Stats:
Name: Ryan Smith
Birthplace: Vernon, BC
Resides Vista, CA
Years skating: 15 years
Music: Metal
Last skate magazine looked at: The Skateboard Mag
Last video you saw: The Lakai video
Favorite video: Virtual Reality
Favorite city to travel to: Barcelona
You will never catch me filming: in the rain
You will never catch me entering: a reality TV show
Favorite DC’s: The Smith 2.0

Bio:
British Columbia fires off round after round of talented skateboarders. In the early part of the 00’s, Ryan Smith was one of the city's newest exports. If you hadn't seen him skate before, or don't trust that the RDS crew wouldn't support someone who isn't worthy, then you knew he was no joke when Jamie Thomas put him on Zero. Smith's part in “Dying to Live” makes you wish you had the balls to even roll up and pop to the rails and hubbas he frontside 5-0s and noseblunts with ease. His part in “The DC Video” and bonus footage in the Deluxe Edition, should have you convinced he's not just another rail skater filming hammers all day. The amount of skate media coverage Ryan got as an am in the months leading up to, and shortly following the release of “The DC Video” was most likely unmatched by even any pro that year.

Ryan is currently pro for Mystery skateboards and you can bet it'll take a freight train to stop his momentum.

Let’s get right into it. You had a pretty heavy situation happen last fall. Can you break down what happened?
I woke up in the hospital with a catheter, a neck brace, breathing tube and maybe a feeding tube as well, and they told me I crashed my motorcycle.

You don’t remember anything?
No. I just woke up days later all messed up.

Besides the tubes, what did the wreck do to your body?
It did a lot of things to my body. I crushed my right hand—they had to reconstruct it. Got a compound fracture in my leg—they put a titanium rod in there. I fractured my pelvis in three spots. I fractured my skull—my brain was bleeding in two separate spots. Oh, and I caved in my cheekbone—they had to do plastic surgery to fix my face.

How long were you in the hospital?
Two to three weeks. It’s pretty foggy; I still don’t remember a lot.

What was the rehabilitation like? Was there a strict process to follow to get healthy again?
You know what? Modern medicine sucks. They didn’t tell me anything. I woke up, and the first thing they fed me was Jell-O—rad. (laughs). I had to go do a lot of research to learn how to help myself.

Wasn’t there someone there to tell you how to do get better?
No. They told me to just sit and rest and heal, but then other symptoms started happening… six weeks later my arm started going numb, to the point where I couldn’t feel my arms or move my hands. So they did an x-ray, and they told me it was a spinal cord injury and I might be loosing my arms. So I did some research, where I found out that wasn’t the case. Basically it boils down to exercise and diet. I started working out and eating really good.

So what’s your new healthy routine like?
I get up and make juice and take a shot of cod liver oil, then I work out. I just cut out all processed food and sugar. I mean, I have cheat days, but basically I eat really healthy and organic.

Is this the new Smithers lifestyle?
It makes me feel better. Typically, yeah, it’s a way better way.

When you go through hard times, it’s super important to stay positive mentally. Were you able to stay positive throughout the whole motorbike wreck situation?
I wasn’t. I was super depressed, and it was lame. When I hit my head, the part I injured made me super violent and depressed… that’s what they told me. But, my brain healed, just like a rolled ankle heals. Finally, I was just stoked to be alive and find out that I was going to skate again.

Is that your outlook now… stoked to be able to skate again?
Yeah. It turns out this could actually turn out to be a good thing. I now get longevity though looking out for stuff and taking care of myself. I definitely hope I learned something; financially it cost me everything, and physically it cost me everything. I’m building from the ground-up.

Think you’ll ride motorbikes again?
Yeah, I do.

Now that you’re back on your board, how much has the whole ordeal affected your skating?
It’s been six and a half months, and I’m getting back into it. It’s weird… I hurt my entire body—not and injury here and there, but everything—so I’m getting the feel again. I’m stretching and I can do kickflips and three-flips and stuff. By summer, I’ll be fine. I just have to keep up with the program.

