Keith Treanor, born and raised in New Jersey, came out to Huntington Beach and rode and rode and rode and wound up riding for S&M Bikes for years. In this podcast, #43 for The Union Tapes podcast out of the U.K., Keith goes through his life in BMX, from early days on the East Coast, the days coming up as an unknown amateur in the Huntington Beach/Orange County, California scene, and all through his years as a pro riding for S&M Bikes.
I remember meeting Keith at the Oceanview Jump, a freestyler fly out jump at Oceanview High School in Huntington Beach. That jump was an amazing set-up, a long, concrete sidewalk runway to a 6 1/2 foot high jump up to flat. Keith flat out RULED on that jump, no one even came close to getting as high out of the Oceanview Jump as Keith did. In my 1990 video, The Ultimate Weekend, Oceanview made for a cool jumping segment (for that time) at 23:22* in the video. In one shot, Keith is a good 10 feet out, in a full tuck, landing to flat. That was insane for that era, where you could easily snap a frame or forks coming down from that high up. I've personally seen Keith go a good 1 1/2 to 2 feet higher than that, 12 feet up to flat, but didn't get it on video.
Keith Treanor with a one handed 360 at the Oceanview fly out jump, which they mention in the interview. He's about 4 feet up, going from right to left, in this still shot.
I was already shooting video footage on the weekends, to make my own video, which became The Ultimate Weekend, when I remember meeting Keith and John Povah at Oceanview. I used to ride there, as well. When I started making that video, GT rider Jess Dyrenforth was supposed to be the star of the video. But every time I wanted to go shoot video, Jess was busy. He was riding for GT Bikes, and was deep into the inline skating world, as well. After I met Keith and John, I'd call them up, and Keith was always down to ride, and John was too, when not busy with his auto painting job. Keith was young, hungry, and would just go off anywhere we went, so he ended up being the star of the video.
Here's another still shot from The Ultimate Weekend, with Keith doing the first 360 over a spine ever to appear in a BMX video. Gary Laurent did a 360 over the spine a few minutes later. In 1990, peg grinds, mini-ramps, handrails, and a lot of things were just starting to happen at the time, so every video of that era had lots of "world firsts" or "firsts on video" in it.
This mini-ramp set up above was amazing for its day, this was the backyard of freestyle skaters Primo and Diane Desiderio, who were working in the City Streets show at Sea World at the time. Gary Laurent also rode in the show, I believe, and he got the OK to take us to this ramp, even though Primo and Diane weren't home. Gary had those ramps wired, but he had never tried a 360 over the spine. Keith, still really new to mini-ramps, because only a couple of them existed then, stepped it up to 3 over the spine. Then Gary had to do it. Because riding was evolving so fast then, every video that came out in that era had a bunch of world firsts, or firsts on video. So this was only the second or third mini-ramp ever in a BMX video, and Keith did the first 360 over a spine on video. These are just a few of my memories of those early days (1990-1994ish) hanging out and riding with Keith and John Povah.
There's a whole lot more in the podcast above, Keith talks us through his whole BMX career. If you're a rider from the 1990's era, check it out.
The Ultimate Weekend- 1990 - Beginning with 7 shots in the intro, Keith Treanor appears throughout the video.
I do most of my writing on Substack these days, a platform designed specifically for writers, check it out:
* Right before the Oceanview segment, there's a shot of me doing a double peg grind on a little ledge in Huntington Beach in early August of 1990. That year, 1990, the year I was working on shooting and producing the video, The Ultimate Weekend, was the year that BMX freestylers took double peg grinds, the BMX version of a 50/50 grind on a skateboard, onto the streets. In this ridiculously self-serving Substack post, I dug into the various people who did the first double peg street grinds on video, and approximately when they did them. If you are interested in the very beginning of the double peg grinds that led to all of handrail, hubba, and ledge grinds in the last 35 years, check this post out.
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