Texas Pro Flatland was the official American Freestyle Association video for the flatland part of the Austin, Texas AFA Masters contest in 1987. This is the third BMX video, of six, that I produced and directed for the AFA in that year, with Unreel Productions video editor Dave Alvarez editing, and him and Don Hoffman guiding me through the process.
Austin, Texas. It was a hot bed for great music going back into the 1960's. The bars on 6th Street were a scene for a long time before people from other parts of the country ever heard of it. Then came Michael Dell, selling computers from his dorm room, and creating Dell Computers. Then came more tech companies. Keep Austin Weird as a motto. The South by Southwest music festival. That morphed into SXSW music/tech festival. Now it costs about $6,000 or so to rent a treehouse for a week on Air BnB. Well, now the real estate market is tanking in Austin, after soaring to astronomical levels in recent years. That's what Austin has become known for over the last few decades.
But way back in 1987, when BMX freestyle was just starting its first peak of popularity, Austin was already a hot city for freestyle. Robert and Ruben Castillo lived there. I think the Ninth Street trails were there already. That's what I knew about Austin when we flew down there for the AFA Freestyle Masters contest, the third of six comps in 1987. As the editor of the AFA newsletter (and all around AFA roadie), I flew there with Bob Morales, his girlfriend at the time, Suzy-Q, and his sister Riki, who also worked in the AFA office. It was storming when we all got to the hotel the Thursday night before the contest, as I recall. Bob parked the rental minivan under the little roof, and went in to check into our rooms. As Suzy, Riki, and I were sitting in the minivan, Haro pro Ron Wilkerson opened the driver's side front door, hopped in the driver's seat and kidnapped us.
The next day, we got up early, got some breakfast, and headed to the arena to get everything ready for practice, and the contest on Saturday and Sunday. A couple of guys who were not freestylers, and didn't have kids that freestyled, ran the local contests in Texas. The Patterson brothers kicked butt at supporting the local freestyle scene and putting on contests. One was a competitive water skier, and both were really cool, down to Earth, hard working guys. They also built the first really solid, steel framed quarterpipe, which became the official AFA ramp at this contest. With the Patterson brothers running the local AFA scene, and doing a lot of legwork for the Masters contest, we knew it would rock.
My main personal memory of this contest was going riding one of the nights with some locals and some of the riders I knew, downtown on 6th Street. After getting a jam circle going there, one of the locals suggested we go into one of the bars for a couple of beers. We all piled our bikes around a street sign, or some post, and locked parts of the bikes together, then headed into the bar. We had two or three beers, and sat there as some really good blues band jammed in the small bar.
After an hour or so, we headed back outside. I told the local guys, "Man, that bluesy guy on the guitar, with the big hat, that guy was pretty good." They laughed, "Pretty good? Dude, that was fucking Stevie Ray Vaughn." I had no idea who Stevie Ray Vaughn was, but I learned I liked the blues that night. About a year later, one of his videos went into heavy rotation on MTV, and the rest of the world who didn't know about him got to hear his music. Then he died tragically in a helicopter crash in 1990. There's now a statue of him in Austin down by the river.
On to the AFA Masters contest. Nearly all of the top riders were there, and it was a solid contest, one that changed BMX freestyle forever. I produced and directed this video, which sounds much cooler than it was, but hadn't watched it for about 35 years, until the other day. The video cameraman was Don Hoffman, who founded Unreel Productions, the Vision Skateboards video company.
In the intro, we see Frank Scura, BMX industry guy, brother to rider/inventor Brian Scura. I remember Frank most from the Odyssey "Cowboy" ad, and just being a funny guy at events. Frank is doing his Joe Isuzu impression (popular car commercials at the time), trying to get Don into the contest. Obviously they were just goofing around, since no one knew at the time if this footage was ever going to be made into a video. When editor Dave Alvarez and I went in to edit the video, he pieced their skit together, with some cool clips of various riders. In those short clips we see several riders. FREESTYLIN' magazine assistant editor (and my former roommate the year before we made this video) Mark "Lew" Lewman, does the rollback to stylish slide around. We also see Dave Voelker doing his super fast 360 bunnyhops, which I always thought were really cool. We see Mongoose pro Rick Allison with some crazy Miami hopper balance moves, and Dennis McCoy with some classic combos, along with several other riders.
My only real instructions for this video were to show all the pros whole runs. We had enough time so I could show a little bit of amateur highlights. We see three of the really young kids, doing hard tricks, then a few others. Then we see Plywood Hood, and York Pennsylvania rider, Kevin Jones, who was still fairly unknown to most riders around the country at that time. The time ends on Kevin's run with an elephant glide combo.
Then he sets his bike up, after time runs out, and pulls up into a locomotive, a no handed version of the backyard, the first popular scuffing trick, which got really popular at the previous AFA masters contest in Oregon. That's the first time the locomotive was ever done in a national contest. He not only scuffed the locomotive a long ways, but he began to glide it, something no one outside of York, PA had ever seen before. That blew our minds as riders. It was so far ahead of the current progression of tricks. That trick changed the direction of BMX freestyle flatland forever.
