Here's the crazy thing, when you look up FREESTYLIN' magazine on YouTube, almost nothing comes up. How is there no documentary about FREESTYLIN'? Mark Eaton, what are you up to these days? This video above is former EXPN website editor Brian Tunney shooting a video at 3162 Kashiwa Street in Torrance, California, in 2019, I believe. That building was the longtime home of Wizard Publications, which put out BMX Action and FREESTYLIN' magazines, as well as two or three issues of Homeboy magazine. The words, and especially the photos, that came out of this building in the 1980's, changed the lives of thousands of us BMXers and early freestylers in that era. This is the best video I could find paying homage to FREESTYLIN'.
Bob "Oz" Osborn, founder and owner of Wizard Publications, begins the introduction for the FREESTYLIN' magazine staff introduction at 30:30 in that link above.
Last weekend, September 21st, 2024, the legendary staff of FREESTYLIN' magazine was inducted into the USA BMX Hall of Fame, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for the BMX freestyle "Industry" category. The staff of FREESTYLIN' inducted includes the editor Andy Jenkins, assistant editor Mark "Lew" Lewman, managing editor/proofreader Don Tosach, art director Janice Jenkins, associate editor/photographer Spike Jonze, advertising salesperson Valerie Adlam, and receptionist/mild-mannered superhuman Dian Harlan. They are all completely deserving of this honor, and it's great to see them all included in the official BMX Hall of Fame. This group of people inspired thousands of us kids doing tricks on bikes around the U.S. and around the world, including me. Wizard Publications owner Bob Osborn, and his daughter and photographer, Windy Osborn are already members of the BMX Hall of Fame.
FREESTYLIN' magazine was the bible of 1980's BMX freestyle. It was, by far, the hippest, coolest, most stylish BMX magazine ever. I was a dorky BMX freestyler in Boise Idaho, way up at 43 degrees of latitude, when the first issue of FREESTYLIN' magazine came out in the summer of 1984. I didn't even see the first two issues of it until long after they came out. The first issue of the mag that I got my hands on was issue #3. It had SE Racing freestyler Todd Anderson one the cover, blasting a one footed tabletop over a convertible Volkswagen bug full of SE's BMX racing legends, including Scot Breithaupt, Perry Kramer, Toby Henderson, and several others. From that issue on, I spent hours reading every single issue of FREESTYLIN' for the next several years.
Like so many other riders out there at the time, when it was definitely not cool to do tricks on a "little kid's bike," FREESTYLIN' was the main thread showing us kids around the world what was happening in Southern California in BMX freestyle, and later all over the U.S. and the world. In 1984-1985-1986 and beyond, we didn't have the internet, YouTube, or even very many BMX freestyle videos in those early years. FREESTYLIN' was where we got the news, new tricks, style, attitude, and DIY ethic that was the rapidly changing and progressing sport of BMX freestyle. As my blog readers know, BMX freestyle changed the entire course of my life, and FREESTYLIN' magazine was a huge inspiration in those years. I had a complete collection of FREESTYLIN' issues, until I lost them in a move back east in 2008.
Here are a few clips of some of the FREESTYLIN' magazine staff members since the 1980's.
At 49:43 in the HOF ceremony they used a short clip from a 2-Hip video I edited. How cool is that?
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