Noah Lane’s Endless Winter

Such was his distrust of a baggage handlers’ ability to read the word “Fragile” that a renowned Nashville guitarist purchased a first-class seat for his guitar, ensuring they arrived together — intact. 

While a similar story has yet to surface in the world of surfing, the anxiety of traveling with surfboards — especially freshies — might present one of the few instances that unites surfers of all nationalities, creeds, and stance widths.

After repeated requests from surfing’s itinerant populace, Db budged and stretched out their nearly indestructible board bag to fit boards up to 7’6″. 

After a few luckless spins on the baggage-handler roulette, I started to wonder if the packing process for someone who travels multiple times a year would be any different from that of a recreational surfer and infrequent flier. That got me thinking: which of Db’s team riders would be taking the news with a bigger grin? 

Noah Lane seemed like the biggest nutcase on their roster, and I’d just heard that he had left his adopted home of Bundoran during the one week of the year when it’s summer in Ireland to hunt down frigid pointbreaks in Chile. I reached out for packing tips and, frankly, to figure out what’s wrong with him.

“I’m usually a pretty last-minute, throw-everything-in kinda traveler,” he admitted. This made a little sense. If you’re hurtling your body at icy chunks of ocean that even Russell Bierke ranks as among the hardest to surf, why be so precious about foam and fiberglass?

Still, I wondered if he’d be quite so chill about packing if he didn’t have access to Db’s rib-protected travel coffin. There’s a touch of irony in someone who thrives in discomfort being cushioned by hardware that specializes in doing just the opposite.

Noah’s decision to leave the brief Irish summer for Chile’s winter still puzzled me. As a Sunshine Coast native, he must’ve heard of the perfect warm-water lefts around the Indian Ocean — and probably the South Pacific too.

“Our summer was pretty woeful, so it wasn’t much of a stretch to head into the Southern Hemisphere winter. I feel like you’re either cut out for the cold, or you’re not. I’ve been in Ireland for the last decade and I miss a more temperate climate at times, but the weather doesn’t really bother me.”

Noah approached the trip as a bucket-list surf pilgrimage. “I’ve wanted to visit that coastline for a long time and experience the space I’d read about in Chatwin’s In Patagonia, and the magic and sense of place in Gabriel García Márquez’s writing,” he continued, “It definitely lived up to expectations. And as cliché as it sounds, my only regret was not staying longer.”

Despite heading back to Australia for Christmas, Noah says, “There’s nowhere in winter I’d rather be than here at home. So my bigger boards won’t be traveling much further than down the road to Mully.” He added, “Europe is an amazing place, and there’s so much to experience in the peripherals of surfing that I’ll always try to sneak away somewhere to break up the colder months.”

Whether you’re gearing up for an Irish winter with step-ups tuned up for Mullaghmore and its sisters, or heading to much warmer Australian points for a casual trim on a mid-length, Db just made getting there a breeze with their new 7’6″ wheeled coffin.

And, just like some body parts in cold water, it will roll down to 30% of its size — taking up just about the same space as a bidet, which you might want to consider tossing out, because honestly, how often do you use that thing?