Helium Hydroshort 

California’s Timmy Reyes has been a free surfing fixture for two decades. From his young days as an up-and-coming grom to his current legend status as a feral explorer of frigid barrels, Timmy has been shaping surf culture since he was an adolescent, and his edits continue to get us pumped up to drive a bit farther, pull on some rubber, and have an adventure.

As it turns out, Timmy Reyes is influential in the surfboard design realm as well. Timmy got on one of Kelly Slater’s Hydroshorts (made by Tomo) a few years back, built in Firewire’s LFT construction. He connected with the board right off the bat, and ended up having Tomo make him one in Helium construction as
well. Timmy took both down to Baja with him to shoot an edit called Love Letter in Mexico, and had the chance to ride both boards in pumping waves—the perfect way to compare the two construction styles.

While both construction styles have their benefits, Timmy felt like the Helium
construction just brought the Hydroshort alive—it made it feel livelier and more
responsive, particularly good waves. The spot he was surfing has strong, consistent offshore winds, which are normally difficult to surf in with a lightweight board. But the Hydroshort is around four inches shorter than a normal shortboard, so it didn’t have that problem with catching the wind, which meant the lightweight Helium build was not a disadvantage at all. Instead, the snubnosed board simply enjoyed all of the perks of a lightweight shred stick, and Timmy put it to good use in pumping barrels, saying it was the fastest board he had ever surfed— partially due to the quad inside double concave, balanced out by the thruster setup, which he prefers over the four-fin option.

Since then, Timmy has been taking his Helium Hydroshort with him everywhere, and surfing in all types of waves, from pumping barrels to everyday grovels. He has even been taking it out for pumping swells at the Wedge! And with the added strength of the Helium construction, which is highly durable (with stringers running up the rails), has great flex characteristics, and even has “memory” built into the deckskin so that it rebounds to form after being compressed beneath your feet, the board is more likely to survive the carnage of Newport Beach’s craziest closeout! The Helium Hydroshort is literally a board for any conditions!