My first Old School BMX Freestyle Weekend

Old School NorCal represent.  Maurice Meyer selfie with Chris Rothe, Chris' son Max, Marc McKee, and me (Steve Emig).  These guys let me hang, despite being financially challenged at the moment.  Thanks guys.  The weekend was epic. I've been stuck Back East for a decade, as the Old School BMX events got going, so this was my first one.

It all kind of came together at the last minute, thanks to my NorCal roots.  In 80's BMX freestyle, I moved around a lot, which had the effect of letting me be a local in several different scenes over the years.  First Boise, Idaho, then the Golden Gate Park/NorCal scene, The Spot in Redondo, the Huntington Beach Pier scene, The P.O.W. House/Sheep Hills/S&M Bikes scene, and The Van's Skatepark locals when we could still ride the Combi Pool, along with some smaller scenes.

So it was Maurice Meyer, the pro I talked to the most back when I lived in San Jose, the Curb Dogs/Golden Gate Park scene BITD, that asked if I was going to the San Diego event over Memorial Day Weekend.  The main Old School event was the second edition signing party for The Birth of the Freestyle Movement book by Dominic Phipps.  There was also a Mat Hoffman held vert contest, a sort of last chance qualifier for the X-Games, as well, and an BMX and art event. 

 Rich Bartlett from Block Bikes, where I'm now working, gave me at ride down the 14 freeway form Lancaster to a Denny's right off the 5, making picking me up a quick stop for the guys.  Thanks Rich, it was a farther drive than I thought, and I asked him at the last minute.

Chris Rothe did the driving in his 4 door pick-up.  In a weird coincidence, there was a great paved bank right at the at Denny's.  But we wanted to get South, no session there.  We headed South through the Valley down the 405, and picked up Marc in Venice.  Last time I was in Venice, many years ago, it was still the hood.  Not like Compton level hood, but "I'm not walking here at night" hood.  Now it all looks like Santa Monica, really nice and forever out of my price range.

Another 45 minutes, then with all five of us in the truck, Chris said, "I think that guy's sleeping."  I didn't know what he was talking about.  He pointed it out.  There was the Tesla above, doing 68 mph in the carpool/E-car lane, with the driver asleep.  Like fully, completely fucking ASLEEP.  Chris pulled up next to him, Drob took this photo, and I kept waiting for the guy to look up.  He wasn't resting his eyes, he was out.  None of us had seen that before.  This was in Irvine, my old taxi driver neck of the woods.  I don't care how freakin' brilliant Elon Musk and the Tesla engineers are, I would not, EVER, sleep in the carpool lane of the 405.  But it was working for this lazy, rich fucker.  Technology is crazy these days.

 We stayed at a motel in Chula Vista, I camped out on the floor, you know, to give the weekend that true, old school BMX days feel.  And because I'm a broke guy who's three weeks out from sleeping homeless under a bridge.  Somebody tell the river otters under the Manchester side of the I-95 bridge in Richmond that I moved for work reasons, it was nothing personal.  The otter couple acutally made pretty good neighbors, unlike a lot of humans.  Steve Crandall, can you pass that word on for me?  Anyhow, I digress.

Saturday morning we headed to Mat Hoffman's vert contest, in the chilly, overcast, May Gray weather.  After a decade on the Eastern Seaboard, most of that in a place that hates BMX and action sports, it was good to see old friends and just hang and watch some good riding.  My old roommate, Big Island Mike Castillo (photo above) was the first I ran into and got a pic with.  We were roommates in Chris Moeller's condo in H.B. in 1995, when we both we skinnier and had no visible tattoos.  Mike has since covered a lot of himself in tats, and I covered myself in blubber while sitting my my taxi for years.  Tattoos would have been a better choice.  You know Mike's going to be in an upcoming episode of South Park, right?  True deal.  He took a photo of me sitting on his new S&M, and texted it to Moeller.  The response took about 30 seconds, "WTF?"

