Here is Andy Ruffel, doing a 360 off a jump, on a BMX bike in 1981, for a British TV show. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first BMX 360 jump caught on video or film, and it happened 43 Years ago.
In late 2021, I had a crazy idea for a blog post. "What if I search YouTube for all the earliest, 'first on video' clips of BMX 360's and variations of 360's?" I wondered just how far back the basic 360 jump on a bike went. When I was first reading the BMX magazines every month, in 1983, I remembered a story saying that Eddie Fiola did a 360 over doubles in a race, at the Orange YMCA BMX track, I believe. That was where I started my search, looking for the first 360 on video. At the time, Mike Varga had just landed the first 1260 air, a few months earlier, at the X-Games in Riverside, California. It seemed a good time to dig into the video archives of BMX spinning tricks.
This basic search for the first BMX 360 on video opened a huge can of worms, and I wound up spending something like three weeks watching dozens and dozens of BMX videos, looking for 360's, 540's, 720's, 900's, and other variations. The blog post was epic, with links to dozens of "first on video" clips of BMX spinning tricks. Here's that post from November 2021:
In my research, this clip of Andy Ruffel had the earliest BMX 360's I could find, both 360 bunnyhops (also called a "360 whip floater" then), and a 360 over a small jump. At about 25:20 in that clip, you see Andy Ruffel, in front of a moving airplane, do some 360 bunnyhops, among other tricks. He also does a 360 off a mellow jump at 26:04. Three years ago, that was the earliest 360 jump I could find, Andy Ruffel, in the U.K., in 1983. Today, when I looked it up, the short video clip embedded above came up, again with Andy Ruffell, predating this clip by two years. So now, it looks like the clip above, Andy Ruffell in 1981, is the very first 360 jump on a BMX bike that's out there. That means we've now had 43 years of BMX 360 jumps on video, and that called for a blog post. You can check that Spinaroonie blog post for dozens more "first on video" BMX spinning variations. But here's a few more of the early ones.
While it got overshadowed by the news of the former president today, this is huge in the action sports world. 14-year-old Arisa Trew became the first female ever to land a 900 air on a skateboard, on a halfpipe.
To put this in context, Tony Hawk, one of the best vert skaters of all time, and definitely the best known, spent over ten years trying it, before he landed the first skateboard 900 in the X-Games Best Trick contest in 1999.
By some crazy bit of fate, I was standing on the deck shooting video, when Mat Hoffman landed the first BMX 900 on vert, in Canada in 1989. Then, a decade later, I was standing about 20 feet from the ramp, when Tony Hawk landed his first 900 in 1999, in San Francisco. My video camera had a dead battery that time, but I didn't care, I knew I was witnessing a moment, with about 5,000 other spectators. A few years later, I did get video of Sandro Diaz landing a 900 on a skateboard, on vert, in Huntington Beach, California.
Now, twenty-five years after Tony's first 900, Australian Arisa, not even legal driving age by U.S. standards yet, stuck one for the women in skateboarding. Hell yeah! Way to go Arisa!
Blogger's note- 7/25/2024- Only days after Arisa's first female skateboard 900 hit the interwebs, 9-year-old Ema Kawakami (a boy, I believe), landed three back to back 900's, with Tony Hawk watching live. Who's genetically engineering these kids? Holy crap! Here's the link:
This is footage I shot in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada in the spring of 1989. It was only when an edited version of this came on Facebook this past Sunday, that I realized that day, March 31. 2024, was the 35th anniversary of two legendary vert tricks.
At 11:29 in this clip you see Joe Johnson, riding for GT Bikes, land the first double taiwhip on vert. I'm pretty sure it was his first double tailwhip ever, but definitely the first in a contest and on video.
Then, at the end of this video, at 14:43, you see Mat Hoffman, in his first full contest as a pro rider, land the first 900, in a contest and on video. Not to take anything away from Mat's awesome accomplishment, but Mike Doninguez said he landed the 900 months before, on his own ramp, a couple of times. There's a shot of him at the 2-Hip contest at Ron Wilkerson's Enchanted Ramp coming really close to landing one. But, no photos or video exist of Mike Dominguez doing a 900. So this 900 by Mat is the first time Mat landed the 9, the first BMX 900 in a contest, the first BMX 900 in a video, and the first aerial 900 in any action sport. Even snowboarders hadn't landed the 9 in 1989. Mat and Joe changed BMX history with these two tricks, 35 years ago, this past Sunday.
