Congratulations Dave Voelker on making the BMX Hall of Fame

Last night, at Dave Voelker's house in the San Diego area, he held a big party to celebrate making it into the BMX Hall of Fame.  It's 9:30 am East Coast time now, 6:30 West Coast time, so I figure Dave has just recently passed out in the desert somewhere near his house, as a coyote looks on and wonders what the fuck this human is doing laying out in the brush.  I imagine it was one hell of a party, and had I been anywhere near the West Coast, I would have joined in the festivities. 

Congratulations Dave!  Voelker making the HOF is a no-brainer.  Few riders have blown minds on a 20 inch bike for as many years as Dave has.  I had the good fortune to meet Dave when he was an unknown ramp rider that Brian Scura had just hired to ride in his shows.  During my short stint at FREESTYLIN' magazine, I was told to go out front one afternoon and help some guy set up Scura's quarterpipe for a photo shoot.  I went outside, and offered to help this kid with white-blond, stringy hair.  After all, it took two or three people to set up the typical wooden quarterpipe in those days. 

"I got it," Dave said.  "Scura designed this ramp so one person can set it up.  Brian Scura was not only a weird, yet talented, rider, he was a mad scientist (he invented the Gyro), and owned one of the few pro trick teams at the time.  So I chatted with this Dave kid as I watched him set up the ramp solo, which was amazing in itself. 

Then he grabbed his bike, no helmet, to do a few warm-up airs, and see how the ramp felt.  His first air was five or six feet out, pretty respectable at the time.  "This kid's pretty good," I thought.  After a handful of airs in the six to seven foot range, Dave rode at the ramp a little slower.  The bike was suddenly upside down as his foot stopped at the very top of the transition.  I screamed, thinking this guy was going to eat shit and land on his head with no helmet.  But Dave was snapping one of his now-famous upside down footplants.  I'd never seen anything like it at the time.  It blew my mind. 

About then, Windy Osborn walked out with her camera.  I watched her check out Dave's huge airs (with a helmet).  But there really wasn't anything for me to do, so I reluctantly headed back in side and left Windy and Dave to do the photo shoot.  That was the fall of 1986. 

Dave stormed on the scene, soon became a GT factory rider, and toured the world like crazy.  We all watched him blow minds on both flatland and ramps year after year.  I can honestly say Dave has been one of my favorite riders to watch... ever.  There are a ton of memories, like sitting on a curb in New Jersey outside an AFA contest.  Riders were goofing around in the parking lot.  I was talking to some rider, and we were both leaning back on our hands, with our legs stretched out over the curb and our feet in the parking lot.  Dave Voelker comes racing towards us and yells, "Watch out!"  He bunnyhopped, at speed, into a manual on top of the curb, hopped over our legs, and landed in a manual, hauling ass.  He rode it for another 20 feet, and then hopped off the curb and headed towards some other obstacle. 

At the huge (for the time) 1989 2-Hip King of Vert contest that Unreel Productions (where I worked) helped put on, one of the cameramen asked Dave what he thought of the halfpipe.  I love his answer, "You have to be able to land on these things (halfpipes), I never really had to do that before." 

When it comes to my memories of Dave Voelker riding, the top is the first 2-Hip Meet the Street contest in Santee, California in the spring of 1988.  That's my edit of the contest above, from the 2-Hip BHIP video, and as you can see, Dave's all over it.  None of us really knew what to expect that day.  Dave Vanderspek and his NorCal Curb Dogs were legends on street then, as was San Diego rider Eddie Roman.  But the location of that first big street contest was Voelker's personal spot.  Before that contest, the only wall rides we'd seen photos of were two or three feet high. 

Unreel cameraman Pat Wallace shot the video in this clip, at a time when Spike Jonze was a photographer, R.L. Osborn came back from contest retirement, and there were far more riders than there were video cameras.  It was the changing of the guards that day in that parking lot behind a shopping center in Santee.  Dave Vanderspek, one of the earliest pioneers of street riding showed off the bar endo on a ledge and fun-filled style that made him a legend.  But a whole new crop of riders, several unexpected, rose to the occasion and established themselves at the new school of BMX street riding.  South Bay rider Craig Grasso, ramp legend Todd Anderson, NorCal ramp kid Mike Golden (the only one to jump the roof of the car), Orange County local George Smoot, rider/industry guy Scott Towne, and several others made their mark on the exploding street riding scene.  Englishman Craig Campbell hucked the trick of the day, the 540 wall ride (or wall ride to 360 out).  Eddie Roman, long time innovator, already a street legend, cemented his place in street riding.

But it was Dave Voelker who blew every fucking mind that day with wall rides bigger than any of us had ever dreamed of, and his crazy jump over the sixteen foot box where he clipped and cleared the final 8 feet without his bike.  Not one person at that Santee contest had any idea what a street contest would look like, what obstacles would be there, or just how big street riding could be.  Except maybe Vander, he'd already held the first street contest in NorCal.  But it was Dave Voelker that went so fast and so big that we all realized we were just scratching the surface of what could be done with a BMX bike on the urban terrain all around us. 

Dave showed us a taste of the future that day, and pretty much every day since.  Thanks for blowing our freakin' minds Dave.  Congratulations on a well deserved spot in the BMX Hall of Fame.  And I hope today's hangover isn't too bad.

Now.  There's only one way to end this post.  Everybody get out your air guitars.  Duh... nuh, nuh, nuh...nuh, nuh, nuh....