Too embarrassed to be seen on a fish, hybrid or mid? Matt Biolos and Cheyne Horan say they've got a solution.
On a cool spring evening in San Clemente, California, the celebrated American shaper Matt Biolos, wearing a t-shirt proclaiming ORGASMS FOR SALE OR TRADE, pushes the green button of his portable phone and responds to a request to explain his pivot to Geoff McCoy and Cheyne Horan’s small-wave cheat code from 1980.
Geoff McCoy, described so poetically by Matt Warshaw as “creative, intense, cocksure” is best-known, of course, for the Lazor Zap design, a tear-drop shaped surfboard with a big ass and a needle dick that Cheyne Horan rode to consecutive world title runner-up finishes in 1981 and 1982.
Biolos, fifty-five-ish, I forget the exact date of his birthday but I know he was born in the same year that birthed the Manson Murders, My Lai revelations, Altamont, Woodstock, Chappaquiddick, and the Stonewall Riots, first saw Cheyne Horan zapping hither and yon on the McCoys at the Op Pro, which Cheyne won, in 1982.
Biolos describes himself as a “raw newbie” back then but knew enough about surf culture to see the effect Cheyne and the Lazor Zap had on southern Californian surfing.
“It seemed like everything that was going on from that summer of ’82 was all coming off of Cheyne and the Lazor Zap: all the small-wave boards of Newport Beach, Huntington, big old tails and crazy airbrushes. All the ads in the magazines and (Quiksilver’s) Echo Beach was all inspired by Cheyne’s Lazor Zap and Cheyne. Blond hair, blue eyes, tan, movie star looks and the wildest and most shocking boards.”
Clearly, Biolos had to have one and bought a knock-off shaped by Jim Fuller for Seaski for one hundred dollars. It was quickly followed by a Jeff Parker-shaped Wave Tools, which was a thruster version of the Lazor Zap.
Over the years, Biolos has toyed with versions of the Lazor Zap, an early version for Lost was the Flash Back, “a double bump, butt-tail kinda thing with a beak nose” and the newer Rad Ripper which was an ode to the eighties but more refined than the McCoy Lazor Zap.
Anyway, Biolos has known Cheyne Horan for thirty years, met him in the nineties at a mutual pal’s joint in Hawaii, and when Cheyne, now sixty-four, asked him if he could help him get set-up in San Clemente to shape a bunch of customs, Biolos told him they should do a little collaboration. Lost-Mark Richards twins have been walking out the door of surf shops at a fine clip since the early two thousands.
“He was ecstatic over the idea,” says Biolos. “We sat side by side, he had a file, none of his files are super refined, he doesn’t do ’em himself, he gets his shapes scanned, but he’s a hands-on designer and incredibly creative. We took my Rad Ripper and I let him tell me what to do. I was the back-seat driver. We widened the tail, double wings, we turned it into a multi-fin Lazor Zap bastard child called the Rad Zapper.”
Biolos says Cheyne, “bullied me around. Deeper double concave! Softer rails!” but that he, in turn, anchored Cheyne in reality.
The pair have been surfing Lowers together and Biolos has been struck by the unique formation of his body and the effect it has on his surfing and, by extension, his surfboard.
“He has tree trunks for legs and a super low square stance. He surfs with his knees bent at a right angle. He jumps up and his legs are bent perfectly square and his butt is down the same level as his knees. He has so much power and torque. Really likes thick tails with no rocker and lots of drive.”
Matt Biolos’ Rad Zapper of choice is a six-two, almost 22 inches wide, maybe two-and-a-half thick and coming in at a stately forty-two litres.
“In tiny, broken-up sloppy waves it’s really easy to go fast and do turns and, for me, it’s the only pointed nose shortboard that I can ride in crowded California surf. It gets me off a fish or a hybrid or a mid-length. I’m paddling around with a little twelve-inch nose under my chest.”
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It ain’t the sorta craft you’re gonna ride when it’s good, but when it’s small, “it planes at a really low speed and the tail is so wide you can stand on it and it just goes.”
Matt Biolos says he was talking to Chas Wickwire, one of his shapers, and telling him how surprised he was to be catching so many waves on a narrow-nose six-two, as many waves he says he would’ve got on a fatty six-eight mid.
Chas explained that all that lift in the tail combined with the little nose means the wave pushes the tail up and the little nose goes down, almost pearling, and all that lift throws you into gear.
Biolos says it gives surfers a choice of buying something other than a fish or a “super fat biscuit shaped hybrid” or, yeah, the mids.
“It keeps you on a pointy nose performance outline looking shortboard.”
That is, it ain’t embarrassing to carry down the beach as a wide-beaked, beta-male hybrid, the surfing equiv of a White Dudes for Kamala t-shirt.
An interesting side note: Cheyne has been visiting stores, there’s two dozen Rad Zappers signed by Cheyne out there, so if you find one, it’s a rare bird, and Biolos says he’s been stunned by how many people have never heard of the four-time world title runner up.
“People know Mark Richards but they don’t know who Cheyne Horan is. They were so intertwined. Like, what? Wow. He’s been relegated to the back waters of history. And he’s still vital, immersed in the community and hanging out with everyone. Really involved and bright eyed.”
