Perverted sales pitch for Lost asymmetrical
surfboards…
This short is a sales pitch for Lost’s asymmetrical
surfboards, a design that’s been around even since daddy
was swapping wet kisses for milkshakes and hot butterscotch
fudge.
The theory is easy enough: a shorter rail on your heel side,
’cause we all tend to surf in the pocket on our backhand, and
longer on your toes ’cause we can’t help ourselves and run for
miles on the face.
I asked Biolos a year ago about ’em after Chas had been riding
an Asym from Album Surf in San Clemente.
“It was almost too much fun,” Chas wrote. “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! Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me I’m a dirty dirty bad
boy.”
In these instances, I call either Jon Pyzel or Matt Biolos for a
long-term view of any faddish design. Biolos said he’d made his
first one in 1993 but had avoided because of the necessity of
having boards in stock for natural footers and for goofies.
“Stores don’t want to have to double the amount of boards to
cover a size range,” said the Bear Jew. “I think it’s financially
daunting. Like glass-on fins are now. No one has the room to stock
them although I think they could sell.”
I get the theory, I said. But are they really, as one commenter
put it so eloquently, for people who like to go straight?
“Most of the ones you see these days are more about art or
‘Shock and Awe’. So it’s easy to say that and be cynical. But I
believe that statement is too broad and sarcastic. It’s just that
no one is really working on them in the competitive zone. The best
surfing I’ve seen on them is Ryan Burch, by a mile, so you know it
can be done. Someone like him could push them to more acceptance.
They can actually be made far more subtle and I think make turning
a bit more easy. The thing is that fringe, artsy shapers have
pushed them too extreme… We can make nice functional,
realistically proportioned asyms that work. Not quite the ‘Shock
and Awe’ monstrosities you see hype fed on Instagram but more for
function than fad.”
