For many millennials who came up during the rockered-out, low-volume thruster era, the appeal of today’s “ride anything” culture has made space for reconnecting with the sport. Go ahead and call it a “safe space” if you must.
That experience wasn’t reserved just to the surf communities of the United States and Australia, either, as Portuguese surfer/shaper Diogo Appleton can attest. As a kid, Appleton was accustomed to the European youth contest grind. Later in life, though, he jumped on board the retro longboard train and never looked back.
And while the single-fin log thing has been en vogue at least for the last decade, Appleton’s story goes to show that there’s something to slowing things down a bit, trying something new, and having fun.