This video segment was edited by Eddie Roman, for the 1990 2-Hip video, Ride Like a Man. He and some friends did the funny commentary to this clip, "Fire that cameraman!" Heh, heh, heh. For all of you youngsters out there, double tailwhips and 900's are older than most of you are. For all of the old schoolers, like me, thinking, "Holy shit that was 35 YEARS AGO?" Yep, we're fucking old. But that's life.
For those of you wondering about the history of spinning tricks in BMX, check out this crazy blog post I did back in 2021:
Tony Hawk, during the best trick jam at the 1999 X-Games in San Francisco. I think it was on the 11th attempt he landed the first 900 on a skateboard ever. He'd been trying the trick for nearly ten years.
Ride a bike, it will take you places. SE Bikes brand manager Todd Lyons says that a lot these days, and he's right. There were about 5,000 stories of Tony Hawk landing this 900, the first ever on a skateboard, that night on a pier in San Francisco, a different story for each person in that crowd. This is my version. I was standing behind the pro skaters, less than 20 feet from the side of the ramp, talking to San Francisco BMX freestyle legend Maurice Meyer. My Sony Digital8 video camera was in my hand... with a dead battery. I'm glad actually, that was a moment I was happy to just stand there and witness, without trying to capture it on video, and keep him well framed during each try. More than a decade later, in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Sean Penn's character sums up that feeling better than I've ever heard it described.
I had finagled a press pass to the X-Games that year, planning to write an article or two for Dig Magazine in the U.K. about the contest. Maurice had nabbed a VIP pass, too. I rode with him and the other Golden Gate Park locals, most weekends, during the one year I lived there, in 1985-86. We ran into each other near the end of the BMX vert practice, and started talking about "the old days" and how much BMX and action sports had changed over 12 or 13 years' time.
While we were talking at the bike halfpipe, a red helicopter with a World Industries logo on the side of it, hovered near the ramps, and started dropping stickers. The handful of kids around the area ran around picking them up. Then we realized that something else was getting thrown out of the chopper, little wadded up pieces of paper. Because of the breeze, most were falling on the empty BMX ramp area, where we were, not on the skateboard crowd. Someone grabbed one of the pieces of paper, and unraveled it. "It's money" they said. Suddenly all of us jaded Old School guys were picking them up, too. Mike Dominguez Jr., amped up after an afternoon of free Mountain Dew, sprinted around and grabbed 30 or 40 of the wadded up dollar bills, I think. I wound up with four of them, each with a World Industries skateboard character, like Flame Boy or Wet Willie, rubber stamped on them. We laughed at yet another example of Steve Rocco's crazy promotion methods. When in doubt, just throw money on the crowd. I literally had real helicopter money in my pocket when Maurice and I decided to walk over and watch the skate best trick jam, which had just started.
Dusk was descending on the huge pier that housed the 1999 X-Games, next to San Francisco Bay. With our passes, we just walked over and stood behind the rows of chairs there for pro skaters and their girlfriends, wives, and a few kids. In some of the wide shots in the clip above, you can see two really bright lights, that look lke stars on the video. We were right below, and maybe 20 feet in front of those lights, they were shining over our heads, lighting up the skate halfpipe for the TV cameras.
Maurice and I kept talking, as the world's best skaters tried their newest and best tricks. As I recall, Pierre Luc Gagnon was trying to land a heeflip Caballerial, as Steve Caballero himself sat 10 feet in front of me. Bob Burnquist was trying a one footed Smith Grind to revert, I believe. Other skaters were trying their "Merry Christmas" tricks, the things they could land once in a while. For Tony Hawk, that was the varial 720. About 12 or 15 minutes into the half hour jam, he landed one. Then he went back up, and just stood on deck a few minutes.
Skaters dropped in, sometimes snaking each other, to try to pull that one big trick. It was the closest thing I'd seen to "real," everyday skateboarding in a contest environment. The best trick jam was a concession to the vert skaters, who still weren't really happy with ESPN's take on skateboarding, in their 4th year of the putting on the X-Games. The big TV contest idea for action sports was evolving, as skaters got more involved and vocal about how they were portrayed to millions of viewers.
