Bert strums, Bert tunnels. Photos: Merkel/A-Frame

“I was anti-Gerry… he was making capital L’s and I wanted to make figure 8s” said the Rubberman of his unique approach to wave riding. Along with Buttons and Mark Liddell, the Rubberman wanted to do radical direction changes, break out from stuffy, souly straight lines. And he did it with some success. Riding shorter boards in solid surf, inspiring the Dogtown crew to revolutionize skateboarding (the ‘Bert’ slide), getting non-endemic sponsorships, riding around Sydney in chauffered Roller, all done with an outrageous ‘fro, Bertlemann paved the way for a fresh, rad approach to riding waves. Slater called him “The first New Schooler” while Pottz hailed Bertlemann as “the Godfather of high performance.”