A fun, fast all rounder, the JS Psycho Nitro loves everything from waist high mush to overhead barrels. This is an all-time favorite!

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As I pondered my love affair with this JS Psycho Nitro, I had an insight into Finding the Right Board for Your Surfing Style. Hope you find this surfboard review helpful and that you can discover the perfect type of board for your unique style of surfing.

This JS Psycho Nitro has plenty of volume where I need it but not too much where it gets in the way. The result? A fun, fast board that suits everything from waist high mush to overhead barrels.

If you’re quick on your feet, this may not be the best choice for you but I think most surfers from novice to advanced will find a lot to love about this redux of the JS Nitro, the JS Psycho Nitro!

Hope you enjoy this JS Psycho Nitro Review + Finding the Right Board for Your Surfing Style!

Enjoy, Benny

Have a question? Wondering if the JS Psycho Nitro is the right board for you? Let’s talk about it in the comments…

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Pluses

+ The JS Psycho Nitro is a super fast, forgiving, versatile board that makes having fun sessions a breeze
+ A modern performance fish outline but enough rocker to help it feel at home in bigger, better waves
+ Great option for a power surfer but would suit most surfers from novice to advanced

Minuses

– One drawback of this board is I couldn’t really turn it too hard, too aggressively. The wider outline makes quick direction adjustments a challenge

Benny Rides

I rode the JS Psycho Nitro at  6’1″ x 21 1/2 x 2 x 3/4 at 39.4 L’s. I rode it with the Futures Fins HS1 Large Haydenshapes Templates as a quad. They’ve become my default for most boards and they felt great in this board.

Standard JS Psycho Nitro dimensions and volumes may be found at the bottom of this page.

Best Wave Type

The best conditions for the JS Psycho Nitro is 1 to 3 foot wave range, the waist to kind of shoulder high range, and it really handles its own in smaller surf. It’s got enough volume through it, but it definitely handles bigger waves.

Features

• The JS Psycho Nitro has a fuller nose with a slight vee, an added foam under the chest for more paddle power
• Relatively flat rocker with a nice, gentle, continuous curve so it’s not super flat
• Fuller rails which are less catchy in more average conditions. They’re not too bulky, however, and they’re not big fat groveler rails that are hard to bury
• It comes with a swallow tail for lively rail-to-rail feel
• 5 Fin – works well as a quad or thruster set up

Compare To

• Psillakis Surfboards Quad Fish Surfboard Review: a performance hybrid on steroids; great for pumping fun into your average days at home
• Gary McNeill Surfboards Entity Surfboard Review: GMC can do no wrong and this is a cracking all rounder with similar plan shape, wave range…and fun factor!
• Perry Surfboards Villain Surfboard Review: if you haven’t heard of Brayden Perry by now…you should have. This special small to medium size wave board is geared for performance in average to good conditions

Video Summary

Hey, this is Ben, welcome to Benny’s Boardroom. I love this board. This is the best board I’ve ridden all year. This is the JS Psycho Nitro. My JS Psycho Nitro is just the standard 6’1″ x 21 1/2 x 2 x 3/4 at 39.4 L’s, the standard is 39.6 L’s, I don’t know if that’s a typo on my board, but either way it’s just under 40 L’s. Just about right for what I would normally ride in this style board.

“This board just works for me. I literally haven’t been able to stop riding this thing, I’ve had such a good time on it, and in so many different conditions. It’s the perfect board for me in Sydney.”

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The Board

I’ll talk to you the technical details of the board, but really, I thought it was useful to share an insight about finding your type of board, the ideal shape of your board, for your style of surfing. For example, Craig (who kindly reviews boards for us and is an awesome surfer) likes the very narrow nose, high performance nose with a slightly wider tail for drive. That suits his style of surfing. He’s a very good surfer, he’s very confident.

I on the other hand, I like boards that are little more cruisy. I don’t do a lot of sharp turns, I tend to do things more with power. I like doing big, drawn out, arcing powerful turns.

This style of board suits my style of surfing really well. It’s almost a modern performance fish, but a little bit more drawn out and with a little bit more rocker. This style of board that has a bit of volume up the front of the board, and a bit of thickness, but still a relatively tight nose, it’s not too fishy, and then it pulls back into a tighter swallow tail which allows for pivot and that swallow tail is really great for pumping down the line and transitioning rail to rail.

This design overall just really suits my style of surfing well. It’s super fast, it’s really easy to catch waves, it’s a really easy board to surf. It has a relatively flat rocker, but it still has a nice, gentle, continuous curve, so it’s not super flat. It’ll still easily get into a steeper face.

It has fuller rails which are less catchy in more average conditions, but they’re not too bulky, they’re not big fat groveler rails. The volume has been taken out of the nose right here, but then the volume fills in through the chest area here, so that makes it really easy to paddle.