It was obvious the bigwigs at ESPN didn't give a shit about the best trick jam, but they had a big crowd, around 5,000 people in the stands on the other side of the ramp, so they kept the cameras rolling. It would make for soem good highlight clips, I think that's how they saw it. Old School skater and announcer, Dave Duncan, called the action out live from the deck. Maurice and I watched and talked.
Then Tony Hawk dropped in again, and no one paid that much attention. Until he opened up out of what looked like a over-rotated 540. We stopped talking, "Did he just try a 900?" one of us asked the other. I can't remember who said it. Tony walked back up to the top of the ramp, and did the same thing a couple of more times. The second rotation got tighter and tighter. After the 3rd or 4th try, he walked off the side of the ramp, facing us, He was 15 or 20 feet away, and we could totally see his eyes, he had the stare, the "thousand yard stare," as I've heard some call it. He was looking right towards us, but saw nothing. Pure focus. I asked Maurice, "Did you see his eyes? He's serious. He's either going to land it or go to the hospital trying." Maurice agreed.
The whole aura of the place shifted. Other skaters stopped dropping in. The skaters on the deck knew Tony really wanted the 900, and stepped back in respect. It wasn't planned. No color commentary guy had to spew stats and percentages to hype people up. The energy in the whole area changed. This was real skateboarding at it's best.
A top skater just got a taste that tonight was the night to land the unlandable trick, and Tony just laser focused on it. Everyone stopped skating after a couple more attempts. It wasn't about trophies or prize money anymore. We all wanted to see Tony Hawk progress vert skating to the next level. Tony kept trying, getting more and more determined, and closer to landing it. Dave Duncan kept talking into the mike like only a hardcore skateboarder could. This was a moment, one way or the other.
I think it was on the 7th attempt that Tony landed on the board, made it a few feet, then washed out on the flatbottom. I jumped up in the air screaming, I gave that one to him. But he didn't ride away, it wasn't clean, he wanted it 100%. He kept trying. On the 11th attempt, I believe, is when Tony Hawk landed the first skateboard 900 air, totally solid. Everyone went nuts.
If you freeze that video above at about 6;03, you'll see Maurice right behind Tony, in a white hoodie, with sunglasses. He ran up there with all the skaters to congratulate Tony. I, for some reason, stayed right where I was, 30 feet away, watching the pandemonium. The place went nuts. But I had seen that happen before, 10 years earlier, up in Canada.
Mat Hoffman's first 900, at 14:43 in this clip, in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, in the spring of 1989. After the intro with Eddie Roman's girlfriend, this is the footage that I shot from that contest, with Eddie and friends doing their funny color commentary over it. This is from the 1990-2-Hip video, Ride Like a Man, edited by Eddie Roman.
Riding a bike did take me places. I was a dorky, unathletic kid who grew up in Ohio, spent 9th grade living in New Mexico, and then lived in Boise, Idaho through high school. The summer after my sophomore year, I got into BMX riding, then BMX racing, and then new sport of BMX freestyle, in 1983. A year after I graduated high school, my family moved to San Jose, California. I worked at Pizza Hut, started publishing a freestyle zine, and met the Bay areas freestylers, like Maurice, Dave Vanderspek, Robert Peterson, Hugo Gonzalez, and a couple dozen more. My zine led me to a magazine job in Southern California. I wasn't punk rock enough for that place, and I got laid off. I got a job editing a newsletter, which led to working at Unreel Productions, the Vision Skateboards video company, in late 1987. I was out riding three hours a night like everyone else, but didn't have the balls to make it to pro caliber as a BMX freestyler. By 1989, I was Unreel's camerman, traveling to all the 2-Hip vert and street contests to shoot video, because Vision Street Wear sponsored the contests.
While I was bouncing around the BMX and industries, the early skatepark riders inspired a bunch of great quarterpipe riders around the U.S. and Europe. In 1987, Haro pro Ron Wilkerson started putting on halfpipe contests. Riders like Todd Anderson, Josh White, Joe Johnson, and this kid from Oklahoma, named Mat Hoffman, moved up the amateur ranks and into pro. They pushed the older guys like Eddie Fiola, Brian Blyther, Mike Dominguez, as vert riding progressed.
The first 2-Hip King of Vert of 1989 was in Kitchener, Ontario Canada. The less than epic 2-Hip halfpipe was set up in a college gymnasium for the weekend, and the riders, amateur and pro, gave it their best. The talk of the weekend was that this crazy, unknown guy from Canada, called The Terminator, was going to do a backflip abubaca or fakie or something. No one except lake jumper Jose Yanez had done flips on a BMX bike then. No one had even tried them on vert. The Terminator was an amateur, and when his final run came up, he did a high fakie, leaned back a little, and crashed hard. The weekend up hype fizzled.