Have you ever been off your board that long before?
No. Not in 16 years of skating.

So is getting back to skating like riding a bike, as the saying goes?
Yes and no. A lot of it has to do with balance and your perception. I had to heal… if I was healthy and stopped skating for six months I would be fine, but I had to relearn how to do things. I had to relearn how to walk.

Are your shooting photos and filming?
A little bit, but just messing around. I realized [I need] to skate, wait three or four days, then skate again… not everyday, like before. I need to heal. Every week, I’m way, way better.

Do you consider yourself lucky then?
When people tear their knee and get ACL surgery, it’s like six months to a year (no skating). I’m at six months, already skating better than a person who got their knee worked on. I was real lucky!

Once summer hits, what will you be working on?
I’ll just play it by ear and be happy that I’m in the streets skating again. I’m not going to count my chickens before they hatch… I’m just happy to be in the sun, compared to lying on the floor staring at the ceiling in excruciating pain!

Any trips lined up?
I think we’re going on some DC trips, like Brazil. I’m down for any trip!

Now that you’re skating, what are you most looking forward to out of everything over the next year?
Putting this behind me 100%, and acting like, wow, did this really happen?

DC is building a skate park here behind the office. If you had complete control over what type of stuff is going to be put out there, what would it look like?
I’d put one of those standing waves out there; like a surfing wave. You know, ‘dude, I’ve been skating for so long, let’s just put a wave pool.’ That, and granite ledges and cement and stuff. I’d make it all out of cement. I just want a place where you can actually grind your board, as opposed to [skating] metal.

This new shoe of yours is completely different than you last shoe. Why the dramatic change?
That’s an easy one. That’s how skateboarding is nowadays with the style. Skateboard shapes haven’t changed, generally, for the last 10-15 years. Shoes have changed every year so much, and it’s finally come back to a basic, pure skate shoe. That’s what this is.

You were very specific with your needs with the look, stitching and everything. How hard was the design process for you?
This shoe was the most sampled shoe DC has ever done. There were like 5 or 6 or maybe even 20 samples. They’d come back and I’d be like change this, this, and this. In the end, I think it turned out really good. I’m pleased with it.

Apart from just wanting a good, basic skate shoe, what did you ask for performance-wise?
I didn’t really worry about performance because our shoes are made better than most. I’m not trying to just say that, but DC’s are constructed better. It sounds cheesy, and I wouldn’t go claim ‘Super Suede!’ to a kid, but it really does hold up. It actually is way better. My 1.5 shoe (with Super Suede™) outlasted my first shoe, and my first shoe had a rubber toe cap!

I was more concerned with aesthetics, because the quality is already there.

What were your goals on that aesthetic side?
We just tried different contrast stitching, high-grade leathers, and other ideas. Just wanted to make a bitchin’, kick-ass skateboard shoe!

What about the unusual art on the shoe and apparel?
We got Jimbo Phillips to do the artwork. I was stoked on his stuff and his dad’s stuff from the ‘80s.

Were you familiar with that style before this project?
Yeah, definitely. The Santa Cruz stuff was pretty rad. It goes back to when you were a kid and watched dudes riding skateboards, and those were the graphics that they had. I loved seeing the off the wall, crazy graphics as a kid. I loved them even before I started skating. I liked Jimbo’s fun, crazy stuff, as opposed to the serious stuff, like with Powell.

Did you work closely with Jimbo on making that graphic, which was created specifically for this DC project?
He had free reign pretty much, but I also had specific ideas. Like, I wanted a skull with a skateboard sticking out if its head, but however he wanted to do it, do it.

Personality is super important to you… putting a bit of yourself into the products. Is this 2.0 shoe a reflection of you personally?
Yes. The graphics inside are fun. It’s meant to be a fun shoe, where you can just go outside and skate… good times! It’s not meant to be something overdramatic. It’s a fun shoe that’s made really, really well. [end]