Then the tail – I’m not a huge swallow tail fan, it’s not that I dislike them but I usually prefer round tails – but this tail, I really like. I like how it brings the wide point of the board back and has this little break point here to pull this into a tighter swallow tail, and that tail feels great.

It felt really good when the surf was smaller, when I really wanted to try to pivot the board in smaller, weaker surf, but it also holds quite well in better conditions because it’s not too wide and thick to handle a steeper face.

The concaves, there’s a little touch of vee right through here. That goes into a single concave, which then has a double that runs through the single, the double starts about here running through the single, but it’s just very slight, and then that comes out to a little vee off the tail. The vee just starts behind those back fins, but it is a little bit more pronounced.

What Surfers Abilities Will the JS Psycho Nitro Best Suit

I think this is the type of board that a lot of people are going to be able to get on and really enjoy. It’s a modern performance fish outline, but a little bit drawn out to be used in a broader wave range, and I think a lot of people could get up and really enjoy surfing this board, because again, it’s quite easy to surf.

“It doesn’t really limit you in bigger, better waves. I had some really phenomenal, stand out sessions on this board in bigger, more hollow surf.”

Again, the design suits my style of surfing, which is definitely characterized more by power and the board, I think would be great for just about anybody from novice all the way up to advanced, for somebody who wanted really good utility board for places where the waves aren’t great all the time.

Experience in the Surf

The best conditions for the JS Psycho Nitro? It is really intended to be surfed in the 1 to 3 foot range (per JS Industries), the waist to  shoulder high range, and it does handle its own in smaller surf. It’s got enough volume through it. But it definitely handles bigger waves.

Again, for this size of board, this volume of board and this wider outline, it does easily handle smaller days. It gets a great amount of speed, it’s really easy to pump and generate speed. It’s flat enough that it will kind of float across flatter sections, but it’s also curvy enough and the outline is tight enough, and the rails are just low enough that it does handle those bigger, better (more hollow?) days.

I surfed my JS Psycho Nitro in a nice, solid, east ground swell, and I was surfing this wave that can get really good on its day, and it was about the best I’d ever seen it.

The wave wedges at the take off so you’re taking these big steep drops but, on this day, it was just running all the way to shore, just wrapping around the sand bank, and the smaller ones were barreling.

You could make the bigger ones but you’d take off and it was just a race into a big, open cavern, which would close out. It was just fantastic to surf this board in those types of conditions, which were challenging. It was all big, steep drops and definitely a few feet overhead. It wasn’t small, it had plenty of power in it and I was taking the drops, and this JS Psycho Nitro didn’t flinch. It wasn’t difficult to get into those waves, I didn’t feel like the outline really held me back.

The one thing I’d say is that every now and then when I tried to turn it too sharply, the board just wouldn’t quite dig in and I did come off the board a couple of times when I was really trying to turn it aggressively. Other than that, it held its own in those waves, and I just had one of the best sessions I’ve had this year.

That was just the latest in a long line of surfs on this board that really just proved to me, this is my style of board and great for surfing around Sydney.

Fin Setup

For fin setups, I never surfed the JS Psycho Nitro as a thruster. I really liked it as a quad. I’ve been surfing these Futures Fins HS1 Large Haydenshapes Templates. I’ve said it in a few reviews now but, high performance shortboards aside,  I’m pretty much putting these in every board I ride now. They’ve become my default, and if they don’t work I switch but they felt great in this board.

This board felt fantastic with these fins: super quick, enough hold, good amount of drive, good amount of pivot, but I highly recommend them in just about every board that ride beyond what you’re riding really high performance boards in really hollow, technical conditions.

They might feel a little bit twitchy and fast (too much for a HPSB) but other than that I think they’d work in just about everything. They felt great on this board and I felt really complimented the tail shape.

JS Psycho Nitro Summary

To sum up the JS Psycho Nitro, this is a redux from the JS Nitro that, again, I loved … I love this board.

I haven’t been able to stop riding this board – running on two months now – and I have so many other boards that I should be riding and doing reviews of, but I just haven’t been able to stop riding because it just works so well for me.

“I know that every time I paddle out on this board, I’m going to have a good surf on it.”

If I were to, again, critique any part of this board, I think it does suit my surfing style, so if you’re more of a power surfer, I think this would be a great option for you but if you like short, quick direction changes, perhaps you’ll find it too stiff.

I couldn’t really turn it too hard, to aggressively, otherwise, like I said, I did come off it a couple times, especially the bigger, more powerful surf.

That is the JS Psycho Nitro surfboard review. My favorite board this year, I absolutely love this thing. Thanks JS Industries for putting together another great model.

I hope you enjoyed the review. Thanks so much for watching and I’ll speak with you again soon.

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Stock Standard Dimensions & Volume

Standard JS Psycho Nitro Surfboard Dimensions & Volumes available at the JS Industries website: