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Heaven ’11
We know it’s going to be a good year. Swells will come, the sun will shine and 365 days will see us all smiling.
To help you maximise grin-time in 2011, we’re showing you this month how to go about picking the best in boards for your needs and why Classic Malibu, through its decades of experience and mastery of manufacture, is a brand you can trust.
Also, just in case those three days we’ll have this year of no waves get too much for you, we’re bringing you the latest additions to the CM quiver, Sector 9 skateboards. Now there’s no excuse for a day to pass when you’re not carving it up.
This Issue:
Sidewalk Surfing –
I once went to the doctor complaining of a gammy wrist. I explained I had been skateboarding with my son and had tweaked it somehow. Referring back to my records, the doctor looked up with a grin and said, “You’re a little old to be skateboarding aren’t you?!”
Well, to hell with the quacks – you’re NEVER too old!
Take Your Pick –
With a swathe of options out there, it can be hard knowing which way to go when selecting your next board. With a quiver of demos, we offer a ‘try-before-you-buy’ deal, but here we provide a check list of things to help you pick a stick that’s going to give you what you need.
What It Takes –
Around 80 years’ combined experience goes into our boards, and that is what sets them apart. The Silver Fox, Peter White has 45 years under his belt and ensures that his team have the experience to maintain the quality he demands. Here’s what it takes to be a Team CM craftsman.
Your Choice
It’s a hard call, choosing your next board. Thick, thin, big, small, one fin, four fins…it’s a minefield of quandaries…
We’re all for making your life easier, so here are a few pointers to making your decision.
- Home Base: Where better to start than right at home? Think about the waves you ride most frequently and what the board will need to cope with. Long point waves lend themselves to flatter boards, so a more traditional longboard or an egg or fish may be your match. If beachbreaks are more your usual, increase the rocker or reduce the length to cope with steeper, quicker waves. Also, reduce fin volume with a dolphin fin, 2-plus-1 or maybe a quad setup rather than keels.
- All About You. How fit are you? What level is your surfing at? How tall or heavy are you? These will all make a difference to the features of your boards. And be honest. Lying about those extra pounds accrued over Christmas will only have you floundering on a board without enough float.
- What’s Your Poison? How do you surf? It’s a slightly obscure question but one that must be addressed if you’re going to get the most out of your purchase. This is partly a question of talent, whether you need to lean toward stability over manoeuvrability. Look at your preferred mannerisms; whether you like to surf off the tail or trim on the nose, hit it top to bottom or flow down the line.
Future-Present: Whatever you’re riding at present will have some baring on your future board. Even if you vehemently detest your current board, those foibles and shortcomings will show you what is required in your next purchase.
If paddling is a problem, think less rocker and more volume. Constantly nosediving? Go for shorter or a more refined nose. And bring your old board in. That way, we can assess where you’re at, what you need and what would be best to replace or compliment your existing quiver.
Where You Wanna Go?: A surfboard is for life, not just for Christmas. Have a good think about the direction you wish your surfing to go over the lifespan of your next board. Buying a board that will suit you now may inhibit you in the future. Likewise, if you’re soon to be moving to an area of mellow point waves, there’s little point throwing money away on a 2″ thick wafer.
If you’re looking to advance your surfing, lean toward a board that may be a little trickier to start with but will eventually cater to your improving skills.
Make It Pretty: As we’ve said before, if you’re going to get a board, make it yours.
Okay, it’ll make absolutely no difference to the performance whatsoever, but individualising your board will make it unique and something to be proud of. Colours, designs, artwork, logos – we can even do a full-length, high resolution photograph if you want.
And to bring you a little smile come July 1st, we can even recreate your business identity, so you can really make the most of those board meetings!
Next Month: We’re leaving this one up to you. Email us now with requests or ideas of where we may go with our next 101…you could be rattled about rails, niggled by noseriding, ruminating on rocker or clueless on quivers. Whatever it may be, give us a holler and, if we haven’t already covered it, we’ll give you our advice and assistance. Email Now
Classic Malibu
Cnr Gibson & Eumundi Rd
Noosaville
QLD 4567
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Newsletter
:: January ’11 ::
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Sidewalk Surfing
On the flat spells that plague us at this time of year, there is nothing worse than sitting at home, land-locked and unable to enjoy that glorious swoop-and-glide of trimming down a glassy wall of water.
The solution is at hand.
Sector 9 Skateboards have been in the business for many years, sponsoring skateboarders, surfers such as Joel Tudor and Dave Rastovich and even folk-didge maestro, Xavier Rudd.
They have their performance boards, made for skateparks and bone-breaking antics, but we’ve opted for the more leisurely end of the spectrum, specifically selecting a range designed for cruising and styling when the swell isn’t running, after dark, even to go see the bank manager!
Fun, versatile, easy-going. These boards have those traits in spades, bringing sidewalk surfing back to those who had skate-fever first time around. So don’t let age stand in the way of fun. Here we introduce you to a couple of the models we are now stocking, but better still, come in and meet the whole team.
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The Little Ripper:
Yes, we said we weren’t venturing into the performance side, but this is about as versatile as a board can get.
Its diminutive length gives the Raglan Model excellent manoeuvrability, even capable of taking on the local ramp or park, but equally adept at gliding down the street with pure soul.
Its pocket-sized dimensions also make it a convenient one to keep in the back of the car for those sneaky little post-surf sessions around the car park and easy for a younger skater to handle.
