Jungle

Here is a mat for Nicholas Wolken and it's one I've really enjoyed building!

Nico is a well known and very talented snowboarder, co-owner of Korua Shapes Snowboards and a very good surfer. He has been surfing a mat for a few years too and very well. He has an RFT and I have built him a Nouveau Racer named San-B for the juicy days, which has seen some heavy waves.

Last year (or maybe the year before), Nico borrowed an RB-JMC named Caligula from Andrew Buck. Andrew is significantly shorter than Nico so obviously the mat he borrowed was... Well... Short!

Nonetheless, Nico was impressed with the speed and glide and ordered himself an RFT2 (the stock version of the RB-JMC) to have a mat that fit him, but then got a deposit in for a custom. So that left us with a question... What to build?!

We considered a few options. Maybe a Chino Racer to add some variety to the all-rounder part of the quiver? Maybe a Rubber Bucky to have a big ol' glider. But after some deliberation the answer because obvious. An RB-JMC Ultralight!

As a 70/40 Super-Free-Breather, this mat feels, and is very delicate. The criminally light grip job only adds to this with this mat being extremodonculously sensitive. I love the slow drifting levitation of these builds. Rarely pulled out of the bag, save for those rare glassy, dry hair, running peeler, under head high days. In those conditions the sensation is incredible! We added 1/4" to the length just to add a bit of lift at the tail. With Nico's other mats, that's some quiver!

And the name of this mat? Jungle

Nico has a trip to Oz planned. He says:

“Hey G,

Really excited to get grooved in on Jungle . Hoping Australia delivers this August — we’ll be taking it on a full East Coast road trip. Mostly, I’m just looking forward to sharing the experience with some fellow mat enthusiasts. Can’t wait to see what it feels like!”

— Nicolas Wolken

I'm really excited to hear about the adventures of Jungle and Nico. Have fun Nico and big up the Jungle massive!

Cheers

G

9-2-Go

I was going to wait for my special day but sod it. This is a mat for my birthday named 9-2-Go. She's an RB-JMC Ultralight 70/40 Super-Free-Breather. I was planning to build myself one of these having given my old Ultralight away to Jamie McClellan but I hadn't meant to do it just yet.

I'm just getting through the last few mats before the next run and I did a little experimenting with dye techniques. I asked everyone in the remaining bunch if they wanted this deck skin and they all said no, politely letting me know they thought it was horrible so here we are!

Anyway during the horrendous weather we've had over here of late I took what would otherwise have been play days to weld up and grip 9-2-Go. Ultralights are a build you probably only get out of the mat bag two or three times a year but summer is on its way allegedly and I adore the featherweight feel of these mats. So fast too!

9-2-Go is wrapped up ready for me to open on my birthday.

Anyway... Cracking on.

Cheers

G

PS Birthday matmeet at The Wave, Bristol, UK: 20th April 8am Expert Turns on the left. All welcome so get booked

UltraLight G-Mats

So then, having taken time to test Ultra Lightweight mats myself and under the bellies of some highly talented riders I have come to a decision about these things.

I’m going to start with clarification of what I mean by Ultra Lightweight. There are two iterations of these:

• 70/40 construction - 70 denier deck material with 40 denier I-beams and bottom skin.

• 70/70 ULW (40) - Standard 70 denier deck material with 40 denier I-beams and a 70d bottom skin with a ‘lick coat’ of TPU giving a very lightweight material similar to overall weight (or GSM) of the 40d.

Just to clarify the GSM stuff above, that stands for Grams per Square Metre which is accounts for the weight of the nylon and the thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) coating combined.

The conclusion from riding these mats is that they feel lovely for low inflation riding but are very differnt from standard 70/70 lightweight mats:

Firstly, you feel everything and the mat has a higher top-end speed than the same design built with slightly heavier materials.

Secondly, they have a slower action due to the elasticity of the fabric than standard 70/70 mats so you get a real pelican glide feel in a straight line, however they are less responsive through turns.

Thirdly, the material is weak and therefore durability is low.

So what does all that mean then? Well, it means I will make them available to customers but there are some important considerations. Firstly, unless you are very comfortable riding a lightweight 70/70 mat at low inflation then this wouldn’t be for you. Also, if you are looking for an everyday mat then these aren’t that. The UltraLights will be lucky to last a year being hauled under waves, repetitively death-gripped and bounced around in chop.

However, for small to medium sized surf with smooth faces, long walls and dry hair paddleouts these can’t be beaten in my opinion and as those days are a rarity for most of us, an UltraLight mat is a good addition to the quiver that should last a while if cared for properly.

Unlike my other mats though, I will not be offering the 2 year warranty. These are what they are. Also I’m not into making disposable mats so these really do need to be kept for what they are suited to.

Wonderful things though…

Cheers

G