Rob Machado is a very cruisey person. He surfs a lot like he lives: casually. Easily. He surfs casually whether he’s on a bombing Pipe wave or a knee-high runner at Cardiff. He’s been dabbling in making boards that are a little more for the everyman in recent years, and the Xtra Cado is a board for the everyman.
Mid-lengths are having a moment right now, which is a good thing. The majority of surfers in any given lineup might benefit from something a little longer, and in this short video, Machado takes a 6’8″ Xtra Cado out for a quick rip.
“I have this real attraction to boards in this mid-length realm,” Machado said in a press release when the Xtra Cado hit stores. “It’s not a longboard and it’s not a shortboard. It’s somewhere in between. It’s for the days when you don’t feel like trying as hard as other days, or when the waves just don’t give you the green light to try and rip. Maybe you just want to glide into a few waves and draw out a couple longer turns, and maybe that’s all it is, for simplifying the day.”
Simplifying is good advice, whether you’re riding a wave or just living. As Henry David Thoreau said, “Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify, simplify!”
