Just how good of a rider was Dave Vanderspek?

 1983.  What the fuck were you doing in 1983?  This is one of my favorite photos from the entire history of BMX freestyle.  Dave Vanderspek, tabletop bunnyhop, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco.  Look to the left of the photo, you'll see those high crossbar handle bars.  Those are 9 inch rise bars, the bottom of Dave's bottom bracket is 2 or 3 inches above that.  Dave, Maurice Meyer, and Robert Peterson could all do high tabletop bunnyhops.  They didn't bunnyhop straight and lay the bike sideways, they bunnyhopped and kicked the back end up to the side... the hard way. 

At one AFA Masters contest at the Velodrome in the fall of 1986, I was down on the infield and area riding around, and I ran into Dave.  There was a set of five or six stairs coming down from a higher level, and a narrow hubba wall thing, with a metal rail on top, next to the stairs.  Dave saw me and said, "Hey Steve, what do you think of this?"  He rode across the small paved area, and did this huge bunnyhop up into a pedal stall, on the angled hubba wall thing, missing the rail on top of it.  I'd never seen anyone bunnyhop into a pedal stall.  I said, "That's cool, but you can't do it in the contest."  I was lame, thinking only about my contest run, where I was probably going to get like 33rd out of 54 guys in 17 & Over intermediate, or something like that.

Meanwhile, Dave Vanderspek, who was riding pro, saw the wall thought, "I wonder of I can pedal stall that?"  While we were all thinking about contest placings and many guys about sponsors and all that, Dave was just riding shit.  It was 1986, street riding was something we all did, but it wasn't its own genre' yet.  It would be another year and a half or so before Dave held the first small street contest in NorCal, and then Ron Wilkerson (also originally from San Francisco) held the first one that got magazine coverage, at Santee.  Wall rides would be officially invented a year later. Street peg grinds had not been invented yet.   But I watched Dave Vanderspek do two or three huge bunnyhops to pedal stalls on a slanted wall.  He was landing on the back pedal, and he rode a coaster brake.  His pedals were pretty much level.  After he rode off, I went over and stood next to the wall where he was landing.  The place he was landing his pedal on was over 4 1/2 feet off the ground.

 Another favorite Vander photo of mine above.  Before wall rides, or looking for gaps, before peg grinds had even been invented, street riding often consisted of doing your flatland tricks in a really sketchy location.  Bar endo on a high corner of a ledge with no margin for error, about 1985.  These were a favorite of Dave's.  This photo is from an interview that was in Bill Batchelor's big newsprint zine, Shreddin'.

You know you're not a great photographer when you can easily name the best photo you've ever taken.  I'm not a great photographer, and this is the best photo I've ever taken.  Dave Vanderspek at the Palm Springs Tramway GPV race, outside Palm Springs, California, in 1987.  Without a fairing, Dave was at a disadvantage, he was probably only hitting 70 or 75mph at the bottom of the hill.  Tommy Brackens, riding with a fairing at this race, passed the camera motorcycle in a turn one run.  The motorcycle was doing 85mph.  Because the course was long and lacked lots of tight turns, people were hitting BIG speeds.
    The night before the contest, I remember seeing Dave and another guy walking their bikes out of the motel courtyard about 2am, with a 12 pack under one arm.  "Who wants to go hit the course right now?" he asked.  Only the guy heading with him went.  They hit that crazy fast course, on their GPV's, in the dark (desert road, no street lights)... drunk.

Vander airing over the six foot wide canyon, over Christian Hosoi.  AFA Masters contest, Venice Beach, California, 1985.  This happens to be the first California contest I ever made it to, thanks to Justin Bickel and his parents, from Idaho.  I'm in the background there somewhere, I shot this from the opposite angle, on my trusty Kodak 110 camera, and put the photo in my zine.  This is another of my favorite BMX freestyle photos of all time. 

      Dave Vanderspek was one of a kind.  That's why I just drew this tribute drawing of him.  Copies are available.  Find me on Facebook, or email me at: stevenemig13@gmail.com, for info.

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The Big Freakin' Transition

 

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