Milk BodyBoards
This week's week takes us to France where we meet Mathieu Desaphie he is 37 years old and a former pro bodyboarder.
In Mathieu's own words
" I've been sponsored by bodyboarding brands in the past and was also lucky enough to work on product development for them during that time.
I opened a Bodyboard Shop in 2005, Licious.
Milk Bodyboard was born in 2006 but the first boards were not available until 2007.
Milk is my baby, it was and still is my passion to make good boards and good products.
I started Milk because in the shop I used to watch all the brands coming from the same two factories in Asia and they were not paying too much attention on marketing.
At the time there weren't many options so they didn't have to worry too much, riders could only buy what was available and so I saw an opportunity.
As a rider myself, I was more about wanting to have a board made for me with options that allowed me to have better rides depending of weather and wave conditions.
Clients at the store were also looking for advice more and more rather than what the market dictated.
The opportunity was there to bring the buying of a bodyboard back to an organic process and making handshaped boards for people.
The ideas flowed the first time i surfed our Airflex Core.
This core is produced in Europe so no other big brand was using it, it was kind of a revelation and provided me speed response and control in any conditions.
I contacted a few shapers to make the first boards. Then I met shaper Gato and he made me magic boards and once I had started to work with him I didn't need to look any further he shared my same passion for quality and great boards.
All of our boards are made by him both custom and stock boards.
Gato has been shaping for more than 20 years and has already made more than 10000 boards.
Today he is a precious part of the brand and we love the relationship we have.
We have also made a few collaboration boards with Jarrod Gibson, Pete Anaya, Isaac Torres. It's always exciting to work with people having great skills and experience.
We are based in south west of France and Gato and Nuno's workshop is in Portugal.
MILK boards are distributed exclusively in my Sen No Sen
flagship store and Licious Bodyboard Shop. We also sell online and have a few select stockists.
I forgot to mention I have another project that is Sen No Sen and I am the founder please feel free to head on over to
www.sennosen.com
to check this out.
Having limited distribution allows us to sell premium handmade boards at very good prices, and we deliver all all over Europe very easily.
We have bunch of very good free riders who push us to improve boards and templates.
Bernardo Jeronimo, Acaymo Martin, Pablo Hernandez Vega, Warrick Murphys, Anthony Savoji, Curtis Prior.
In the past we made boards for Andre Botha, Shaun Pyne, Julien Miremont, Maxime Castillo... all the riders made us better season after season.
Stay tuned, we are near to announce the arrival of a new name. I'm very excited about it.
Watch more of our riders in action at:
www.milkboards.bigcartel.com/videos
Thank you Lid Life Bodyboarding for sharing my story....... and if anyone wants to check us out please feel free to get in touch either online or by email
milkbodyboards@gmail.com. "
Guys thank you for agreeing to feature in our weekly blog love what your doing and love your boards and look forward to riding one in the future.
Go check out
@milkbodyboards on Instagram and Facebook and give them a follow and if your from Europe go get a board.
Super excited for next week as we are off to Hawaii where Jacob Romero has agreed to share his love for Bodyboarding currently sitting at 16th in the APB rankings.
Until then........