Most of their boards are stuck together in some fucking third world sweat shop. For pennies on the dollar. where do you think your quick boardies are made? where is that cup that you latte is in from? face it unfortunalty the walmart generation has taken over Surfers are all about individuality. unless your name is christian fletcher, you are a clone! We build all kinds of weird things to surf on. Building a sponge has got to be a lot cheaper and easier than making a surfboard. They`re made of cheap packaging foam! its all foam, just depends on how you cook it
sean rot: you say (morey sells close to 4 million dollars of there gripper board, if you want to do the math the retail is 35 bucks it also includes a how two dvd that we here at rot produced, so take 35 into 4 million and y will be the amount of people who bought these boards, if 10 percent of those decide to continue you are gonna be crying)>>>where are all those morey grippers stuck together? where are mike stewart`s manufactured? how many morey grippers are custom for each rider?>>>why do they refuse to rap about any of this? ?>>> why do bodyboards all look like hot-waffled clones? why do other belly ride things have variety of shapes and consturction?>>>i read tom morey used to beleive in surfing advancement. why are sponges still the same (basically) after all these years?>>>most of those 10 percent will outgrow sponges. They move on up to real board surfing. THEN YOU THE ONE GONNA BE CRYING.
Custom bodyboards are most certainly a part of the bodyboarding scene today, but due to the relatively limited number of shapers out there, the prices for most bodyboarders (a relatively young demographic even when you throw fogies like myself into the mix) are prohibitive, just as most younger surfers buy off the rack sticks instead of bucking up for customs at their local surf shop. An off-the-shelf bodyboard will run from between $100 and $200 depending on materials and extras involved. A custom, hand-shaped bodyboard will run from $200 to almost $300 once all is said and done. I firmly believe that once the number of quality shapers increases, the cost will come down and more experienced riders will be able to develop their own shapes for their own special performance needs. This is what I’ve been riding as of late from Marcos over at Toobs up in Pismo: Nose: 13" Width: 21.5" @ 15" Length: 42.5" Tail: 18" Gullwing Standard Channels One-Piece Rolled Tail 8lb polyeth deck Polypro Core Single Stringer 60/40, two-piece rails I’ve tweaked the wide point, nose and length over the last three boards and I’m now just finding what works best for me. Needless to say, there’s definitely something about your own custom ride, eh?
Son of Fred, using Morey as the benchmark for bodyboarding is the same as using SurfTech as the benchmark of surfing.
iam 48 years old use to get bugged by body boarders till i saw a few at an insane spot near my home.All i can say is they have to be seen to be believed!!Rot --keep up the good work and right on!!!
first mentioning mike stewart and grippers in the same sentence, is putting words into my post that were not there. if you can tube ride better than mike let me knwo, id like to come watch you ride, maybe ill even paint a nice picture and call it surf art and you can buy it from some over priced surf gallery, mike makes his own boards, his site is www.mikestewart.com, he has a nice site with interesing concepts about place most surfers have not ridden, it s like how many supposed surfers can even tube ride? isnt this the cherry part of the wave everyone admires, funny that most surfers can only dream about it the grippers are all rapped together in shrink wrap, on a pallet from china? why do some many people drive the same brand suv? why does every surfer at creak lowers, rincon oxnard, ride the same board, let be realistic how often have you seen some donovan type riding experementing? sounds like you were an x patriot, who used to fly the flag of the boogie nation, hate the game not the players, i be stoked if everyone just decided to quit, then i could walk down to creak and have a solo session at point or rights all by myself at some point bodyboarders will stop being that percentage that converts to support the stand up nation, they may surf but buying there product may not be a priority and if they do hey, the can always get there hurleys at marshalls www.rotvideo
All of my bodyboards are handmande in morrow bay. More thought goes into them then any of the surfboards I have ever been on or had a hand in making. I have spent many hrs in the factory on the Westside of Santa Cruz building surfboards with some of the greatest longboard shapers of all time. Michele Junod, Jonny Rice, Randy French. All of them think I am nuts for riding a sponge but the truth is, besides the mass production coming out of Asia research and design is far and beyond surfboards. If Surftech used beaded polypro foam blanks instead of beaded polystyrene then Ratboy would be busting airs over the moon. We know more about materials then surfboard manufacturers do because we like plastic and nylon. Next time you think about the inside of a sponge think about the inside of your snowboards because it is all edge and flex. Not drive off of a fin setup. It is the composite of Chris Won Toloa’s stand up sponges that allow him to surf backdoor better then most of the pro surfers in hawaii. I am not being closed minded just the opposite, I ride everything, sticks, sponges, skims, and snowboards. Build things from the inside out and then maybe the surfboard shapers will be able to evolve past the generic templates that have reached every shper around the country. Nothing has changed in how surfboards are built. Except epoxy and that stuff sucks to ride. Evolution begins with an open mind. Look at Drop knee bodyboarding like a snowboarder carving and you might understand spongers and why they do what they do.
