Crumbs!

One for a test pilot here. James Tanner rides a mat really hard and really, really well so is the perfect person to test this design concept. This mat which he has named “Crumbs” (a name which came to him during the trance-like meditative state that is driving home after a day at work) is a 70/70 RB-JMC.

Crumbs is built to the usual favoured configuration for this model with negative elastic rocker and venting, but the latter has been ramped up. I have increased the venting to make this a super-free-breather sucking a menthol mint! It’s going to be interesting to hear how James goes. He rides with low air so I imagine he will find the ride to be super responsive.

I hope one of those Noosa cameras points in James’s direction once Crumbs gets down there.

Have fun James!

Cheers

G

The 70/40 Experiment Goes On...

The experiment continues and I am very excited to send this mat off to her new owner.

As a mat builder I have always been a believer in testing things out before imposing them on the general public (or ‘going to market’ I guess if I want to sound fancy).  I believe I am a reasonably good mat rider but certainly not the best and aside from anything else, it is important to get things under the bellies of talented mat surfers who are able to give me detailed feedback. That’s no different for this 70/40 construction.

So far, Andrew Stephen Buck has an RB-JMC built with these materials. He’s had a few waves as Rincon has had the worst winter you can imagine but the feedback to date is “best yet”. The next test pilot is Kiwi James Tanner.

For those who don’t know him, James is one of those watermen who just hit the flow whatever they are riding and that’s no different with his mat riding. James has a really dynamic style getting a mat right onto it’s rail and really defining S-turn surfing, without losing an iota of speed. He has an RB-JMC in his quiver but we talked about an Ubercat given his style so we’re both excited to see how this mat named “Chinook” goes.

The 70 denier deck is dyed salmon pink with the bottom and I-beams being cut from orange 40d taffeta. Chinook has an elastic bottom hiving a natural inclination to create a smooth progressive curve into turns. Perfect!

So lets see how she goes. My 70/40 RB-JMC has been surfed 15 to 20 times. She has developed a super-slow leak. It doesn’t affect inflation when surfing but it is there. I think this is due to a scrape with a reef but I can’t be 100% sure. This is why we test... to see what happens over time with different mats, different riders and different conditions.

Exciting though!

Cheers

G

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FEEDBACK 25th JANUARY 2022

Happy Halloween?!

G-Mat 205 (AKA “Pumpkin”) is a RB-JMC heading to Noosa Heads in Australia. I am super excited to be sending this mat down there too because she is on the way to hook up with James Dylan Tanner. James is one of those people (that us mere mortals hate) who jump on anything and click. What makes it worse is he’s a really nice bloke…

What a c***! 😂

I jest of course but what I said about James other than the insult is true. Really solid mat surfer.

So on to Pumpkin. As mentioned, she is a RB-JMC. Super-Free-Breather with a negative rocker. Slightly unusually, Pumpkin is a 200/70 because James wanted a mat that is easy to spot should he lose it, but this 200d has quite an open weave and is certainly not as heavy as the 200d black material.

This is also the second mat in a row that I have built with clear grip using ClearFix. I have used this in the past but tended to stick with clear Sikaflex EBT just for consistency but the clear EBT formula feems to have changed with it being thicker than it was. The ClearFix works into the weave really well.

This mat is one of two mats that I am going to be doing for James but the second will be down the line once I have caught up on my backlog. I’m really looking forward to the feedback on this mat and am pretty sure she’ll tide him over until the next one.

Have fun down there JDT!

Cheers

G

PS James hosted Phileas in Sri Lanka and NZ as people may recall but HERE’S A LINK to take a look. He’s also been enjoying the delights of his G-Mat RFT down in Oz as you can see below.

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