The rest of the amateurs rode their runs, blasting high and pulling their best tricks. Joe Johnson landed the first double tailwhip air, which was amazing. I was on the deck, with a $50,000, 35 pound, rented Ikegami Betacam, shoulder checking photographer John Ker for a good angle to shoot from. I was doing my best to get good footage of the days events.
Then came Mat Hoffman, in what I believe was his second pro contest. He won his first pro contest. At the end of his final run, with about 300 people watching, mostly Canadians, he nearly landed a 900. Mat got up, and went for it again, landing the first BMX 900 in a contest, and the first recorded 900 in any action sport. Even snowboarders hadn't pulled a 900 air at that point. I caught it on video from the deck, and Eddie Roman and another guy caught it from two angles below. Mat Hoffman, new pro vert rider and wonderkid, broke the 900 barrier in action sports, with video and photos to prove it. Word was the Mike Dominguez had landed a 900 or two on his own ramp. But there were no photos or video. Mat made it official, the 900 was possible.
By some weird quirk of fate, me, the goofy kid from Ohio and Idaho, was there to get video. And by an even crazier quirk of fate, I was in San Francisco a decade later to watch Tony Hawk do it, live, on a skateboard. The only other two people that I know were in both places were Mat and his buddy Steve Swope. But they were running the bike contest in 1999, and I don't think they were watching the skate best trick jam. I'm not sure. There may have been a couple of people who saw both happen live.
We live in a weird Universe, and really crazy coincidences happen now and then. It still trips me out that I somehow saw both of these happen live, right in front of me. Riding a bike did take me places, for the first 20 years of my adult life. I met alot of cool people, traveled around the U.S., and into Canada a couple of times.
Then I got injured, became a taxi driver, and things went into a downhill spiral. I think life wanted to kick my ass for a couple of decades to teach me some other lessons. One of the things I've learned is that there are a lot of ways to spend your time in life, and goofing around on bikes is one of the best ways. You never know where it will lead you. Ride on!
Days
ago, as I write this, Mike Varga landed the first 1260 air (that's 3
1/2 spins folks) on a BMX bike, on a halfpipe. It was so crazy, even
Mike's tire had its mind blown. As fate would have it, I happened to be
there when Mat Hoffman landed the first 900 on vert in a contest, 32
years ago, in the Spring of 1989, in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. As an
Old School BMX blogger guy, I decided this would be a good time to go
back and look at the history of aerial spins (not flips, just spins) in
BMX history. Here goes.
Blogger's note (11/24/2021): I wrote this blog originally in July 2021, on my WPOS Kreative Ideas blog, the blog I was doing primarily at the time. Since I' moved back to this blog, I decided to bring this post back here, so you know I haven't forgotten about BMX. I'm also going to put this post on Freestyle BMX Tales, where I'll do most of my Old School BMX posts from now on.
Bob Haro- forwards 540 on wedge ramp and rollback 360- 1980-This
video says Bob is 22 years old, and he was born inJune of 1958, so this
is 1980, or early 1981. That's the very early days of BMX freestyle as
a demo activity, years before the first competitions. The rollback to
360 by Bob Haro (1:22) is probably the first spinning trick on a BMX
bike. I'm pretty sure the front wheel 360 spin came later. Bob also
does a solid forwards 540 on the wedge ramp at :27.
Andy Ruffel- 360 jump in 1983-
26:05 Andy also does Old School 360 bunnyhops, also called 360 floaters
BITD, at 25:32. He also does a front wheel 360 on a wedge ramp at
21:44. Oh, and don't play chicken with airplanes, they have propellers.
Eddie Fiola- 360's over small doubles (by today's standards) in races in 1983?
1984? I remember reading an interview with Eddie Fiola in 1983 or
maybe early 1984, where he said he had done 360's in BMX races over
doubles. I actually asked Eddie about this a few months back. If I
remember correctly, I think he said they were about 2 foot high doubles,
maybe 8 feet apart, standard for BMX tracks in that era. No photos or
video for this, but I did get the story straight from Eddie himself.
