I'm a Movie Star!!!
/And I’m deeply honoured to be featured in the latest FringeSurfer.tv episode.
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Midnight Rambler
/This is G-Mat 194 (AKA Midnight Ramber), a RB-JMC flying on over to Japan to hook up with everyone’s favourrite little streak of orange lightening… Ian “Piskian” Wraithj.
Many will be aware of or even know Ian but for those who don’t, Ian is a very, very fine mat surfer of many years standing., He is a devotee of riding mats at very low inflation, favouring extremely light and well venbted mats so I was eager to get him onto the RB-JMC and now I am.
Stoked!!!
This mat will be straight up his stras. Right up his rue!
As standard, Midnight Rambeler is built with a 70d deck and bottom skin. The I-beams are cut to maximise venting with crescent and breather holes arranged to allow a very fastr transfer of air. This all results in a mat that would feel like trying to wrangle a cloud for many but in the hands of a talented mat rider, gives a very quick ride.
Ian always likes a smidge more length in his mats that wouldn’t work for other mat riders. This comes from his being… erm… less concerned about bumping his head than most... As a result of his being compact, he has grown up on mats that were comparritively large for him and has developed his style around this.
Let’s see how she goes in the Typhoon swells. Have fun Ian!
Cheers
G
So.... You like long names do ya?!
/Here we have G-Mat 195 (AKA “The MK1 May-y D Semi-Inflation Revelation”). It might not be concise but sums up this girl perfectly.
The MK1 May-y D Semi-Inflation Revelation is a G-Mat Ubercat built for Matt Dight, a new matter who lives in Newquay in Cornwall. Matt describes hiself as:
“Fom Somerset exmoor coast - best described cringeingly as an all round water man. Lived and surfed on the south Devon and Cornwall coasts and now living in Newquay. After new wave riding experiences and he been frothing to get a mat for ages”.
Well froth no more my rabid friend because your dream has come true! (At some expense). The MK1 May-y D Semi-Inflation Revelation is a 200/70 Ubercat,. She is a wheezer to give a more controlled flow of air internally as mat was looking for a mat to take on wedges. There is a particular one on his doorstep that will love this mat.
Matt has gon for an acid dyed deck with something of a bleached jeans effect. He’s also gone for a bungee leash fitting for those certain rare days when it might be helpful.
The MK1 May-y D Semi-Inflation Revelation has free rocker so best of both worlds. A versatile but narrower that most mat that should nuzzle into those bowling pockets just lovely.
I’m keen to hear how Matt finds The MK1 May-y D Semi-Inflation Revelation. I surf around his way on ocvcaision so will doubtless get a go on her if I play my cards right!
Have fun Matt!
Cheers
G
G-Mat RFT in Stores Now (and soon)
/Hello there.
Just a quick email to let you all know that there are RFT Series mats on the way to stockists, if not with them already.
Visite the Stock Mats to find stockists.
We have another run on the way through too once these are gone.
Cheers
G
Bringing it in...
/Hello there.
Moving forward the Raft G1 mats will come under the G-Mat label as the G-Mat RFT Series. This is to save on any confusion.
That makes the first run of Rafts pretty collectable then! If you have one, look after it! 😎
The next batch are being run through right now and will be in stores really soon!
PS
The Instagram account will keep going under the same tag.
Cheers
G
The Chief
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This is G-Mat 193, a RB-JMC built for Jamie McClellan by way of wages for his work on the MatSurfers.com website. This mat named “The Chief” is a super free breathing, neg rockered affair. Well, Jamie is an exceptional mat rider so that makes sense.
Jamie has gone for a hard-hitting image on the bottom of this mat as you can see below. A technically very difficult image way beyond my skills, which required Jamie to collaborate with the immense talent of Ian Jermyn from Organic Devolution.
