This Is Not A Promotional Video For Ryan Burch Surfboards

It was another cloudless morning in Encinitas when I met Ryan Burch. Outside of the pink gateway of his home, he skated uphill, grease-blotted burrito bag in hand and invited us in. He opened his gate to reveal a collection of surfboards more unorthodox than his approach. In every crevice boards stacked like dismissed dominos–broken, buckled and unidentifiable. There wasn’t a high-performance craft in sight, just fibre glassed foam designed to challenge traditional thruster values. Nearly everything Ryan rides he built by hand. “The fifth board I ever made was a fish,” he told us. “That was a pivotal time in surfing and shaping. The fish bridged the gap between thrusters and logs. It brought back the psychey little comp grom in me. I think riding twin fins smoothed out my surfing. It taught me to draw lines and read waves.”

Thumbing through the archives of Ryan’s home, I landed on the foam block (as seen at 1:39). A board he attributes to keeping his career and sponsorship with Volcom above the brine. “At the time I was still sponsored from riding a shortboard,” he laughed. “But all I wanted to do was ride this 4’6 foam block. I remember my mom telling me, ‘don’t ride that all the time or you’ll get dropped by your sponsor.’ I was riding it even when the waves were really good. It ended up being something people saw and thought was creative and unique. In the end, that sort of experimentation was what kept me as an interest to Volcom. All of a sudden I was given the ability to do what I wanted.”

Beware, his new clip “Here I am” is known to initiate custom order forms, expensive purchases and I’m guessing a two to three month grace period.