Red Eye: Rob Machado And A French Love Affair

Within “you never know until you go” is lucidity: In culture, waves, people and hardship. Whether you’re onboard a 36-hour mission to the far reaches of Africa or gassing up the car north of the Tijuana border, one thing’s for certain: The future is unclear… and that’s just fine. Welcome to Stab and Reef’s contemporary travel series, Red Eye, in which we pry the wisdom of the polished nomad and leave it here for you to dine on.

Who better to feature in a series about nomadic travel than a man who’s been known as The Drifter for nearly a decade? Rob Machado breezes through airports, drizzling his silky waveriding approach at beaches all over the world. Here, the goofyfooter (who came painfully close to being a world champ when he was still competing) lights up some French beachbreaks with fellow Momentum icon Taylor Knox. Things to note? At 43, Rob still absolutely rips, and looks more electrified on that Firewire twin fish than ever. Stab suggests that he’d still fare very, very well on the World Tour. And, Taylor is surfing better now than when he was competing. As Taj Burrow told Stab when he retired, “Surfing so many years on tour, you adapt to the judging criteria. I want to do something different to three, quick, straight up and down hooks in the pocket. I want to race down the line and skip a few sections but then do a huge roundhouse re-bound.” It seems that Taylor has come to enjoy this approach in his post-tour years.

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