You can see Ian’s workings and Jamie’s inspiration Ian’s Instagram post below:
As someone who really cannot draw, I am always in awe of those who can and Ian is an exceptional talent even among his peers. His work carries Jamie’s message off perfectly I think. My job was the easy bit, thinking with Jamie about colour matching to fit the artwork. I really do like the effect of the brown grip and with the white logo, I think this three-way collab has landed.
The Chief is en route to North Carolina right now to get into some of that east coast goodness.
Cheers
G
Crazy Horse!
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G-Mat 192 (AKA “Crazy Horse”) is a new mat for San Francisan, Josh Edwards.
Josh told me that he was looking for a mat to get in to fast barrels. Chunky Central Californian waves where getting a good line and holding it are paramount. To this end, there was only really one candidate that came to mind after our discussion.
Crazy horse is a 200/70 Nouveau Racer built with 200denier white taffeta weave deck and light weight 70d I-beams and bottom skin. The grip is Sikaflex EBT with a strip pattern. As well as looking sexy, the aim of the strips is to reduce resistance (a bit) end to end and to maximise grip laterally. In short, easy to get on, harder to slide off!
The corners are gripped and I’ve run it back a little further than usual along the rail to account for Josh possibly being back a touch on the mat in hollow waves.
Back to Josh, I wasn’t aware of his work prior to collaborating with him over Crazy Horse but through this process I came across his artwork. Here what Josh has to say about it:
“My work has been all over the place for so long, mostly because I have always tried to be more than a one trick pony. It gets a little tricky to tie it all together, but the pieces always tell a story of normality through industrial symbols.
These usually come in the form of things we encounter on a daily basis; workers, vehicles, household objects, buildings. The process in which these get created, and the people who create them, tend to fall by the wayside while the name of a brand sits in the spotlight. ”
Amazing work.
Cheers
G
PS. I’ve added a gallery of some of Joh’s work bellow and please take a look at his Instagram feed @one.time.twice
One for the Birthday Boy!
/
I always love buildin mats for those who really appreciate the art and Tim Ciasto is one of those people. A German living in Sweden, Tim travels a lot for his waves and he’s riggen his mat on many-a-continent. His skill as a film maker is phenomenal as you can see from the video he put together for the last UK Mat Surfers Matmeet
This is his new mat, Fringesurfer, a G-Mat RB-JMC. I have known Tim for many yeas and he is an avid surfmat rider. He has spent the last few years traveling the globe in persuit of his art, documenting the off piste surf world for his fantastic web series, Fringe Surfer which you can see at:
What better name for this mat then?!
Fringesurfer is a 70/70 RB-JMC. Super-Free-Breather with neg rocker. A very fast mat! As you caqn see, Tim also whanted a splash of retro colour. This is a costly business but Tim is 50 this year so this mat was his birthday present from his wife so no holds barred!
I’m really looking forward to hearing the feedback from Tim on his experiengces with Fringesurfer and I’m particulalry looking forward to seeing her in the flesh again when we caqn finally get together again, somewhere.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TIM!
Cheers
G
Jungle Fever!
/It’s always good to see developments in the custom mat world and for me this mat symbolizes one of those moments.
Ian Jermyn is the man behind Organic Devolution. A talented artist and mat surfer, Ian has devoted himself to the art of dying Surfmat skins, having contributed to some colourful creations over at Warpmats.
I dye plenty of mat skins but there is a significant difference on that front between me and Ian. I can use dye to create some pleasing, simple, designs. But Ian is a hugely talented artist who can create complex and awe inspiring pieces that you could happily hang on a wall in their own right.
So I was over the moon when Ian made the decision to broaden his business and went free-lance, meaning that anyone (including my customers) can get his artwork on their mats! To kick off it was obvious that we needed to build a mat for Ian. And given Ian’s talent as a mat surfer, it was a pretty short discussion around which mat to build him.
On to Ian’s mat then… G-Mat 190 had to be named. It has been a tradition since number 1 that my custom mats are named. I won’t even ship them until they have one! After some consideration, Ian has named this mat Dengue.