very well said!! when will the pedestrian diehards see beyond their narrow scope of the same basic stuff for the last 40 yrs?? You made a great point of flex and edge!! Too bad the surf population is focused on clothing, sunglasses and posing.The advances are few.greenough was riding a 1/2 inch board with flexible rocker over 35 yrs ago!No one rides the tube better than a bodyboard .Surfers are fashion posers and sheep and very conservative-- but they always look cool huh!!LOL
NCP- “Build things from the inside out”… that`s an excellent concept, one which I have trusted for over 30 years. The shorter a surfcraft is, and the wider its operating range, the more critical its dimensions. Every single inch (and fraction of) is important to the whole! The development of finless surfcraft carries this design philosophy to the logical extreme… all edges and flex. Having reached that point, it soon becomes clear there are a number of common characteristics shared between a variety of finless craft used for surfing… surfboards, bodyboards, kneeboards, paipos, surf mats, skimboards, kayaks, surf skis… and most basic: the human body. Then add the element of thoughtfully tuned, flexible design, and the act of wave riding becomes an entirely new experience.
With posts like this, its no wonder people are so retarded when it comes to the BBing world. Who ever started this post has no friggin clue and is completeley ignorant or just plain jealous that the BBing industry is getting bigger. Your gay ass fiberglass Tampon is made of the same shit minus the Fiberglass M&M candy ass coating. Our boards at least have Graphite composite stringers & we’re proud to be BBers. Your just a lame ass follower. Like it or leave it, its Gods water & if you care so much to post this obviously ignorant message, you have a serious personal issue. Even Big Man Kelly Slater supports us. We are the reason yall started airs retard. we are forcing yall to do more with our inverted 900’s & yall still think throwing buckets & cut backs are so great. Big whoop. Get used to us or whine & complain just like the surf community has for 20 fuckin years & guess what ? we’re still here And we’re older with Jobs & muscles we didnt have when we were 12. Chicks like our fins too. Learn!! Mind your own bees wax & learn to ride you 6 foot butt plug & leave us alone!
hey psycho-- Relax buddy body boards are cool with me.Some of us agree y with you!No need to get all angry! I hear shane Dorian is really into body boards?
Romo for a board??? only if you dont want it customized!
I haven’t seen a copy of ROT yet, but it sounds pretty intriguing. Does anyone else here remember all the innovative homegrown bodyboards that were built by a contingent up on The Ranch in the 70s? Michael Drury rode belly boards that Bradbury shaped for him, but I recall the Thomson brothers in particular, along with Jimmy Clifford, carving out all sorts of spacey shapes themselves, skinning them up in the morning and trying them out for hours in the afternoon until sunset. They’d do this day after day, and explore a variety of approaches really quickly–big ones, little ones, asymmetrical, everything. I don’t know where they got their materials back then, probably from Morey. I should call Joe Thomson and get him to clarify some of that history.
wow that is so cool early boogie development at the ranch, now that some lore that i would be interested in hearing? if you would like to pick up a copy of rotmag you can order it from the rot site www.rotvideo.com thanks Sean
Im sure I saw some esky lid guy in Australia who was supposedly making customs, dont remember what his name was or company, I think he was on the central NSW coast. But maybe custom just means the colours you want. There are alot of different bodyboard designs out there anyway Im not sure how much further they could really go as far as outlines ect. The bodyboard is a different creature to surfboards. There is no small wave bodyboard suitable for malibu and noosa, they seem to be suited to a hollow powerful wave. Nothing worse than seeing a snotboarder coming down the line and ripping a 360 cause the wave is fat. Maybe I dont know shit cause I only lid if there is a shorebreak these days anyway.
