Yep, There’s Still Some Lead In The Pencil

Taylor Knox spent six months of his life in a cocoon. 

At the age of 15, Taylor spent half a year in an immobilizing ‘cocoon-like’ cast following lumbar surgery from an earlier skateboarding accident. Within months of being freed from his brace, Taylor finished fourth at the 1990 World Amateur Surfing Championships, politely flipping his skeptics the bird after having mind-ripped the shit out of nearby Carlsbad on loop unbeknownst to anyone.  

Taylor had transformed not into a butterfly during his gestation period in the cocoon, who preferred to keep his rail line submerged in the wave face rather than airborne, but into one of the most powerful pound-for-pound surfers of his generation. His frontside wraps and roundhouses are still arguably the most iconic examples of steampunk power surfing to this day. Fellow power monger and 2x ASP World Champ Tom Carroll called it a “hard, efficient, uncompromising style”.

These days Taylor is still burying rail as fine as ever, riding for brands Vuori and Mikuna, the latter of whom produced this clip. He’s also a Kelee meditation black-belt and fitness fanatic, both of which have been instrumental to his continued isometric torque and horsepower at 49, which incidentally, is also the name of this clip.