Dengue is a G-Mat RB-JMC 70/70 with negative rocker. A super-free-breather and with a light ¾ grip in clear Sikaflex EBT with front corners gripped. After some discussion, Ian opted for a Hestered valve.
The navy fabric has a very open weave so feels super light and pliable, and the acid dying process makes the material more supple so along with the light grip, very free venting and neg rocker, Dengue should go like the clappers!
Dengue is en route to Ian on the West Coast of Ireland to get in to some of those long, quiet points and reefs. Very much looking forward to the feedback on this one.
Back to Ian, as I said he is a real talent and produces all sorts of wonders, many of which are for sale, so take a look at his website:
https://organicdevolution.com/
Cheers
G
Bruce - Every Mat has it's Backstory
/This is a mat built for Mike Janich of SoCal named Bruce. Bruce is a 200/70 free rockered Rubber Bucky. Mike is something of a Connoisseur of surfmats having a range of differnet models and brands.
When we wore talking about this mat he explained that his main rides are a G-Mat 5 Star General and a Neumatic Contrail. Civen this mix we figured that something to atend more to the bottom-end might be in order. Mike is a lover of that surfmat glide and he felt that a Rubber Bucky would hit the spot.
The extra venting and lighter weave than the black deck of Mike’s 5SG will make this a notably different, and faster ride.
So why Bruce? Well I’ll hand over to Kike for that one.
“As the story goes.... the year was 1963. November I think. Sitting in my 4th grade classroom one late morning, our teacher told us her son was coming in after lunch to show part of a movie he was making.
So after lunch her son walks in carrying a HUGE film projector, taking his time setting things up. Then it’s showtime. What I saw on the movie screen that afternoon changed my life forever for the best. My teacher’s name was Mrs. Brown, her son’s name was Bruce, and the movie was The Endless Summer, months before anyone else saw it as it was shown limitedly in 1964 before its official release in June, 1966.
In honor of Bruce Brown.... I hererby christen thee... “BRUCE”!”
Great story! I’m looking forward to hearing back from Mike on this.
Cheers
G
God on Gas
/This is a Andrew Smith's new mat. A super-free-breather negative rocker RB-JMC. That's right... Another one.
Andrew has been a mat rider for a long time having scored a couple of Neumatics from Dale around 12 years ago. Andrew cares for his mats and they will last a really long time with love but everything is finite and Andrew has been trying to score a G-Mat for a while.
Andrew is primarily a mat rider and was keen to get a sensitive ride. So a 70/70 highly vented mat is perfect for him. The conversation over which model was a brief one... "I want the model that Buck and Jamie are raving about".
Roger that.
(Just a quick note on models. This is the base design. I take careful measurements from riders to tailor their mat).
We talked about what Andrew wanted to call his mat. Andrew is a football fan (soccer for the philistines) and supports Tottenham Hotspur. His favourite all time player, Glenn Hoddle, was known to the fans as God on Grass so the name presented itself... GOD ON GAS.
G.O.G. is heading to San Diego and should be there soon. It'll be good to hear how Andrew gets on.
Cheers
G
PS as a Liverpool fan I should have charged Andrew more for this!
Andrew riding his Newmatic at the first Cottons Matmeet in SoCal. Photo by Dirk Brandts
Cool Runnin's
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This is a G-Mat Ute named Cool Runnin’s built for Simon Caddick. Simon lives in West Cornwall and is an experienced surfer who has riden a wide range of craft from standing to knees to prone.
Simon was looking for an all round mat to deal with a range of conditions. He also wanted a more predictable feel so we went for a 200/70 Ute. The venting is restricted meaning that the air moves through the mat more slowly than a free-breather or super-free-breather.
Simon was after low key colours so went for black top and bottom with black grip, but also with a large logo in green, yellow and red.
