Senior Editor
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The board that surfing's souliest surfer just designed for Firewire seems to hit all the marks.

The board that surfing’s souliest surfer just designed for Firewire seems to hit all the marks.


The Inertia

Surfing is a funny thing. Beneath all the glam and swaying palms and shiny advertising, the whole idea is to just simply have fun. Nothing else. It’s beautiful. There is no other sport like it. Can you imagine a world where people were angry at the NFL for selling football’s soul?

That said, though, surfers are easily swayed by marketing. We’re easily influenced by those shiny advertisements. But the fact is, professional surfers are much, much better than the average person flopping around at your average beach break. The surfboards they ride aren’t what the average surfer needs. Thankfully, in the last few years, there seems to have been a  shift–even among professionals–to less performance-oriented boards. Take Rob Machado’s newest design for Firewire, for instance: it is definitely not a performance shortboard. And it might just be what you need, depending on the waves you’re riding most.

I’m extraordinarily average at surfing. I rarely find incredibly steep, barreling waves, because I live in California. I ride a longboard decently. I ride shortboards decently. I ride strange looking, short, fat, thick things decently. But I ride none of them as well as I’d like to, and that’s ok with me. If the board I’m riding catches waves easily, does what I want it to, and generally makes surfing more fun, then I’m into it. The board that surfing’s souliest surfer just designed for Firewire seems to hit all the marks–except maybe the one that includes steeper waves. Unless you can surf like Rob, you might have a hard time making difficult drops.

With a flatter rocker and a curvy outline, the Creeper incorporates a single to double concave and a beveled rail. Since the thing is so wide and flat, trimming over those flat sections will be a breeze.

For those environmentally conscious people (which should be all of you) the Creeper has Firewire’s TimberTek construction, which while still not great, is much better than most boards. It’s still got EPS foam in it, but it also has deck made from Paulownia wood and a resin hot coat that isn’t absolute murder on the environment.

All that aside, though, the Creeper looks like a board that could get you into average waves easily and surf decently–and while you’ll never surf like Rob, a board he designed with fun in mind might just be the thing that makes you have more fun. And that’s the point of it, right?

 
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