Jamie Foy: The Route One Interview

We caught up with Jamie Foy and New Balance Numeric while they were in the UK for the Running Numbers Tour. Over the course of the interview, Jamie got into his move from Diamond to New Balance, why boardfeel still matters most to him, how the 306 C came about, what skating at 30 looks like now, and the run of video parts that helped him lock in his second Skater Of The Year award.

Even with the weather doing what UK weather does, Jamie was still happy to be back. “Always stoked to be back in the UK,” he says. It had been a little hit or miss, but he was taking it as it came, making do with what they had and enjoying being on the road with the New Balance crew.

The conversation started by going back to 2018, the last time we spoke to Jamie, just after he had won SOTY for the first time. A lot has changed since then, including his move into the New Balance programme. Jamie explains that 2018 was pretty much the final year of his Diamond contract, and by the time 2019 came around he was ready to see what else was out there. There was no bad blood. He says he had a great time at Diamond, but it felt like the right moment to try something new.

That move ended up making sense quickly. Tyrone Romero, who had been the footwear team manager at Diamond, left for New Balance and already knew when Jamie’s contract was coming to an end. Once it did, New Balance reached out. Jamie still looked around and went through the usual process, but the fit was obvious pretty much straight away. “New Balance was a great fit right away,” he says. For him, the strength of the team was a big part of it. Being on a trip with a crew this stacked, full of skaters he genuinely likes being around, is still clearly one of the things he values most.

That same clarity comes through when he talks about his shoe, the 306. While a lot of the New Balance team has leaned into more technical footwear, Jamie deliberately kept things simple. The 306 is a classic vulcanised skate shoe, and that was the point. He grew up skating vulcs, and even when he tried different types of shoes when he was younger, including cupsoles, he always came back to the same thing. The shoes he liked best were the ones that felt closest to the board.

For Jamie, it all comes down to boardfeel. “Main thing I care about is board feel,” he says, and that has always been the biggest advantage of a vulcanised sole for him. The 306 gave him a space within New Balance that felt his own, especially on a team where plenty of riders are known for skating more padded, technical cupsole styles. He is clearly proud of where the shoe has ended up too. He talks about seeing it everywhere, on people who might not even know who he is, just wearing it because they like the silhouette. For a pro shoe, that is its own kind of success.

But Jamie has not stayed completely locked into one lane. The 306 C, his cupsole version, came from wanting to offer something different without messing with what already worked. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” he says of the original 306. Rather than tamper with the vulc, he wanted to build something for people who still liked that broken-in, boardfeel-heavy feel, but wanted a bit more structure underneath them.

That is where the 306 C sits. It is a cupsole, but not in the overly bulky sense. Jamie describes it as a more basic cupsole, something that still feels close to a vulc and still gives him plenty of boardfeel. It was not necessarily about replacing the original 306. He still skates both, depending on how he is feeling, what kind of session he is having, or even what colourway happens to work with what he is wearing that day. It is a small detail, but it says a lot about how naturally he thinks about skate shoes. They have to work, but they also have to feel right.

From there, the interview moved into turning 30. In skating, that used to feel like a much bigger line in the sand. Jamie remembers growing up in an era where being 25 in skateboarding could already make you seem like one of the older guys. Now, things feel different. Skating has grown up with the people who shaped it, and there are more examples than ever of riders keeping things moving well past the point where earlier generations might have been expected to slow down.

Being around someone like Andrew Reynolds only reinforces that. Jamie talks about how skaters are taking better care of themselves now, figuring out what works for their bodies, doing PT when they need to, and learning how to keep doing what they love for as long as possible. “25 is like the new 18,” he says. At 30, he knows he cannot necessarily go out and skate nine hours a day in the same way, but that does not mean the level has dropped. It just means the approach has changed. Be strategic, listen to your body, and make the sessions count.

That mindset also feeds into the way he talks about winning Skater Of The Year for the second time. His first SOTY in 2017 came as a shock to him. He had only just turned pro that year, and the award felt like something that came out of left field. But once it happened, it opened up a new idea of what was possible. It showed him that something on that scale was not out of reach.

The second time around was different. Jamie is honest about the fact that, in the years between, there was a part of him that wanted to win it again with intention. Not because the first one did not count, but because he wanted to prove to himself that it was not a fluke. He wanted to set that goal deliberately and see if he could make it happen.

In 2024, the pieces started to line up. The Deathwish video, the Dickies video and the New Balance video all landed in the same year, even though they had originally been planned across different timelines. Some of that came down to delays and release schedules shifting around, but Jamie saw the opportunity in it. If he could lean into those parts, get the tricks he wanted, and put the right work out at the right time, then there was a real chance. As he puts it, some of the stars aligned, but he still had to take advantage of it.

That distinction feels important. Jamie does not talk about the second SOTY like it was just a lucky calendar accident. The timing helped, but the skating had to be there. The video parts had to hit. The clips had to be worth it. The cover had to mean something. And when it all came together, it gave him the more deliberate version of the award he had been chasing.

With the Running Numbers Tour, the scale of the New Balance team was impossible to ignore. Jamie describes it almost like a super tour, with around 25 or 30 pro skaters all out together. What stands out to him is not just the size of the crew, but the range inside it. Stair skaters, ledge skaters, cutty skaters, power skaters, vert skaters; New Balance has built a team that covers a lot of ground without everyone feeling like they are trying to do the same thing.

For Jamie, that is exactly why tours like this matter. It gives kids a chance to see that range in person, and it gives the team a chance to actually spend time together. In an era where so much skateboarding is consumed through clips, edits and posts, there is still something different about seeing a crew like that roll through your city. It is good for the kids watching, and it is good for the riders too. Team bonding still counts.

Before wrapping up, Jamie talked about what the rest of the year has in store. His main focus is a new Red Bull and Thrasher project, a full-length video built around a handful of parts. Jamie mentions Zion, Utah and Chloe Covell as part of the mix, with bigger Red Bull trips feeding into the filming process. Whoever ends up with the footage will shape how the parts come together, but for Jamie, the focus is simple: stay in the streets and keep getting clips.

That might be the clearest thread running through the whole conversation. Shoes change, teams change, awards come around once or twice if everything lines up, and the body asks for a bit more attention as the years go on. But Jamie still sounds like Jamie. He is still thinking about boardfeel, still chasing clips, still finding ways to make the work count, and still hyped to be out with a crew.

At 30, with two SOTYs behind him and another video already in motion, he is not talking like someone looking back for too long. He is already onto the next one.

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