Best Sections of All-Time: Dan Malloy in Hit and Run

We go pretty hard on the Momentum Files over here, but it’s pretty incredible how many good sections Taylor and his crews put out from the early 90s to late 2000s.

Today we highlight Dan Malloy, a regular in all Taylor’s films and a guy who’s gone from Billabong poster child to Patagonia soul daddy to his current state wandering the hills behind Ventura as a real life cowboy. He is a California legend and I think we all wanna be a little like Dan.

I think every regular footer in Calfironai would admit to a little bit of a crush on Dan — even if some don’t know about him yet. He is in the DNA of this state’s regular footers. And sure, we all have our flashy favorite surfers —Kelly, Andy, Taj, Curren, etc — but Dan just does everything well.

He has this “will go on anything” approach but never feels like he’s being macho, he has power but not muscle power, it’s like a silky power, just enough flair to stay interesting and such a smooth style that when we did our whole series on style Thomas Campbell suggested at one point that we basically make the whole piece about Dan. I didn’t disagree. He warrants his own episode. And it’s not obvious right away. Dan’s style is subtle and grows on you over time and embeds itself as you spend more and more time in California. It is Curren meets Malloy and there’s a lot of classic Californian in that.

Today we highlight Dans’ section in Hit and Run, set to a Face to Face song that will get ya paddling out in the bleakest of conditions. Which is what all best sections of all-time should do. —Travis Ferré