this matters until I was wrap-around carving like I’ve never wrap-around carved before. The board… responded. And responded beyond my ability. Going backside it felt like it locked in the pocket without even a stray pump. Just sliding down and straight in and fast.
It was almost too much fun and now I am confused. Are these feelings I’m having wrong? These emotions impure? No one but no one had an asymmetrical board but me and none of us were surfing pumping Snapper. We were surfing a high tide bogged long interval swell. Perfect for racing and bobbing and weaving. No?
Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me I’m a dirty dirty bad boy.
In the meantime, I am getting another asymmetrical to try out because it feels like the key to me getting on the WQS as a 40-year-old man. The feel-good story of the decade!
More to come.
uh oh! hipster detected! soon you’ll have a historically accurate 30 pound 9’8″ noserider, a 69′ style midget-inspired v-bottom, a 7’6″ liddle pointbreak displacement hull, a 6’9″ 70’s-esque coffin-streaker alex knost semigun, a traditional 4’11” fish, etc., etc., and no biolos thrusters in sight. for shame!
Asyms are dumb. Just stop going backside. Problem solved. I haven’t even looked at a left for like three years. My backside surfing has become flawless, in a way.
Not going left is like chopping off an arm.
yes but think of how strong your remaining arm becomes.
Haha; good point.
Or they could just give us their entry fee money and we could go drinking.
I see a Stab in the Arse MkII on the horizon;
Pros ride seemingly normal tri fins rigged to become asymmetrical boards once they hit the water. Dane Reynolds rips the bag out of everything, gets 20 second tubes and proclaims each board is craptasic until they point out he’s been riding a new line of asymmetrical board by CI at which point he proclaims “oh yeah I knew that one was one of Al’s. That one was awesome”. The magnificent bastard he is.
Well it might make a good cartoon anyway.
At least it’s got the millennial factor
YES YES YES
Asymmetrical boards are fitting for Chaz since he is asymmetrical: one side straight, the other side gay.
DO IT!
Ha ha, you will enjoy it for a few months then get the shits and realise all it is doing is compensating for technical flaws in your surfing which will eventually re-assert themselves like, I don’t know, annoying pets.
Then you will return to symmetrical surfing equipment, find a good board, and wonder what that was all about.
Cynicism delivered in a bitter pill.
Well it is interesting to wonder how many great waves have been ridden on accidentally asymmetric boards. But I don’t think they really do anyone any favours.
I think I just heard Chas unrolling his left (the People) pant leg. Folks know.
Dig that funky shit! It’s nice to see people waking up to new board experiences.
To the topic at hand, I ride exclusively a Deus Machina retro, its definitely asymmetric – at Cloudy it’s just so good. I dress in Deus gear as well…xxs
You told us a month ago that Negatron would return? What happened, did the passion wear off and he reconsidered the empty promises of some form of financial reward?
Compassionate leave. I pray for his return every single damn day.
Could have been me bringing a bit of neggy trolling on IG.
Chas those pants though….
WTF happened to the peach moccasins are they binned already??
I had an asymmetrical board once. More to do with the shaper’s drug habit, but it went well.
Nezzy makes em all the time inadvertantly I assume….
I mean really all boards are asym. Even the computer has like a .080cunthair off one way (so I’ve heard from several people with aku machines) I get it,but you don’t see alpine skiers with different sized blades…
We’ve all been there!
Yeeew
It’s an asymmetrical fish. I think the outline, rocker, and foil contributed to the fun just as much as the asymmetry. At least you’re finally opening your eyes to the fact that there’s more to surfing than uni-use, “wave humping if it’s not pumping,” shortboards (you know, “pump, pump, lame snap, pump, pump, lame kick out”).
I thought asymm’s were like double deep fried chicken. I screwed up on this blank and I have to figure out how to sell it.
At least it’s not a mid-length egg.
Don’t blaspheme.
Curious,what do you think of effective mini egg kinda bonzers. I’m not going to lie I’ve been fucking with them and I’m a bit scared,cuz they fly?
I’m not Taylor Knox, I’m sure they would be useless for me. Like most surfboards then, I guess.
I’ve got a 5’4 “egg-ish” shape twin and its supersonic.
I am asymm curious, for reals. I few people have flirted with them around here, but not stayed on ’em. So maybe fun? Idk.
Nice homage to Marion from In the House with that pant leg… stylin’…
Height of one pant leg directly correlates with amount asymmetrical skew. I learned that in year 9 maths or he’s so f’d in the head he thinks he’s going back to Cali even though he’s already there https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
I also used to have to ride my bicycle like that to keep my jnco’s from being caught in that spoke.
Do we cross swords in Pismo this very next month, Chas?! I do believe we should.
my Lord is there a QS in Pismo? The town with more Bakersfieldians than exist in all of Bakersfield? That out SoCals the worst parts of SoCal?
Yes! A prestigious 1000!
Will they let me ride an egg? I’ll enter. Wait, do I actually have to surf Pismo though? Could I surf the pretend-good reef up the road instead?
This is Devon Howard.
My treat at Moondoggies!
When exactly is it? I’ll come spectate if I’m in the neighborhood.