 After watching riders practice on the vert ramp for a bit, alternating with saying "Hi" to other old BMX friends as they walked up, we started getting groups of guys lined up for photos.  I was about to take the photo above, and one of the guys asked me to get in the photo.  Some guy walking by said he'd snap a pic, so I handed him the phone.  While we were trying to get a couple other people nearby into the line-up, I looked again at the guy I gave the phone to.  It was Mike Dominguez.  I didn't recognize Mike-freakin' Dominguez!  I know I've been gone a decade, but that was pretty bad.  So I got in one photo, then took this one.  L to R: Big Island Mike, Hugo Gonzales, Rick Coronado, Xavier Mendez, Mike Dominguez, and Pete Augustin.

 The contest had some pretty good amateurs on the huge, 13 1/2 foot tall ramp, as us old guys wondered if we could roll into it these days, or even way back in our younger days.  I could have managed a foot drop, probably, back then.  But I wouldn't even think of that these days.

The pro vert contest had that old feel of a 2-Hip King of Vert, or one of Mat's early comps.  None of the big time, X-Games stuff.  Just a small crowd of 100 or so watching some of the best riders anywhere blast.  In the photo above, one of the pros, whose name I don't remember, airs out a huge downside whip.  Despite the continuous winds, the top few guys were blasting.  That includes Dennis McCoy, who, at 52, looked the smoothest on vert I'd ever seen him.  He pulled a flawless barspin 540 at about 6-7 feet, and a glassy smooth flair, in his second run.  Then DMC went for a 900 with not a lot of speed.  And knocked himself out cold.  He lay there twitching a bit, and a fire truck, then an ambulance showed up.  The EMT's pulled the stretcher out, and headed behind the ramp, when Dennis had moved after coming to.  Old school announcer turned fireman, Kevin Martin, was on the scene as soon as he heard Dennis was K. O.'d.

After about 15 minutes,  the EMT's rolled an empty stretcher back, and put it into the ambulance, then stopped to watch the contest, which had resumed.  I went over to talk to them, "Let me guess Dennis said he's going to walk it off?"  "Pretty much," the EMT replied.  "It seems he's been down this road a few times."  I chuckled, "You have no idea..."  Dennis was back to normal, well, there's nothing normal about Dennis, but he was at the book signing party that night.

The guy in the red striped shirt, watching the contest in the photo above, is Koji Kraft.  Remember in the early 2000's when double backflips were a "Merry Christmas" trick, even for Dave Mirra?  Koji used to double flips in demos back then.  He was the first guy to really dial them in.  He's one of the most underrated riders ever.  Cool guy.  He was in the vert contest last Saturday.  He didn't go the highest, but was still throwing some solid variations at height. 

 The park we were at, I think, was called the Mission Valley YMCA park, but there's some family name in it as well.  Anyhow, it had a really cool park section, and a "boardercross" track that Andy Macdonald had made a few years earlier, as well as a big park section.  Chris, Maurice, and Chris' son Max all put the helmets on and got a session in.

It was during that period when R.L. Osborn, unseen for nearly 30 years by most of us, wandered into the park, with his son Dylan.  It was really cool to seen him.  He was the guy I most wanted to model when I really got into freestyle.  Initially, I wanted to be the clean cut, pro rider/entrepreneur guy.  That didn't happen, but I did stumble into the industry, and got to work with and ride with R.L..  He'd been gone so long, that everyone was re-introducing themselves.  I told him my name as I shook his hand, and said I worked at Wizard a little while.  Much to my surprise, his eyes lit up in recognition.  "I remember you," R.L. said, "You're a really good writer."  My stoke meter broke at that point.  My writing skill depends on who you ask, but I'll take it.

After the chat with R.L., I watched the guys session some more.  Max, Chris Rothe's son, got his sights set on doing a 180 off the hubba.  That's him in the photo above, stepping up his game and landing a solid 180.  He also landed a couple of 360's off the hubba right after that.  Progression.

Another old friend, long time riding buddy, and one time roommate I ran into was John Povah, in my selfie above.  I'm not disappointed to see him, I just can't operate a phone well.  Despite a decade of blogging, I'm still catching up on standard technology, like working a smart phone.  I'll figure it out, eventually.

The contest was full of old school faces, most of whom I didn't get photos of.  Among them were...

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