2024 SURFER Big Wave Challenge Men’s Ride of the Year Nominees

There’s an easy throughline to make between the SURFER Big Wave Challenge Ride of the Year nominees: barrels. Specifically, Soli Bailey, Nathan Florence and Albee Layer went out of their way to score the biggest, baddest cones they could find. It’s not an easy feat, and certainly not without serious risks. But these are the money shots they’ve been waiting for. Read below for more insight into each of the three nominations. Find out the winner on October 19 at the SURFER Big Wave Challenge award show in Nazaré.

Soli Bailey arguably had the best year of his career in 2024. The former Championship Tour competitor turned freesurfer savant was in tune with the ocean no matter where he went. In January he delighted in a cartoonish sand bottom point from Surfline and O’Neill’s Maps to Nowhere. He stepped up at Shipstern Bluff in April and released a stellar tube-filled edit this summer. And of course, he got this beauty at thundering Cloudbreak. With its glistening, stretched-out 20-foot wall, Soli’s wave was a gem of gems.

Related: An Aerial View of Soli Bailey Scoring A Cloudbreak Masterpiece

Speaking of being in sync with the ocean, Nathan Florence had something special brewing in Ireland in 2023. The reigning Big Wave Challenge Surfer of the Year and Ride of the Year champ racked up a massive right and left that solidified his status as the most barreled big-wave surfer alive last year. His follow-up session at Mullaghmore in 2024, however, didn’t quite go according to plan. He endured numerous violent beatdowns for several hours with 25-foot gaping tubes detonating on the reef. Yet Nathan still managed to get in deep and hold his line through another spitting Irish slab.

Related: Nathan Florence Gets Flexed at Pumping Mullaghmore, Waits Two Hours for 20-Foot Slab

Albee Layer has committed himself physically, mentally and emotionally to the west bowl at Jaws. He’s as savvy as anybody in those caverns, and in his time there the Maui man has accrued devastating injuries and career-defining performances. This Ride of the Year nomination is the latter. He was out at first light to check under the hood of Peahi for the first swell of the winter and somehow poked through the overgrown end section. Will this be the year Albee finally gets the Ride of the Year check?

Related: “Still Just Not That Content”: A Refreshed Albee Layer Remains Hungry for Jaws