Nothing personal, but flex feels cool! Dunno, but I had sum great rides on a flexible wood stringer pu foam board - that’d change a non-believer into a believer. A little flex feels more lively to ! Not to mention, you hit chop and glide through and the flex acts like a shock absorber…
Hi Kieth,
I’m an old guy, I rode other’s boards for 35 years before making my own. I’ve just never felt the snap back on a board. I’ve never felt the snap back on swim fins either. Or anything flexing against a fluid.
But don’t get me wrong. Engineered flex can be everything in creating an “Active Rocker”. But in my humble opinion, a flexing surfboard doesn’t store energy.
Flex.
The final frontier.
Some like it,
some don’t.
Traditional Basswood stringer.
Incide Blank. Carbon Fiber inner stringer.
These are stringerless. Epoxy glue lines & higher density colored foam. Somewhere between the other two.
Flex is in. Tell all your friends.
Agreed- on a well made stringerless board have had similar experience.
Midget is a legend and has done amazing things to surfing. And I’m going to get smashed saying this.
Midget’s main business is selling blanks and he’s quoting about a new style of blank.
Would love to know if his guys have tested the blanks in question to see if they are “snakeoil salesman” or are valid options?
1970s… ‘crystal voyager’
the footage of greenough at lennox , and hollow ‘sandspit’.
watched in slow motion
… definately worth a look.
fast forward to …
…‘nowadays’ …alaia stuff , with derek hynd , tom weggener , and a host of others
…michael mackie flextail fishes
…mitchell rae flextails
ditto
To all those in the pro flex camp , is what you are feeling flex ? how do you know ? can you see it flex when you are riding it ? We can show a board flexes on land just by putting it across two supports and applying weight , but is that the same as when the whole board is being pressed into the wave ? Again in my opinion a flex y board would quickly self destruct , the outer shell would crack and weaken rapidly loosing that flex , a wood , balsa , board on the other hand would not lose its flex as long as it was not damaged but I dont think a solid or near solid , chambered , board would flex when surfed . As an observation wood boards feel different when surfed as do , pu , eps , dow blue , surftech type boards . Want a flex y board get a cosco foam board now that flexes , no shell , not the choice of the pros either .
Does your board float? If so then it’s corky and crap. Similar argument judging by your post. There are many different ways to build surfboards, you can’t lump them all together.
any engineered flex in a surfboard will never return the same amount of energy, that’s used to induce said flex…flex sheds speed and energy…the only real advantage I can see is that the board will be less prone to snapping , than if it were stiff…I suspect the problems lie in the glassing process because of this constant dead end obsession with ultra-light surfboards.
Nice sting Barry! IMO flex is a personal choice. 80% of surfers dont surf enough to tell any difference. If you dont ride a custom order your just a target for hype. Everysurfer is on the money on too much flex, no, no,no.not good
Funny you mention the foamy costco boards. Years ago I was without a board when the waves came up and the local shop let me borrow one of their soft rental boards. It was actually really fun flexing this thing through turns. Being a 200# surfer the thing really was flexing. I was using the rails and flex of the board to turn. Really cool feeling. As someone else mentioned Deric Hynd’s experimentation coupled with flexible tails does have merit.
My 5-board quiver burned up in a housefire (1979-1980), only my 9-8 Nuuhiwa noserider survived under a bed. I wanted a board I could surf a crowded pier break with without worrying about hurting somebody who cut me off or who paddled out through the take-off zone. I saw one on a surf trip to the west coast (1978), looked like fun, so I bought a 7-6 Morey-Doyle (polyethylene core, eva skin, glass skeleton) in late 1980 early 81. I tried one modern softboard in SD at OB (2006), it was a piece of sh!t.
**It flexed (you could see it); **I could run down any 6-2 glassed board at the pier or outrun whitewater; it could make steep near free-fall drops; it could do things I did not think were possible; it was light and it was good for daily wave count. The most “fun” board I had ever owned for 3-8 foot face – I rode it for 10 years:
747 wings. Yeah OK. Another analogy: A bird’s wings flex to provide propulsion,and maneuverability,
Regarding surfboards; Most of the flex in the tail is returned. To the voice of moderation; The quicker the flex return the better.
This debate reminds me of people who say they prefer heavy boards,having NEVER ridden a similar shape in a lighter version. 99% of the pros want lightness and flex/return (Excluding the longboard circut.)
sickdog
I have a Morey Doyle. Single fin, 8’. It isn’t “light” at all. When I get a chance I’ll weigh it. I use it as a loaner for friends who want to just paddle around, but don’t know how to surf.
I also have a 7’ BZ that’s more recent. It’s one of the thinner ones from a few years ago. Not as thick and blobby as the current ones. It really bends like hell when you turn and requires more energy/effort to crank it around. When folks ask how it rides I say it “turns like a three-legged dog.” I have it for riding cetain rocky spots when it’s really small, and also use it at a beach that doesn’t allow surfboards. I created a “loophole” that the lifeguards agreed to. I bought the eight footer for the same reasons, then upgraded.
I would think that when you loaded up a board with flex, you would increase the rocker leading to a quicker turn. Interesting.
Thickness can significantly affect flex. Too much flex can be a bad thing.
My recollection is it was light compared to the boards I had been riding before I bought it. At one point, I rode a 5-6 twin (hollow) before the MD, a bit looser. But I did not have any problems with off lip re-entries or hard cranking leans on the MD. I liked the flex too. It was an easy and fun board to ride and a good wave catcher. I was 28 and weighed about 185 at the time.
Aside: I had seen a contestant surfer (on TV) lean out almost flat to the wave face on a bottom turn, arm in the water to his shoulder, and pivot turn. To my surprise as well as that of other surfers present, the same happend for me on a small wave, arm in up to my shoulder, then into a tight off-the-lip re-entry, riding the 7-6 Morey Doyle.
I had the respect of local surfers. I remember one day at the pier with a very fast breaking long right and short shoulder-hop lefts (toward) the pier. A local competitive surfer kept lining up on my right going left and I was going right. I told him we could solve the problem if we switched places and he stayed to my left. He told me, “You cannot make those rights.” I said, “Maybe you cannot but I can.” And I did, many times, on the MD.
I liked the flex and the way it rode – fun. No wax, no sore sternum/ribs, no dings soaking up water. I never could find a BZ – they looked like mini-mals to me. I would buy another 7-6 MD if they still made them – it was not a mini-mal.
I am sure modern performance boards are capable of much more. But, I had many memorable days on the MD. Ride what you like …
BTW gotta love the Prince Valiant hair style in 1981, LMAO.
Changing rocker with changing centrifugal/centripetal acceleration was my theory about the MD performance I experienced …
I have been surfing stringerless eps boards with carbon springers on the botton for the last year and a half and I clearly feel them come out faster and seamless out of turns.
Flex is an elusive concept, not grasped by convensional science. It can however be bought, especially from handshapers who claim to possess exeptional flex.
groovy man, right on
Northern Shores,
Flex might be an elusive concept if you never really gave it some thought, but mechanical propreties of different materials and technics used to build surfboards can certainly be felt by surfers and not only the pros.