R.L. Osborn, front wheel 360 on a quarterpipe on video, 1984.This
Mountain Dew commercial, which featured R.L. Osborn, Eddie Fiola, Ron
Wilkerson, and bike stuntman Pat Romano, aired nationwide on network Tv
in the summer of 1984. I was about a year into learning tricks on BMX
bikes myself, and RAN to the TV to see this commercial, every time I
heard the music start. As a high school kid in Idaho then, I'd never
seen a 540 on a quarterpipe, or a front wheel 360, which is what R.L.
does here at :27. It took me all summer to figure out what R.L. was
doing, we didn't have a VCR, and no one I knew to tape the commercial in
those days. Also R.L. with a 360 lake jump at the end.
Legend has it the Woody Itson did the first 540 on a quarterpipe,
about halfway up the ramp, sometime about 1984-1985. While known as
mainly flatland rider to us younger guys of that era, Woody rode jumps,
skateparks, and ramps, as well, in the early days. I can't confirm
this, so if anyone can, let me know.
Eddie Fiola- 360 flyout on quarterpipe to deck-
1984. It's at 1:33 in this clip. This one is at the AFA Master
contest in the old Surf Theater parking lot in Huntington Beach, in the
late summer of 1984.
Eddie Fiola- 540 in the Pipe Bowl, Pipeline Skatepark in 1985.
To the best of my knowledge, this was the first 540 on video in a
skatepark, though not the first 540 on a ramp. Leave it to the original
King of the Skateparks, Eddie Fiola, to bust this one first.
Josh White- One of the first 540's on a quarterpipe, on video- 1985-
It's at 1:29 in this clip. This is the Huntington Beach, CA AFA
Masters contest in 1985, in the old Surf Theater parking lot. At the
time of this contest, Josh White was a completely unknown amateur from
Oregon, so you can bet he turned some heads blasting huge airs, and a
540, at this comp. He debuted to the rest of us in a feature interview
in FREESTYLIN' magazine, in the August 1986 issue, and was riding for the GT factory team by then.
Mike Dominguez- 7'-8' high 540
(judging by sprocket height)- 1987- It's at 9:33 in this clip. AFA
Masters contest in Oregon. This was in the 8 foot high by 8 foot wide
AFA quarterpipe, with no vert.
Craig Campbell- Wall ride to 360 (aka 540 wall ride)-
Spring 1988- It was the first 2-Hip Meet the Street contest in Santee,
California, at one of Dave Voelker's favorite riding spots. Street had
been emerging, but there had been only one contest in NorCal, no one
really knew what to expect at this comp. Craig Campbell blew everyone's
mind pull this wall ride to 360 out of nowhere, at 4:53 in the clip.
Jeremy Alder- the world's first barspin air- 1988-
In a small East Coast contest at the Crownsville Fairgrounds in
Maryland, Jeremy Alder, largely unknown to West Coast riders, stepped up
the game with the world's first barspin air. It's right at the end of
the video, go to 3:50. He also does a couple of half barspin airs early
on, a couple really big 540's for that era, and a 360 flyout to
abubaca. Jeremy was sponsored by Haro Bikes for a couple of years.
Progression.
Mike Dominguez nearly lands a 900 in fall 1988- 4:55- Mike
Dominguez claimed to have landed 2 or 3 900's on his own ramp, months
before Mat Hoffman landed the first one in a contest. But there was no
video and no photos. Some people believed Mike, some weren't sure. At
4:55 in this video, shot at the 2-Hip King of Vert finals in September
or October of 1988, Mike hucks a 900 attempt and just barely misses
landing it. I believe Mike on nailing the 900. About six months
later, Mat did it with several camerasrolling (including mine, as Vision
cameraman), and made the 900 official.
Mat Hoffman- first 900 on vert in a contest- 2-Hip King of Vert, Spring, 1989. Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. (My angle of that 900 is at the end of this clip-
14:43). None of us knew he was planning to try that (except Steve
Swope), until he tried the first one. Mat missed the first attempt, and
landed it on his second try.
Mat Hoffman- First no handed 540- 1989-It's
at 1:34:00 in this video. Mat actually pulled the no handed 540 the
contest before this, at Woodward in Pennsylvania, but I couldn't find
video on YouTube. This is the 2-Hip King of Vert after that, in
Colorado Springs. I was the cameraman on this shot, and the video
(Ride Like a Man) was edited by Eddie Roman.
