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Window to Indo: Jon Pyzel on Bali time

When shaper Jon Pyzel is not plying his trade on the North Shore, you’ll find him hunting tubes at Uluwatu.

Like many surfers, Jon Pyzel has a long-established love affair with Bali. Pyzel’s regular home is perched right on the water’s edge at Rocky Point on the North Shore. However, when the Hawaiian swells abate in the summer months, Bali is the perfect escape for a shaper who loves to surf daily and test his boards in different conditions. Determined to spend more time in the lineup at Uluwatu, Pyzel has worked hard to cultivate a life plan that will put him in Bali for several months each year. His boards are now available at the BGS surf shops on the Bukit peninsular, while the shaper who puts Ghosts under John John’s feet recently finished work on an Uluwatu villa that serves as his ultimate island retreat. After we recently shared a few sessions together at Ulu’s, I caught up with Pyzel to talk about boards in Bali, surfing the big days at The Ulu’s Bombie and hanging with his Aussie mates on The Bukit peninsular.

Where and when did your love affair with Bali begin? Can you recall the first trip?

It was in 1997, my wife was pregnant with our first kid and we were broke, but somehow she scraped up some $ and bought me a ticket for a Christmas present!  I went to G-Land and loved it.  We all started coming here as a family in 2005. 

What’s your favourite/ craziest / Bali or Indo story?

Lots of close calls on the roads, and tons of great surf sessions, but I have to say my favourite moments have been with my family.  By bringing our young daughters here so many times over the years they have gotten to know the beautiful families from Uluwatu and see that there is so much to make you happy beyond money and things.  I remember our girls playing with local kids who literally had nothing but a kite made out of a plastic bag, and they realised how little things can still bring joy.    

You now have a solid manufacturing and distribution act in Bali. Was that hard to establish?

We have amazing partners here who make world-class surfboards for us!  It can be challenging to get good materials here, but they have figured it out and do a great job supplying the country with our boards.

People coming to surf here and thinking about buying a board will probably have two key questions. How will the cost of boards compare to say Australia and
can the quality of materials and construction processes be compatible or on par with say Australia, Hawaii or North America?

Cost wise it is slightly less expensive than buying a board in Oz, and quite a bit less than America.  And what you are getting is world-class as far as craftsmanship and materials.  We use all Aussie blanks, fiberglass, resin and only authentic FCS or Future Fins boxes.  Some other brands here in Bali are using off-brand blanks from different places (or from Indo) but we aren’t taking any chances with unknown stuff like that. When I come here on a trip I always get boards made for myself here to make sure that I am happy with everything.

Jon Pyzel has shaped boards for John since he was 5.


Do you have a board model that is curated for Bali ? Is it something you may consider in the future?

Since many of my designs have their roots in Hawaiian waves I feel like they are an easy crossover to Indo. Anything that works well at home is gonna go well here too.  I would say that the Radius shortboard and the Ghost step up are the 2 easiest boards to see working great in Indo.  The Next Step is also a great choice.  


You surf almost daily while you’re here. It seems like despite however frantic the business side gets you are committed to pursuing an authentic surfing lifestyle?

Yes!  I am a surfer before anything else and that is one of the beautiful things about Bali- there are waves almost every single day and it’s so easy to get on a surfing roll here.  Back home I try to surf all the time too, but the conditions in Hawaii can be challenging at times. Here in Bali it’s almost too good!  I get exhausted from staying out in the water too long in the blazing sun. I feel like I surf my best here, since all the long waves give you a lot of chances to get things right.

You surfed big Ulus Bombie when you arrived this year. How does it rate as a genuine big wave spot? Shifting? What did you ride?

The Bombie is pretty tricky for sure.  The couple days I surfed it I rode a 7’6” Padillac and it suddenly felt like I didn’t have as much board as I might want!  Jim Banks was out on his 9’0” and scoring bombs with ease, but he told me he thought it was one of the trickiest waves to surf in Bali.  It’s way outside Ulus and it comes in kind of sideways, like a big wedging peak!  It can be pretty intimidating.   Mark Glindeman (Jai’s dad) pretty much puts on a clinic out there on the best days.  

When you have a new idea or design concept how do you get it from conception to commercial release? Is there a sense of pressure to release something new to satisfy a market that has an insatiable appetite for new models?