Beginning in the early 1970s I had no problem purchasing the core foam from common packaging materials warehouses... I think my first type was 220 Dow Ethafoam. I usually bought it in one or more planks of 2", 3", 4" thickness x 24" x 108". The secondary laminates were usually fine cell crosslinked polyethylene foams like Volara and Minicel, 1/8"-3/8" thick x however many yards I needed. I also purchased various densities of coarser cell polyethylene foam sheeting and vinyl skins. None of this stuff was expensive, and I never had to order industrial-size quantities. I used commonly available extruded fiberglass rods, hollow ABS and PVC tubing, Lexan sheeting, (even wound my own epoxy/fiberglass tapered tubes)... all for flexible internal skeletons. Ive said it before… compared to 30 years ago, its never been easier to experiment and build your own bodyboards than now... there are a multitude of interesting (many unrelated) materials from which to choose, and a number of ways to work with them. A world of information and communication is at anyones fingertips through the internet. Based on that, years ago the stage was set for a widespread backyard design and builders renaissance. What happened? Suppose someone showed up at a major bodyboard contest and tried to enter a self-made design? What if it was of comparable size, but having a completely different bottom/rail, weight and internal configuration? What if it was faster, perhaps more maneuverable, or just had a better feel? What if it was a sure-seller, but couldnt be mass-produced in a cost-effective manner? Or what if it was? What would happen if each entrant in that contest rode something completely different? There should always be a venue for both mass-produced equipment and custom one-offs. Its long been my opinion that whats lacking in flexible foam prone craft on a personal level is not: raw stoke, a high level of athleticism, internet/media publicity, availability of good surf spots, cost of materials, difficulty of tooling and construction, or degree of craftsmanship… Its the inherent freedoms and curses of a non-conformist attitude to dream, build and ride your own ideas. Some better, some worse. Sure, thats not for everybody. But it`s where the bodyboard originated. The fun of discovery, the IMAGINATION TO CREATE.
Dale, did you ever contact any of the top riders of the day and ask even One to ride your boards in a contest ? I would be more then happy to try one of your tri planes I personally am extremely easy on bodyboards ( havent creased a board in 10+ years last proto i built is still uncreased after 5 years useage) and would happily return the board to you after a breif test . i could even make sure it found its way into the hands of a top rider who could also review it and we would use it in one of our board reviews (cant make promises about how gentle they would be ). i know its alot to ask . I think a strong parralel could be drawn to the car industry the production tactics and efforts to build one of your tri planes is similar to the difference between an f1 car and a stock honda but realisticly in auto racing the stock honda has no place on a race track there is no upper level of board that the pros use and a different level for the ave joe. perhaps if someone had a board that was so magic that it gave them a decided advantage the rest of the bodyboard industy would have to step up with advances to stay competative. there is another extension to this argument that will be heavily featured in my next ROT article but i cant let the cat out of the bag just yet Dale i know you know what im talking about but please keep a wrap on that part of the argument till i can get the story out. On too another line of thoughts here that may not be so popular on a design forum but here goes anyway. [smile] i have long told surfers that one of the great things about bodyboarding is that the board has remaind relativly unchanged ! where they have to adjust to a new board on each purchase. each sponge i buy feels like the last, many years of riding the same board makes me very confident in what im riding. while there has been an evolution towards a more paipo like craft with stiffer materials over the years the evolution has been so slow I never noticed it. the basic design of a boomerang hasent changed alot in a few thousand years only the materials have changed its simple it works and theres not a whole lot of modifications that can be done with out it not being a boomerang anymore thinner or thicker different sizes and materials are all you can do and have it still be what it is. now if there was a boomerang contest and it was judged in the same way that surfing contests are and you brought in a different model with space age properties of flex ect it may have some advantages but unless it preforms at a same range of difference thata a stock honda has compared to an f1 car it may not be alot of advantage if it flys almost exactly like the old school rangs you would need to have one of the top guys get really used to it to see the advantage. alot of what seperates the pro rider from the novice is the ability to exploit a craft to its limits . to the novice some of the manuvers done by the pros seems like magic just like some of the stories I hear things i have seen about George on mats seem unbeliveable to me . its becaseu i have no idea of the limits of the craft and how to manipulate it properly to get the most out of each situation… mats are even better then bodyboards for this in that the mat seems to have no loss of preformance with time the materials do not break down and crease like a bodyboard or surfboard. I feel i have plenty of time to learn my mat maybe my whole life since the limits are so high and the learning curve being what it is. at least the mat will not keep changing desighn and feel under me and confusing the issue ! the mat changes shape and flex per my manipulations anyway so its almost like riding 1000 boards at one time anyway just some food for thought James
