Rob Machado surfs better than pretty much anyone else on the planet. He’s a mix of soul, flair, function, and good ol’ fashioned talent, all wrapped up into one droopy-eyed, long haired drink of water. Like most great surfers, he’s got a firm grasp on what makes surfboards do what they do–those fine little tweaks that make a surfboard not just good, but great. He’s also got that everyman mentality, using boards with less rocker and more foam. But since he’s Rob Machado, he surfs those small-wave boards at places like Teahupoo. “It’s always funny,” he remembers, “because you go out on a board like that on a day like that, and it’s your turn; you’re sitting out the back, you’ve been waiting a while… and the set of the day comes in. And you’re on the wrong board.”
When he created the Almond Butter with Firewire, he wanted a hybrid that combined a shortboard’s sensitivity with a fish’s speed. He sat down with Shred Show and talked story for 15 minutes full of that classic Machado wisdom.