I make a lot of one-off boards and a lot of special models that I give to my team and friends to try out.  Once I know that a board is something special I will consider the possibility of making it into one of our permanent models.  I have so many different ideas that I want to get out to people, but it is easy to build boards that overlap with other models and there are only so many boards that we can make in a month (or a year). I don’t like the idea of overwhelming people with too many models to choose from, so generally we are a little slower than some other brands to come out with new models.  It is certainly not because I don’t have other ideas, just more being practical with what we bring out. 

Is Bali a good setting to test boards and concepts or does the perfection create a false sense of performance?

Bali is not always perfect, but 200-300 metre long waves are common here, which makes it an amazing area to test both board and fin designs.  I love to ride a board as a thruster in the morning and try that same board as a quad later that day.  It gives you instant feedback and allows you to tune your boards really well.

Is there a sense of empowering and educating a Balinese team about board manufacturing? Are you creating a trade or employment pathway?

Our boards are now probably about 70% of the work going through the factory here, so I am stoked to be able to help provide good jobs for local craftspeople. I like to check out the entire process here: cutting, shaping, glassing, sanding etc. so that I know what kind of work is going into my boards and make sure that we are building the best boards in Bali!

Any Indonesian riders in your team?

For about 5-6 years now I have been working with Bronson Meydi and Varun Tandjung, two of Bali’s brightest young stars.   They have had a lot of opportunities to travel the world and we are able to help them with boards in almost any country that they go to.  They are both really nice kids and show a lot of promise for the future.   We also just helped (along with some of our friends here) to make boards for a big group of groms up in Medewi, and seeing all of them getting given brand new boards was amazing.  


You recently built a house at Uluwatu so you could spend more time in Bali. You usually design surfboards but was it fun to have a hand in designing your own Bali sanctuary?

It is like a dream for me to have a house so close to some of my favourite waves for sure!  I give 100% credit to my wife Dali for making it all happen and making us a great spot that we can stay at when we are in Indo.  

We built it 2 years ago, but thanks to Covid we never got to see it until last month.  Now that the world has opened back up we will be able to rent it out when we aren’t here too.  

The Uluwatu zone has now become very cosmopolitan – restaurants, cafes and the economy of cool. Any thoughts on that evolution?

Sad and awesome at once.  I hate seeing it so overrun with random non-surfers and kinda turning into a party zone, but at the same time I am happy for the local people to be able to find jobs and prosper from the crowds.  Everywhere is more crowded today, and that is hard to take, but I also appreciate getting to eat great food at all the places that are popping up.   

Do you ever feel like just hanging at the original warungs, drinking a Bintang and eating a jaffle to remind you of a different time?

I always like to re-set down there and have some banana pancakes at breakfast or a couple of Binnies before the sunset.   I still start a tab where I hang at (Sudi’s Original Warung) when I arrive and pay off the total bill when I go back to Hawaii.  My kids spent many summers hanging out down there and it always feels good to catch up with all the people you’ve met over all the years.


Are many of your friends on Bali Australian? Are there subtle differences in our attitude towards things?

I have a lot of both American and Australian friends here.  Seems like the Aussies have been coming here forever, so I get a lot of local knowledge from them (especially Chook and Mick) , but anyone who actually lives here is usually pretty laid back and happier than most people in most places.

Have you learned to ‘take the piss’ or take the Mickey as the Australians do?

Fark yeah!  

Do you have a favourite Australian saying or custom?

See You Next Tuesday and It’d be rude not to!  

Obviously there is a technical mindset and and a lot of experience associated with shaping but how important is the personal dimension? Being able to deal with different situations, people and cultures?

That is what life is all about, right?  Being aware of the cultures in the places you go, trying to give back, not just take, finding a balance in life that lets you prosper but not at the expense of others. I find Bali to be a very special place that makes me very happy and actually really at peace in the chaos. 

Covid was a killer but how much time do you plan to spend here in the future?

As I get older (53 now) I realise that my surfing ability is in slow decline, so I want to surf as much as I can and there is nowhere that I am in the water more than here, so I am hoping to do 4 months a year here if I can!

If you could only choose one – the Bali house or your place at Rocky Point in Hawaii, which would it be?

I am so stoked on either one- but Hawaii is my home and my family is there too, so guess it’s Rockies for now!

Check out how Jon and team Pyzel are going in the World’s Shapers Cup.

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