BMX freestyle became a "follow Kevin Jones sport" for the next three or four years. When Don points the camera to all of us riders up in the stands screaming (yeah, I was in that group watching), that was real screaming, we were really that psyched. The judges had no idea how hard, crazy, and innovative that trick was, but all of us other riders did. We'd seen bits of the locomotive in the jam circles, but when Kevin did the locomotive in this contest, the entire direction of BMX flatland changed in that moment. The one wheel forward rolling tricks took over as the prime direction of the sport, and Kevin Jones and the Plywood Hoods led flatland for years to come. Yes, it really was that big of a deal in BMX freestyle.
Then I added in some footage of Rick Moliterno, still an amateur then, because he was another guy who ripped, but never got enough magazine coverage, mostly because he was a Midwest guy, and the magazines were all in California. So I gave him a little footage in this video. That's followed by a little fun with Industry guy McGoo getting Craig Grasso to breakdance for the camera. Grasso was always down to get weird and have some fun. Lew chimes in, doing the beatbox for Grasso's breakdancing set. Then Don Hoffman does a quick interview with John "Dizz" Hicks, CW rider and master of the wedge ramp.
Then we move on to the pros. Chris Lashua, East Coast pro, then riding for Mongoose, starts things off. This is not his best run ever, but he does a solid backwards wheelie into a decade, and some really cool flail boomerangs, among other tricks. Following Chris is the favorite of the day in pro flatland, Haro pro Dennis McCoy. Dennis throws down a really solid run, rapping to his mixtape the whole way through. Some of my favorites in his run are the I-hops into a Miami hopper, a fire hydrant into a cherry picker, and his super fast footwork and front end combos.
Another Mongoose pro, NorCal rider Rick Allison is up next. He puts in a solid run as well, with his step-up, step-down, step back up surfer being a favorite, and his unique Miami hopper variations. R.L. Osborn, one of the original innovators of BMX freestyle, riding for General, is up next. My favorites in his run are the unusual walkaround variation, the backwards rubber (grip) ride, which he invented, and his upside down backwards wheelie in a circle.
Robert Peterson, another pro from San Francisco's Golden Gate Park scene, follows R.L., riding for Mongoose at this point. Bert goes through his standards, including a one hand version of The Peterson balance trick, and several other balance tricks, including a stomach stand. He's followed up by Fred Blood, riding for General. OK, Fred was a pro roller skater who got into freestyle, and he got a lot of crap, and this is not his best run ever. But he lands a rollback into decade and a solid double tailwhip, among other things.
The next rider in pro flatland totally surprised me, watching this video again after 35+ years. Rich Sigur is known mostly as one of the top early skatepark riders. Here he's riding for Vision Street Wear, and throws down a solid flatland run, with plenty of style. He pulls off a solid backwards infinity roll, which very few people did well, and a cool front wheel spin to tailwhip combo, among his other tricks.
Following Rich we have flatland legend Woody Itson, riding for Diamond Back at the time. Woody always showed up with a solid run. Highlights in this run include the super power move of a rolling L-sit straight into a press handstand, his pedal picker to upside down back to pedal picker, the super long glide boomerang, and then the pedal picker to side picker to backwards pedal picker.
From Woody we head back to NorCal with Skyway pro Maurice Meyer. And the sound cuts out, I have no reason why. My favorites of his run were the one footed G-turn, the backwards framestand, and a no footed front wheel spin. From NorCal roots we head down to San Diego's only representative in this pro flatland class, Dave Nourie. Longtime Haro pro, Nourie impresses us with a cherry picker into a pedal picker (on a freewheel, which is nuts), a bunch of combos, his unique balance combos, and a stomach stand.
Those are the highlights of this first AFA Masters video from Austin, Texas, the capitol of Texas and of weird. That was one fun weekend for everyone involved. Dennis McCoy won pro flatland. You can see the top five at the end.
Austin stayed weird, and built upon the already solid BMX freestyle scene there. In later years Terrible One, aka T-1 entered the picture, there is Empire BMX distribution company there, and Jimmy Levan bunnyhopped the church gap in the 90's. BMX freestyle was already strong in Austin before it became the tech geek mecca and everything that's happened since. What about the old guys? Ruben Castillo is still riding, and Robert Castillo has a posse, just sayin'.
A couple of last Austin references. This movie, and others you're more familiar with, like this one and this one, were made by a director who got his start in Austin. One night at a bar in Austin, a casting director met this guy, talked over drinks for a couple of hours, and hired him to say about three lines for that director's movie. That little gig launched his movie career. Fucking Austin man. It's always been kinda batshit crazy, which is why so many people love the place. Well, except people from the rest of Texas, but that's another story.
BTW, the shot of Kevin Jones doing the locomotive made it into Joe Kid on a Stingray, at 2:19. I'm pretty stoked on that since, only 50 or 100 of these videos sold.
I'm doing a lot of writing on Substack these days, check it out:
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