Campbell Designed Hip Toe Exo Review

Campbell Designed Hip Toe Exo is shorter and wider than your average shortboard, but without going crazy. I rode this one 2 inches shorter than my regular board, and an inch or so wider. That helps you throw things around, keeping tight and spicy, without losing any paddle juice. The bottom is nice and flat to help maintain speed, while a little extra tail kick keeps things nice and loose off the top if you want to ditch fins. As the name suggests, there’s also a little hip right up toward the back tail, keeping some width through the middle, yet adding responsiveness when jamming hard on the back foot.

It’s a bit like Tom Carroll, really – short and nuggety, while managing to stay trim.

Campbell Designs list this board as: “Designed primarily for shorter, peaky beach break surf in the small to overhead range”. I mostly agree with this assessment, but I found it was still epic in longer walls when you’re wanting to whip up some speed then wipe it off with a tight sang or fin drift. Head high would also be my limit for this board in terms of size. Any bigger and you can’t push as hard as you like and start nursing things. I surfed it in tiiiiiiny waves and it actually seemed to go okay too. I also felt like it went better on my backhand, simply because it’s a bit easier to go straight up and down on lefts, rather than doing more rounded carves. If you’re a bit snappier on your forehand, then it’d be super sweet both ways.

Overall Best Conditions:

Shoulder high, fun beach breaks is when the Hip//Toe gets especially toey. 

The best single word I can come up with for the Campbell Designed Hip//Toe is ZAPPY. It’s like a little ray gun going pew pew pew all over the waves. I wanted to make sound effects every time I did a turn. Super responsive with plenty of spring, it really is a high-performance, small wave board. It has plenty of pick up speed from the get go, and holds its momentum through flat sections. My only drawback is that as soon as the waves picked up past head high, it got too skatey for me to surf at 100%. I found myself constantly nursing turns instead of setting the ray gun to burn.

Campbell Designed Hip Toe Exo is an epic option for smaller waves when you’re wanting to flex your shred skills. It’s plenty speedy and plenty loose, allowing you to zip and zap to your salty heart’s delight in anything from knee high to head high. Beyond that wave size, however, I’d look at other options for more confidence in serious conditions. The fact that it’s more of a specialist board may also limit it as a good traveling board, unless you’re going somewhere that rarely gets solid. Still, it’s almost a must-have for surfers in Queensland and New South Wales, where a diet of shoulder high, peaky beachies is as common as meat and potatoes. 

In regards to the Exo Flex Tech of the board, it’s hard to make a comment on since I didn’t test the same board/dimensions in regular tech. I will say that it feels springy and zappy as a board, which suggests the construction is working, but it’s hard to be sure. I did have a lot of people ask ‘what are you riding?!’ when they saw the red metallic infused carbon on the board. So, at the very least, it’s a great conversation starter. 

The Campbell Designed Hip//Toe is a definite recommend if you surf small waves more often than not. 

The Wins:

• Speedy and zappy 
• A great small wave performance option if you’re not into twinnys or other alt craft
• The tech looks/feels cool

The Challenges:

• Doesn’t perform well in waves over head high