Wider trucks (that’s what they call the axles, for you not in the know!) and soft wheels give a nice, smooth ride and gliding turns, rather than the teeth-chattering rattlings of more conventional skateboards.
Maybe more suited to the offspring, but definitely worth sneaking out of their closets for a cheeky ride when they’re not looking! |
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Cruiser:
The Bert Pintail is all style. Designed for flatland cruising or downhill bombing, it’s the perfect vehicle for nipping down the shops or checking the surf. Just shy of four feet long, she’s a biggie, but the wide trucks and narrower width makes it easy on manoeuvring.
Stability can be increased with a swift tightening of the trucks, so you won’t even spill your latte as you cruise the pavements.
A 9-ply construction also reduces flew and adds strength, and in doing so pretty much burns all your excuses for not buying yourself one, regardless of your seniority!
Big enough to even practice your noseriding and cross-stepping, you could almost class this as your very own longboard trainer, perfect for refining your drop-knee turns when the waves are fickle.
The larger diameter wheels also mean you won’t be grinding to a halt at the slightest bump or pebble, so skin-loss is minimal and fun is maximised!
Keeping you young, giving you fun and a 100% emissions-free, eco-friendly mode of transport, this is the board to invest in whether you’re begging mum and dad or want to share it with your own kids (or even grandkids). Just make sure you get two, because once you’ve tried it out, there won’t be a whole heap of sharing going on…
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What It Takes
- The Making Of A Team - |
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Pedigree can’t be bought, experience isn’t merely a matter of the right qualifications and quality can’t be created by a novice.
These are the prerequisites of a Classic Malibu employee and without which our boards would not be made.
All of our staff have a tale of their own, but as far as their acceptance into our elite team is concerned, they each have a certain collection of skills that make them worthy of a CM shaper, glasser or sander.
PW:
 Peter White is our head hombre, chief quality controller, soul interview panelist, coach, guru and tea maid all rolled into one suave, diminutive, devastatingly handsome package.
Peter’s shaping has taken him across the globe, plying his trade under the tutelage of and alongside some of surfing’s greats: Dick Brewer, George Rice, Bill Wallace, Bob Cooper. In his 45 years behind the plane, he has crafted everything from nipper boards to Hawaiian guns, Greenough-style kneeboards to traditional logs. The high performance in both long and short is his forte, but his consummate knowledge and skills give him the ability to shape any board precisely to an individual’s requirements.
George Rice allowed Peter, through their long term friendship and his knowledge of Peter’s attention to detail, the license to his shapes and name. Since that time, Peter has shaped many of George’s original models. At last year’s Noosa Festival of Surfing, Rice was rendered speechless at the quality of work, finally, with a lump in his throat, saying that they were so close to his original shapes that it were as if someone had brought one of his own creations back from the past.
In Pete We Trust – the talent and comprehensive knowledge that Peter has been fortunate and skilful enough to attain over his years has given his team utter faith with the assurance that, regardless of the board on the order sheet, what comes out of his shaping bay will be exceptional.
Whitey:
Peter’s No.1 son Brett has been integral to the business for almost as long as he could paddle himself into a wave. Now the CM sander, Brett is a veritable gold mine of information on everything from fixing dings and setting fins to the shaping of his favoured high performance mals.
As 2002 Australian Open champ, Brett’s experience spans both sides of the shaping room door and, as his own, most critical test pilot, he has been able to draw directly from his superior surfing ability into his shaping. A genetic predisposition has made Brett’s blood thick with resin and a lifetime under Peter’s tutelage has given him knowledge and skills to rival, if not better, any of his generation.
The Pom:
 It may seem unusual having a Brit in our ranks, but those outdated opinions of the English surf scene are these days unfounded.
Jake Bowrey has been surfing proper since the age of 13, juvenile dabblings in the frigid Atlantic waves notwithstanding. Shaping his first board at the age of 16, Jake quickly progressed over the next two years to shaping semi-professionally. Founding his own shortboard label in 2005, Jake came to us with a consummate knowledge of every aspect of manufacture, having been the sole employee of his label.
Glassing has become Jake’s great strength and his knowledge has expanded exponentially in his two and a half years with us. Now adept at coloured resin work and all manner of fabric and fibreglass patches, Jake is the go-to man when it comes to getting the colour and finish you desire in a board.
Polished:
Adam Hobson came to us from a background of epoxy, working for Burleigh Heads company, Dolphin Surfcraft. Having been a ding repairer for Nirvana Surfboards for many a-while, Adam worked for Dolphin for eight years. A qualified panel-beater and spray-painter, he already had the foundations of a craftsman. So when he came to CM a little over a year ago, we threw him behind a sander and he immediately justified his place on the team. Added to which, we now have an in-house epoxy expert, so SUPs, nipper boards and epoxy repairs are all well within our talented capabilities.
So there you have it – at CM we’re far from a bunch of have-a-go novices and you can have the confidence that any board you may get, off the rack or custom, has had skill, experience and tried-and-tested knowledge poured into it by the bucketload.
Next Month: New Talent: Fresh to the stable of CM riders, Sunshine Coaster, Nic Jones, is making ripples on our equipment. The young gun is a rare talent among his peers, and with motivation, passion and dedication each by the bucket-load, he is a rookie destined to go a long, long way |
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