In addition, Simon wanted a bungee fitting to allow a leash. He surfs heavy reefs with little room for error so was conserned about losing his mat to the reef. Therefore it makes sense to have the option there. Simon and Cool Runnin's have been getting to know each other of late.
Simon went for a mat bag too.
Let's hope this is the start of a beautiful friendship.
Have fun Simon. Be good to hook up for some waves when life is a bit more normal.
Cheers
G
Little Wing
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It's been a little while since I've built an Ubercat but when Claude Ricord got in touch that was exactly what he was after. What's more, Claude was after a 70/70 free-breather. Vroom vroom!
This is "Little Wing". Claude was unfortunately bereaved recently losing his wife to stomach cancer. Of course, Claude is grieving but he is bringing a real positivity to his life, mat surfing with his son in the breaks around their home in Southern California.
Claude says that his and his wife shared a favourite colour scheme of green and white so this was Claude's choice for Little Wing. The deck has been acid dyed in 2 tone green with clear grip which is set off with a clear logo with a mix of holo and green glitter. Claude has gone for the option to have a leash just for those big rippy days.
It's been a real honour to build this mat for Claude. Ride on mate.
Cheers
G
WHAT THE BUCK?!
/Terrible pun I know but please enjoy…. Sr Buck riding his RB-JMC name Caligula at his local.
G
HI there Gigi!
/
You know that old adage “right place right time”? Well Mariah Ernst seems to be the sensei of that!
Mariah had a mat off me last year named Jamu Jamu when she was living in Indo. Jamu Jamu is the mat that I had to perform plastic surgery on to get back on the water:
https://customsurfmats.com/blog/2019/12/21/ding-monkey
Anyway, I rotate the time that I send out emails for orders and what do you know, Mariah has moved to Hawaii and managed to get in quickest again! This time around, Mariah wanted something to cover all conditions having already having a Nouveau Racer. Mariah decided to go for a RB-JMC.
We discussed the 70/70, neg rocker, super free-breather option but Mariah opted to play it safe and go for a 200/70 free-breather. Don’t get me wrong though… This is still a very fast mat!
Mariah has named her mat Gigi after the man himself (GG). Gigi is built with yellow 200d deck, 70d bottom skin, has clear grip and a sexy black and purple large rail wrap logo. As planned, she will really open up the bottom end for Mariah. I’m also pretty confident that the top end will be pretty high too!
It’s good to be building mats right now. My surfing has stopped due to our lock down in the UK so focusing on building rides for others is a pretty rewarding second.
Have fun Mariah!
Cheers
G
G-Mat 184 - Jathy
/It’s always a pleasure to build a mat for someone I regularly surf with so I was quietly stoked to see this customer’s name pop up in my email to say “you have received a deposit from Mark Underwood”. “Mark Underwood?” I thought… “I know a Tom Underwood”… As nickname’s go, Tom is an interesting one. It’s because of this photo by Alex Williams of Tom (Mark) skating - He looked like Tom (Tom) Inouye it was said by local legend Steve Daniel.
Photo by Alex Williams
Tom is a really experienced surfer and something of an icon around these parts. He has travelled the World surfing in places such as Oz, Spain, Portugal, Mexico, Indo, the Maldives and others as well as all over the British Isles. He worked for many years in the surf industry, building boards under the Natural Rhythm label as well as working with Nigel Semens at Ocean Magic Surfboards in Newquay. He started life surfing thrusters, then logs, then moved on to fish before SUP’s.
Photo by Alex Williams
Photo by Tom German
Photo by Liquid Destination
And finally… after all that… HALLELUJAH!!!!!
Tom riding his 5 Star General in South East Cornwall. Photo by Tim Ciasto.
