The last time I talked to Dave Vanderspek

Dave Vanderspek in about 1985, in the white sleeveless T and backwards Zeronine cap, explaining foreign concepts like a sticker toss and a car smash, to the Bay Area media and cops.  There was a time when everything we now take for granted was new.  Vander was one of the early innovators, he brought punk rock, skater inspired DIY attitude, functional riding clothes (not leathers and jerseys), street riding, and a whole lot of fun to BMX freestyle in the 1980's.

After a beer inspired comment on a classic Vander photo on Facebook, James Pines and I got into a FB chat about stuff, including Dave Vanderspek himself.  That got me to thinking about Dave and his legacy.  In this clip, we see Dave explaining how skaters have fun, in his classic, sort of Spiccoli-esque style.  It would be easy to write Dave off as some goofball from this clip, or some of the other clips he's in. To be honest, I thought Dave was kind of over-hyped and kind of a goofball the year I lived in NorCal, in 1985-1986.  I was overly uptight and super-anal about everything, and Dave seemed just the opposite.  I wanted to become an R.L. Osborn-type, clean cut BMX freestyle pro rider and successful entrepreneur, and I just didn't fully appreciate Vander's offbeat, relaxed, and zany style then.  He was a blast to ride with, and always down, like the other NorCal pros, to help you learn a new trick or with some advice about life and riding.

The last time I saw Dave was at an event with GT's Stonehenge box jump in Huntington Beach, in the summer of 1988.  Some guy Mike Sarrail and I talked to at the H.B. Pier turned out to be a cheezy video producer, the kind that sold thousands of low budget, poorly produced videos, real cheap, at discount stores.  The guy thought our freestyle tricks looked cool, talked to Mike for half an hour or so, about what a cool BMX freestyle event would be like, the best music for a video, so forth.  Then the guy actually put an event on.  He hired a video crew that knew nothing about BMX, made a cheap video, and sold thousands and thousands of copies, probably more than any other BMX video at the time.  Nobody in the BMX world made a dime off of it, but we all had a fun day of riding.

Dave Voelker, Brian Blyther, Vander, Maurice Meyer, the NorCal crew, Eddie Roman, Pete Agustin, and all the SoCal locals showed up, after we got word out in the freestyle grapevine.  We all sessioned the four-sided Stonehenge ramp all afternoon, in one big, long jam session.  No judges, no contest, just a fun jump/street jam, which was a pretty rare thing then, only months after the first 2-Hip Meet the Street in Santee, CA.

On a personal level, I was riding a GT Pro Performer that had been sitting in the back of Unreel Productions, where I worked, for a couple of years.  I think this was after my Raleigh riding days, and before I got an Auburn from Bob Morales.  In the two years since I had been a part of the NorCal/Golden Gate Park scene, I had become a part of the freestyle industry.

My zine landed me the job a BMX Action and FREESTYLIN', in the summer of 1986, where I worked a few epic months, but didn't really fit well, and I got laid off.  Then I spent a year as editor/photographer for the AFA newsletter, working with Bob Morales, and doing all kinds of stuff.  That got me into working on videos, which eventually landed me a job at Unreel Productions, the Vision Skateboards/Vision Street Wear video company.  I wasn't making much money, but I was in the bike/skate industry, living in Huntington Beach, which was a rowdy, fun town then, and I was still riding 2-3 hours a day, and progressing as a rider.

Much to my surprise, Dave Vanderspek pulled me aside at that jam that day.  We rolled up on the sidewalk, and Dave sat on his bike, turning his back on the jam.  Over his shoulder, I could see Dave Voelker, Brian Blyther, and the others, blasting over the box jump.  Dave ignored all the action, and took a few minutes to tell me he was really stoked on how I had become a part of the industry, and all the cool stuff I'd had done.  He also said he was proud of how I'd progressed as a rider, and named off some of the tricks he'd seen me doing, and how I'd gotten a lot better from when we met, three years earlier, at a Beach Park Ramp Jam, held by Robert Peterson's bike shop.

Dave didn't say anything particularly epic, but he was real, and he showed me that he not only remembered me, and my riding, from a couple of years earlier, but had watched my progress along the way.  He was just being real.  Talking with Dave, I got this cool sense of why the Golden Gate Park scene was so different than any other freestyle scene.  Dave Vanderspek really cared, he gave a damn, about every rider in the scene.  He wanted everybody to have fun, ride hard, and keep improving.  It wasn't just about him getting more coverage, a big sponsor contract, or whatever, he truly wanted that for everybody.  That was one of the things, though he never really put it into words, he did it through his actions.  He wanted everybody in NorCal to be the best they could, regardless of how good or lame they were at first.  That attitude flowed through Drob, Peterson, Hugo, Rick Allison, and the rest of us. 

At a time when most of us were hiding tricks from each other until we had them down, and trying to get better sponsors, and being really competitive in many ways, Dave Vanderspek, they guy who came across so goofy to many people, was looking at a bigger picture.  He wanted the scene to grow, not just himself or the official Curb Dogs riders and skaters.  He wanted BMX freestyle itself, to grow.  That is a huge difference in attitude to most of us riding then, and I've never forgotten those few minutes Vander took to give me a sort of pat on the back and thumbs up for doing some cool stuff, both as an industry guy, and a rider.

The fact that happened to be the last time I saw Dave alive makes it even more memorable.  Thanks Dave, for showing me the world is much bigger than my little viewpoint, and scenes themselves need to be nurtured, not just my own career or ideas.  When someone you really respect, a pro or top person in whatever you do, takes the time to personally show you they give a damn, it can have an inspirational effect for decades to come.  That's one of my biggest lessons from Dave Vanderspek.

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