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Bryndon Smith
Former Soap Team Member, Promoter

History
» Here is Bryndon's story of his time with Soap Shoes...

The company that actually designed Chris Morris's idea for the Soap Shoe was called Concept 21 which was based in Manhattan Beach. The owner Brent James, aside from being an industry veteran, was a surfer and hung out with the local surfers, one of which was a Junior in HS at the time named Alonzo Vargas who went to Mira Costa HS in Manhattan Beach.

When Brent James finally got his first pair of sample shoes back from the factory he gave them to Alonzo to test out. Alonzo wasn't used to the whole grinding on curbs thing so he brought them to school to his friend Danny Lynch who was in a group of rollebladers that could slide on rails and curbs n stuff... Danny Lynch, Paul Cifuentes, Bryndon Smith, Ryan Smith (no relation), Kenny Harrison.

When Danny showed up with those shoes... it was ON. I remeber that day so well, at lunch we'd all take turns with them grinding on everything we could see. At one point I remember Danny having one on and I had the other on and I think we went the rest of the day each wearing one of the shoes and grinding with one normal shoe and one soap. I'm pretty sure it was the original Black "Clean" but instead of a black midsole it had a gum midsole.

Anyways, in the next week or so Brent James had Danny, Paul and myslef go back to concept 21 and he gave us each our own pair to test out. Really he was trying to find out if the pain/injury to fun ratio was low enough that they wouldn't get their asses sued off.

We all had a lot of fun and didn't get hurt too much, so a few months later Soap hit the market. This was all early in my Senior year of Highschool I think.. Because Danny was a Junior and Paul was a Softmore.

(Part 2 coming soon!)
Aaron Huebner sliding royale for Bryndon Bryndon with a frontside (about to jump from rail 1 to rail 2). Bryndon hittin a backslide at the Cedar Rapids Soap Demo Bryndon with a royale on some bleachers Bryndon Smith hittin a Frontside the Iowa City Kink

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Zack Ricky hittin a Frontside on a long, fat, kinked rail.
Bryndon Smith hittin a Frontside the Iowa City Kink
Tanner Gregory hittin a Royale
Aaron MacDonald hittin a Frontside
Bart Johnson hittin a Frontside outside of the Moline pool