I didn’t know Tom before he found mats but know alot of people who knew him and they all said the same thing… “I hear Tom Underwood has started riding mats. I’m guessing he’ll be amazing on them like he is on everything else”. I met up with Tom (who funnily enough lives within 10 miles of me) when he bought a 5 Star General from MatSurfers.com, after surfing a 70/70 Ute named Richard owned by our mutual friend Graham Bracegirdle, and we have become good friends.
And yes, I can confirm he has really quickly become a very good mat surfer!
Tom sharing a wave with me in South East Cornwall. Photo by Tim Ciasto.
So that’s Tom covered, let’s move on to his mat. Tom has ridden my RB-JMC and was keen to give this a go, having also ridden a 70/70 Rubber Bucky. Having already mastered 200/70 wheezers it was time to drop the restriction and up the pliability so a 70/70 RB-JMC was the go with super-free-breather venting.
I currently have some 70 denier blue material in. It’s 70d tafetta the same as the white and black I have but has a pretty open weave giveing a really pliable feel when welded. Tom was keen to go with a really light mat to compliment the rest of his quiver so we went with the blue throughout. I suplimented that with a light weight grip job. Add all that to the venting and this mat is gagging to go fast!
Tom has named this mat “Jathy” and Jathy is one of those mats you build and think “man… I’d like to keep this one.
Luckily I will be able to get a few waves on Jathy when the current craziness is over!
Cheers
G
A Bit of Self Care... Lisha
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It’s not long since I last built myself a mat but needs must. A little while ago I had my mat pulled from my hand on a solid day. I tried to keep hold with my right hand but it got yanked out, possibly breking my finger.
As always, I built Lisha over a weekend so nobody was missing out because of me doing this!
This also led to a strain of the muscles in my right fore arm which gets easily flared up even in small surf.
In short, I need to be alble to let go of my mat! My only options then were don’t surf, have a long swim after every wave or a leash. Given those thre then a leash seemed the best bet. I figured this was also a chance to try the RB-JMC design with a 200 denier deck.
Leashes are always a conundrum with mats. At low inflation they can interfere with things if not well managed and, more to the point, after years of riding without one they just feel like they get in the way. However, there is a need at times which then brings us to the other issue. The materieals, even a 200/70 construction, are lightweight. That’s great for performance but a challenge for attaching leashes. An eyelet will last a while but used over time or in heavy surf (just ask Henry Marfleet about G-Land) they will get pulled through.
So you need to do 2 things: Reinforce and spread the load.
When doing bungee fittings like this I weld a layer of 650 gram double coated nylon into the flange between the top and bottom skins. This gives a very robust strip of fabric across the nose. The nose of a mat is always fully inflated to it doesn’t make a huge difference to the pliability, altough anything on a mat is transferred aound the whole mat so it is noticable as reported by people who have two mats, one with and one without. The eyelets are fitted snuggly to grip the fabric well. That sounds obvious but loose eyelets will wear the fabric.
The next job is to spread the load. This is acheived by using bungee cord rather than rope. The elasticity of the cord soaks up a fair bit of the strain. Also, weaving the bungee through the eyelets and then attaching the leash to the middle loop causes the mat to conertina, spreading the load across the mat, rather than on a single point.
So on to the mat, as I said Lisha is a RB-JMC, super free-breather with negative rocker. The previous build have all been 70/70 which have been impressive in all conditions, including solid waves. It will be interesting to see what happens her then. Heavier decks reduce the overall pliability of mats (more hold, less speed) so in thoery this should have more top end.
Let’s see. I won’t be trying this in chunky surf for the time being as I need to let my arm recover but I’ll give it a crack in due course.
On the name, why Lisha? Well obviously, she has a leash but it insired me to name this mat after a sporting great of yesteryear (wierd phrase) Elisha Scott.
So there you go. Lets see how it works out and get well soon me!
Cheers
G
The RB-JMC Revolution Continues!
/Well, that’s the overboard title out of the way but here is the latest of this new model heading out of the workshop.