Another discusion i had with Sean last night on this subject . whats really wrong with the industry ? Lets see here i can go down to walmart and pick up a board for 35 dollars that is with in 7/10s of anything the pros ride walmart mentality and chinese production have done wonders for bringing the price of the entry level board down to the lowest price possible (take a look at this eye poping walmart article http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/77/walmart.html to get an idea of some of the enourmous pressures walmart can exert on a company like morey etc). love it or hate it the fact remains the mass produced gripper is alot of board for the money… at the same time the signature line type bodyboard the Mike Stewert line of products falls well into this catagory as do 99.999% of all respected boards riden by top level riders is doing fairly well. the walmart boards thankfully havent killed the market. what they have done is narrowed the gap between the products and increased the gap on the price. still walmart boards are for kids who drag the board by the leash down the beach and the good riders ride the higher profit margin boards for the companys and seem satisfied at the level of construction preformance and price. for the rare individual who demands coustem boards as long as you stay within the range of construction materials availible at most board houses you can have someone like coustem x or west coast bodyboards make you up a sweet coustem at roughly the same price as a signature and get aas wild as you want with your templates sort of reminds me of the car world actually mass produced hondas for the masses porsches and ferraris mcclarens for the discerning and still the ability to buy a hot coustem street rod for similar price to a new vette or have one made to your wildest dreams for a price similar to a top level production car. this could be a perfect world in some peoples eyes [smile] James
I totally agree. Its a problem having boards like that out onb the market. Walmarts product isnt exactly what BBing is all about. But unfortunately that is what alot of people see when then hear “Boogie Borad”. A whamo junk toy. Stand ups are starting to feel the pains of this now & hopefully will soon understand the plight of the BBer when these weirdo cheap plastic & foam surf boards become the next mainstream toy on the market at Costco. We see them already especially since the release of Blue Crush. We get a whole brigade of newbes who wanna spend big bucks on Billabong bakinis & hop out in everyones way with a cheap “waveRipper” plastic board or we have a guy we call Rockaway Kook becuase he just doesnt try to understand the rules of the water & flops around rediculasly on his yellow foam 7 foot surfboard. Maybe this is a way for the surf industry to finally understand why BBing is so pationate & why we are so pizzed about everything. We all Surf and we are equally talented, we just need something to help out our sport. This stereotypical view of BBers being lil kids splashing in the white wash needs to end. Paipo surfing came 1rst, Surfboards came about 100 years later. Bodyboards werent always Faom just like Surfboards werent always Fiberglass. Everytime you say nut draggers & put down, your just contributing to damaging any surf related sport or hobby. Surfing is Surfing we just do this with Different vehicles, like skiers & snowboarders do, sharing the same environment for an equally fun & talented sport. To argue about this is purley a personal problem & people who defend the seperation are only acting predjudace to make themselves look more like a better surfer than they probably are. Only in the USA is our sport so segragated. Its sad & pitifull. Unity can only help either sport for the better.
Psycho, you make some great points perhaps now that our surfing brethren are experiencing the walmartization of their sport and with the new blue crush factor. also multiply this times the fact all the bagging on boogies all these years has made bodyboarding so “UNCOOL” [smile]. now look at all the blue crush newbies on pop outs. [smile] makes the bodyboarders seem hardcore now as a group [smile] I think realy the entry level board is not as bad as we believe it to be the last ones i looked at at walmart were suprisingly decent reminded me of an older mach 7 type as far as stiffness template etc. If they could bring the price of a pop out surfboard down to 70$ and it preformed as good as the ave board from circa 1985, would that be a bad thing? I suppose it depends on if you see more people getting into surfing as a casual activity as good or not. Certainly the larger the base of ave joes who flounder the more highly regarded the profesional surfer will be in status. 35 million homes tuning into the pipeline finals might make some impact on our sport. do we want surfing to grow ? die a lil more or stay the same ? To me it seems now that the newbies are not on bodyboards all the bodyboard only spots have had alot of pressure taken off of them never seen the blackballs as empty as they were this year. [smile] Soul