Craig Campbell with the first dirt jump 720 on video- 1989- In this Ozone freestyle team segment on Home Turf, a local San Francisco Bay Area TV show for kids, Craig lands a 720 at the Calabassas jumps in San Jose, at 1:49.This
video has interviews with Craig Grasso, Craig Campbell, and Pete
Brandt, I believe, and there's some funny stuff. It's worth watching
the whole video.
Ride Like a Man- 2-Hip/Eddie Roman directed video- 1990-3:32-
Maurice Meyer- 360 street abubaca. 4:02- Eddie Roman and ?, 360 down 6
long steps. 7:06- Rider?- 360 nsoepick over spine. 13:04- Rider?
Flatland body varial spin thing around the seat. 22:06- Vic Murphy?-
fastplant to 360 on flat. 24:44- Mike Krnaich- tailtap 540 on spine. 28:34- Bob Kohl- tailwhip drop-in on 8 foot ramp.
The Ultimate Weekend (my self-produced video) 1990-Chris Moeller with the biggest 360 over doubles on video at that time- 35:45 (Mike "Crazy Red" Carlson lands a toe dragger tailwhip earlier, same session). Keith Treanor with the first 360 over a spine on video- 22:12. Gary Laurent
also does one at- 22:56 (same session). Josh White, lookback 360 (on a
flyout)- 23:59. Josh White, one hand one foot 360 (flyout)- 24:13.
Keith Treanor, big one hand 360- 25:25
Eddie Roman's Ride On video-1992- Intro- Huge 360 over doubles(rider unknown). Dave Voelker(?)- turndown 360- 1:39. First no handed 360 on video (?) Rider unknown- 1:55. There will be more, I need to watch this whole video again...
Mat Hoffman jumps three flaming cars on Stuntmasters-
5:53. 1991or 1992? Crazy as it sounds, I got this idea underway, but
never knew the stunt actually happened. I was working at a TV
production company in 1991, and sent some footage from the 2-Hip King of
Dirt at Mission Trails to motorcycle distance jumper Johnny Airtime,
who worked in the other office. Much to my surprise, the BMX stuff blew
his mind, and he wanted to know what kind of real stunts a BMXer might
be able to do. Johnny and I threw ideas back and forth over the phone,
and came up with a 360 over three flaming cars. I was trying to hook up
Chris Moeller or Dave Clymer for the gig. Johnny had sen footage of
Mat Hoffman, and asked, "Could Mat do it?" I said, "Yeah." I quit that
company about a month later, but the Stuntmaster's show happened, and
Mat did the stunt with ease. In a side note, according to Mat's book,
it was Johnny Airtime, on this stunt show, who told Mat that if he
wanted to do bigger airs, he needed a bigger ramp. Mat and Steve Swope
built the first 20 foot tall mega quarterpipe soon after.
Jay Miron- First public 540 tailwhip- 1998-
at 8:24. There's a lot of vert ripping in this clip, by Miron, Dave
Osato, Tony Hawk, and others. That rollback nosewheelie tailwhip to
drop back in thing Jay does? WTF? Never seen that trick. I'll make
you watch the whole clip to find that one. The info says this was a
small comp. at BC Place. Sponsored by Kokanee beer! Canada, eh.
Nitcholi Rogatkin- mountain bike 1440- 2017-That's
4 full spins, corked out. That's the record right now on a jump, and 3
1/2 (1260), in the video at the top of this post, is the reigning
record on vert.
Dennis McCoy- Longest span being able to do BMX 900's on vert-1990-2021? First 900- Summer 1990-in Indianapolis, IN. 900 at age 52 in 2018.
That's a 28 year span of being able to land one of the craziest vert
tricks ever, on video. I believe he has pulled at least one 900 in
2021, stretching that span to 31 years. DMC continues to amaze us
all.
What about the women? BMX freestyle has been a boy's club from the start, but since girls like racers like Deanna Edwards and Cheri Elliot, and freestylers Krys Dauchy from Ohio and Alma Jo Barrera
from Texas in the 80's, there have been some women riding hard on BMX
bikes. So here are some of the best women's clips of spinning tricks
from recent years.
Women spinning tricks in 2019-
Mexico City Van's comp-2:28- gnarly backflip attempt. 3:06- Macarena
Perez- Tailwhip air. 7:00-Natalya Diehm- tailwhip jump.