This mat named Ricky Powell has been built for Santa Cruz matter and head coach of the MacMurray surfmat team. Jason is highly experienced and, having tried out ASB’s RB-JMC was keen to give it a go himself.
As is standard with this design Ricky Powell has a negative rocker. This design feature creates tons of lift and therefore speed,
Ricky is also a super free-breather being very freely vented internally meaning the the mat can change shape really quickly. The really surprise with this design from everyone riding it is it’s range. A 70/70, free breather with negative rocker isn’t what you’d expect to be the go for solid or hollow waves but everyone riding them has reported the same…
They go great!
Team MacMurray
So Ricky is en route now and should be with Jason soon. Looking forward to hearing the report.
Cheers
G
G-Mat 180 - Beluga
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This is Beluga. She is a G-Mat Ute built for French mat surfer, Frank Fellous.
Frank hails from France but is something of a multi-national surfing phenomenon, travelling the globe in search of waves. Frank currently has Phileas (don’t worry… we have news on the way regarding Phileas) and is going to whisk her away on a trip to Israel.
As you can see from Beluga, Frank likes to keep things understated. Clean white mat with clean white lines. The observant ones amongst you will notice that the backdrop for these shots is white rather than my usual black background. The reason being, the attempted shots with a black background were so contrasted that it was really had not to blow out the white and lose the detail!
Speaking of detail, Beluga is a 200/70 Ute. She is a wheezer (restricted breather) with free rocker, so stable and predictable and responsive to all conditions. The grip is white Sikaflex EBT. Front corners are gripped which really is the best option for keeping hold of your mat.
Beluga has set off to France so should land very soon. S’AMUSER FRANK!
Cheers
G
A New Hope... The G-Mat Rubber Bucky - JMC
/Sooooo then. You will have seen my previous posts about the Rubber Bucky - JMC which I built for Jamie McClellen and then another for Andrew Stephen Buck. Well, I had to build myself one
My new mat named “hope” is very, very, light. 70/70 construction and a super free-breather with crescent ended I'-beams with 7 breather holes each. What that means is that the I-beams give the mat its shape but barely restrict the airflow at all. That, along with the very ligth material, squarer back corners, negative rocker and criminally light weight grip job means that this mat is really fast when ridden at very low inflation.
The other interesting thing about this design is that it responds well to decent waves so is a real all-rounder. Jamie has been riding his RB-JMC in heavy hollow waves and has been out-running hollow fast breaking waves. ASB describes his as “as good as a mat gets”.
ASB at Rincon. Photo: Beth O’Rourke
Jason MacMurray has ridden ASB’s and says “That thing is next level”. He went on to say “The way it carries through the flats and from behind the peak is crazy. Andrew was making waves that he had no business getting around the section on”.
Jamie says “As a gauge, I would say I’ve owned somewhere around 50 modern high performance surfmats in the last 15 years. I have about a dozen at the moment and 4-5 are in my working quiver being ridden regularly. The performance characteristics of the RB-JMC are highly unique. This mat seems to excel at both ends of the spectrum, from tiny windswell to 6-8ft tropical groundswell racetracks. It has an uncanny ability to track high in the pocket and naturally hold the line I want to take, whilst simultaneously breaking the tail free for unlimited acceleration. Honestly it’s the best fuckin mat I’ve ever ridden by a long shot and it’s basically replaced my entire quiver” Well that seems pretty definitive.
My own experiences have been really positive too. Hope has been ridden in waves between waist high and overhead and has been great! Noteably faster than other mats ridden on the same days. In partticular, the squared tail corners maximise that tail-slip magic with the mat finding its natural resistance free plane easily. I agree with the thoughts from Jamie, ASB and Jason though. Definitely NOT a beginners mat.
The RB-JMC has performed well in solid good shaped waves
This is definitely more than a Rubber Bucky with a tweak and I am stoked to add the RB-JMC to my quiver of models available to customers. This feels like a break-through mat that I am very, very happy with!
Cheers
G