Bobby Martinez has, hands down, the greatest mic drop in surfing history under his belt. He also has one of the best backhand hacks, and he’s equally well-known for both his “wannabe tennis tour” comment and that famous lip-whack.
Since he’s not on tour anymore, he’s probably surfing waves a little less perfect than he used to. Summertime slop in Santa Barbara requires a small-wave sled, so Bobby sat down with the CI team to create the Bobby Quad.
“Bobby Martinez challenged us to build him as short of a board as possible with the goal of maximizing his fun in Santa Barbara’s tiny summer surf,” the team wrote last year. “He also added that it had to be a quad, and it still had to live up to his high-performance standards. Bobby’s shortboards are 5’8” but for this customized four-finner he was thinking we ought to take it down to 5’2”. By shortening the rail line and distributing the volume into the width throughout the (board) he’d be able to skate over the flats and carry enough speed to still fit in his signature gouges.”
And when he rode it? Well, he was surprised. Not at how well it went in the small waves it was designed for, but because it worked in waves with a little more punch, too.
“While the Bobby Quad flies across the weakest of waves with ease and allows for sharp snaps in the smallest of pockets,” wrote CI, “Bobby discovered that this small-wave machine he designed with CI has more range than he ever anticipated.”
