Dane Reynolds on a FibreFlex

Yup, it’s another Dane Reynolds clip. And yup, it’s a little older. But, see that little raft that’s looking so good under the feet of surfing’s most reluctant star? It ain’t a Channel Island like he usually rides. And if you’re as intrigued by equipment as we are, you’ll be interested to know that Dane is actually riding a Hayden Shapes Fibreflex ‘Psychedelic Germ’. It’s Warren Smith’s signature board with the Australian shaper and it’s a funny-lookin’ thing. A while back, when Dane was in Cabo, Mexico, shaper Hayden Cox flowed the Venturan one of his FibreFlex designs. Sure seems to go well for him. We thought we’d call Hayden and find out a little more…

Stab: What kinda craft did y’give him?
Hayden Cox: I shaped him a FibreFlex number so he could get a feel for the technology. He frothed on it, he really enjoyed that board. It was a different shape to what he usually rides, but the main idea was just to get a FibreFlex under his feet. He loved the spring in it.

How did it come about? I lined it up through (Craig) Ando and just shaped something with the FibreFlex tech. I wanted Channel Islands (CI) to have a look at the technology and that’s probably the easiest way, just get one of their riders to have a go and then give the feedback to CI and hopefully there can end up being a few CI models in it. I flowed it to him free, no problems there. It was just the one, I’m not shaping boards for him or anything. It’s just to hopefully get a CI model with the FibreFlex tech, maybe a Dumpster Diver or something. That thing’d go sick with that technology. It’d be super fast and fun.

Did he know he was getting one? I just sent it to him. He turned up for the trip, looked at it and went, “Ah, this thing isn’t gonna go.” Then first wave, he did that air-reverse in the clip (above, 19 seconds in). First wave, he just nailed it. It’s cool to get guys of that calibre jumping on the technology and getting a real feel for what it’s about.

Were you expecting him to ride it? Ah, you just keep your fingers crossed. You shape some boards occasionally for crew and a lot of the time (them riding it) never happens.

How’d you go about the dimensions? I based it on his Proton models that he was riding at J-Bay, which was around the time I shaped it for him. He had the 6’1″. I walked past him once in Japan, years ago, so I sort of had an idea how big he was and went from there. It was a bit of a stab in the dark really, but it worked out in the end. I was stoked that he was frothing on the tech and that it ended up in a Quiksilver campaign.

Was the board a one-off? That particular model is the signature Warren Smith model, the Psychedelic Germ. It’s got my Cool Crazy concave outlines happening on it. It’s a really weird board to start off with, but that’s what’ll sometimes intrigue a pro. They get a lot of  performance shortboards all the time and something different will make ’em go, “Woah, what the hell is this gonna surf like?” You can really see it in his surfing, some of the turns you notice how fast the board reacts. How fast it turns in a really tight radius. They’re a sick little model. Hard to get off. I was talking to Ando yesterday and he’s always wigging out, saying “This board’s so sick but I maybe need to do some turns on a shortboard for video sections.” I’m like, “I dunno, short boards don’t go as well as fun boards. That’s just the way it is.”