The Rules of Skateboarding #25: Ryan Lay
“…during the era where you just had to get one photo to justify the whole trip…”
For the latest installment in our Rules of Skateboarding series, Ian Browning talks with Sci-Fi Fantasy pro and Slow Impact (see you there?) head honcho Ryan Lay about the makings of a good skate trip.
What do you think makes for a good skate trip?
This is such a hard question to answer without sounding totally generic — you know, good homies and good energy.
I think one answer is minimal time in a car or van – that’s crucial. Spending time in a car, for me, is soul crushing. I personally like skating places that are off the beaten path, because I like looking for spots, and I don't really love having my hand held. It also helps that you’re not competing to be top dog at a spot that’s been thoroughly rinsed. That can be challenging of course on a trip, but I think also having a good tour guide helps too. A local who knows the lay of the land and can get us into the zones that are cool where we can skate around.
Can you talk about the best skate trip you've ever been on? Or a favorite trip?
I think the Palestine trip when we filmed that video for Thrasher was one of the best I’ve ever been on. Just in terms of spots, energy and the general excitement we had going out every day. It’s rare to keep that going for over two weeks. The food was incredible too; best falafel I’ve ever had in my life.
Do you have a worst skate trip you've ever been on?
I would say the old demo trips, but sometimes I even get nostalgic for those. You feel like a machine, you’re just skating so much. You skate as hard as you can, the food sucks, you’re falling asleep in a long van ride with now-dried sweated-out socks and underwear, you’re probably beefing with someone you’ve spent way too many hours with and you get to the next town three hours over at midnight ready to do it all over again. It feels like a bygone era. Other than that, I’m not into long road trips unless we’re in the mountains. If we’re driving to Texas on the I-10, I’m not built for that.
You've skated from small brands all the way to an athletic footwear powerhouse, New Balance Numeric, makes you uniquely qualified to answer this question: How has traveling as a pro skater changed since the first trip you went on?
I mean, I don't know if this is the most interesting thing, but definitely content production. The trips that I started going on early in my career were during the era where you just had to get one photo to justify the whole trip, and there usually wasn’t even a video component that went with it. We'd be working on a video slated for years in the future, or sometimes the footage wouldn’t end up anywhere. Now, you're just generating so much content during the trip, between lifestyle stuff, social media, and trying to do heartfelt skating. It can definitely be overwhelming if you’re working towards a full length video. Videos that have a lasting impact take time, and you have to move pretty slowly and organically – they’re not very well suited for the speed at which we need to produce things. Anyway, all this stuff, it takes its toll on the body. The last thing I'll say on traveling is that, in a good way, skating is just much more global. It’s easier than ever to get tapped into local scenes and connect with people and move around.
How do skate trips compare with your solo trail running trips? Are there any parallels there?
The main parallel there is that they're both basically endurance based. When I'm on a skate trip, after the first two days, I'm just surviving the rest of the trip. If anything, it's harder to pace myself on a skate trip, because you usually don't have that option. I think living outside of the industry core I feel a lot of pressure to skate hard when I’m on trips or even in California or New York – this predictably doesn’t produce great outcomes. Any sport that’s tethered to your finances is going to be stressful, I don’t care what you do. The outdoor endurance stuff I do is a totally different release for me, it’s mostly a self-exploration tool, a place to collect my thoughts and pare things down to a kind of base human experience.
The nice thing about going on a trip with a team is that you have people who can take the pressure off of you. We all struggle with this, but if you can just keep the spirits high, you can contribute a lot just by motivating people, fixing up spots, grabbing snacks, filming, etcetera.
So speaking of skate trips, let's talk Slow Impact. Where did you first come up with the idea?
I attended the second Pushing Boarders, which was the big one that happened in Malmö. I think Slow Impact was born out of a sense that our scene here in AZ had really been contracting in recent years and two, there was a big hole left in Pushing Boarders’ absence. There was this audience of academics, skate nerds, community organizers, whatever you want to call them, that were really into this stuff. Because of all the work we did with Skate After School and the network we’d built, the local shops, and parks, it seemed like a good opportunity to draw people here.
The weather here is also perfect all winter. We were already building on crews of skaters coming from the Midwest and the Northwest who just wanted to get some sun. I would say it was a confluence of those three things.
Can you walk through any of the processes of getting it off to ground in ‘23?
The main thing is that Slow Impact wouldn't have been possible without support from New Balance. I reached out to them the first year and told them I was interested in doing a new type of event, and they helped get a lot of people out here and helped fund it, took a huge risk on it, and believed in me. I'm so fucking grateful for that.
It was as simple (and anxiety-inducing) as posting a flyer and hoping people have faith in this thing. We didn’t initially even share many details about what it was,I just was hoping that through my audience and the people who were in our orbit, like Ted Barrow, Jerry Hsu, Alex White and Kyle Beachy, that it would be big enough of a draw to get people to come out.
In terms of getting it off the ground, having the spaces like Skate After School and Cowtown, and having built these different small parks like Perry and Mitchell, that was the recipe that we needed to sell Tempe as a fake urban city where you could come and vacation here for a weekend without a car.
Is there anything new that you're particularly looking forward to for this year's event?
The city is updating the whole park that surrounds the Perry skatepark, and we're hoping that they are done by then — that's on the city’s timeline, so we're not 100% sure, but I'm going to be heartbroken if it’s not open in time.
Other than that, just slightly bigger venues, some fun panel discussions and also new street spots we’ve fixed up with some skateable sculpture type things.
Having Andrew Reynolds out will be cool to talk about his new shoe with Jeff at New Balance. Managing the size of everything is the main thing right now, which does make me a little sad, because I think that as things grow, they get a little less intimate, and intimacy is often what makes things feel special. So it's bittersweet. In general, I’m always trying to strike a balance between knowledge production and entertainment. There has to be a good mix of genuinely fun and lively skate shit alongside the headier stuff.
What is your dream skate, or, I guess trail running (or anything) trip that you haven’t done yet?
I've been daydreaming about doing the Pacific Crest Trail the past couple weeks and have been looking into permits. I probably shouldn’t even say that. I think it’s just because I’ve been in non-stop skate mode trying to finish up the Sci-Fi Fantasy video, and I’m definitely feeling a little burnt out on skating. But I would love to do one of the long scenic trails, probably not the Appalachian Trail, but either the Continental Divide Trail or the PCT. I might wait until right when my skate career is over, like the year after I get let go from my sponsors, but I definitely have been fantasizing about that. Thinking also about riding my bike down the Pacific coast in April, possibly.
As for skate trips, I mean, I've always wanted to go to Amman, Jordan. It looks like an amazing place to skate, and to visit the crew from Seven Hills Park. I'd pretty much go anywhere people are happy to have me.