Top Ten Women's BMX tricks compilation- 2021-:02
Macarena Perez- backflip over box jump. :07- Nikita Ducarroz- 540 on
vert. :16- Charlotte Worthington- Flair on vert. :20- Shanice Silva
Cruz- front flip on box jump. :26- Hannah Roberts- tuck no handed 360
jump. :29- Hannah Roberts- double tailwhip jump. :39- Hannah Roberts-
triple barspin. :43- Hannah Roberts- double truckdriver jump (360
barspin to barspin). So yeah, there are a lot fewer women riders than
men, but they're holding there own out there at the parks.
This
blog post got out of hand real quick. I did a similar post about
backflips a while back, but there are a lot more spinning tricks. I
could watch and dig into old videos, and add 100 more variations to this
list. But I'm going to stop it here. I did say a "brief" history of
spinning tricks. The idea for this post, after seeing Mike Varga's
insane 1260 on vert, was to show the long and continuing progression on
the basic idea of spinning your bike around, one way or another. I
seriously never thought a 1260 on vert would happen.
The
craziest thing about this post is that I couldn't figure out who did the
first truck driver, a 360 over a jump with a barspin. Logic would say
Chris Moeller might have been the guy, but I was roommates with Chris
for quite a while in the earl 90's, and I think he was the 2nd or 3rd
guy to do one. Maybe Tim "Fuzzy" Hall did it first? But I'm not sure
on that, the first and most basic 360 variation.
I also found
tricks and clips I had no idea existed, like Andy Ruffel doing a 360 on
film in 1983, and the Australian video supposedly from 1980. This post
is not complete, by any means, but I've got a lot of the firsts, or
firsts on video, in a timeline in one place. That was the basic idea,
to see when spinning tricks and certain variations began, and how they
fit into the 43 or so years that BMX freestyle has been a thing.
Thanks, as always, for checking out my blog post. I'm not going to do
as many Old School BMX posts as I have in years past, I've written well
over 1,000 already. But I'll try to make the ones I do good ones.
What's a Spinaroonie? Listen to Eddie Roman's color commentary, 4:58 in this clip. I was the cameraman for that footage, by the way.
In the spring of 1989, I traveled to Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, with a woman from Vision promotions. I forget her name. I hadn't booked a room, I thought she was handling it. I wound up getting the room right next to the room where Mat Hoffman, Steve Swope, and Dennis McCoy were staying. I was the cameraman for Unreel Productions, the Vision Street Wear video company, my job was to shoot footage of the contest, and I had the only broadcast quality video camera at the event, a rental Ikegami Betacam.
I ran into Rob Dodds, who I met in Whistler three years before, and he was looking for a place to crash, in typical low budget rider style for those days. Since I had a spare couch in my room, and Vision was paying for it, so he crashed there, and we wound up having dinner that night with Mat, Swope, and Dennis. Rob also shared this trick he'd been working on with Mat, a no handed 540. Guess what trick Mat landed at the next 2-Hip?
The big talk of the weekend was some Canadian guy nicknamed the Terminator, who was supposed to try a backflip abubaca, or backflip fakie. No one did any backflip tricks then. But it fizzled into a lackluster crash. The contest turned into just another rad 2-Hip King of Vert. And then this happened. At 14:43 is this clip, you see Mat Hoffman pull his first 900, and the first 9 ever pulled in a BMX freestyle contest. This whole clip is my footage, used in the Eddie Roman produced/2-Hip video Ride Like a Man.
Just over a decade later, I took a break from my job as a Hollywood lighting technician, for the summer, to get a hernia fixed. My insurance company gave me the runaround all summer, and that never happened, so I wound up working as a taxi driver. That job didn't require heavy lifting, like the lighting job did.
But while I was taking that summer off, I drove up to the 1999 X-Games, after scamming a press pass as a writer from Dig BMX Magazine. My purpose was to wander around, shoot some cool footage to put into a little BMX video, and use that to get some of the newer riders stoked on letting me shoot them for a hardcore, self-produced BMX freestyle video later on.
After shooting some footage of BMX vert practice, I ran into old friend, Maurice "Drob" Meyer, and we started talking about "the old days" of 80's freestyle in San Francisco. While we were talking, a red helicopter drifted in close, and someone threw stickers out the window. That was pretty funny, a sticker toss taken to a whole new level. Then the chopper drifted near the ramps again, except someone was tossing wadded up dollar bills out of it. That turned out to be World Industries owner Steve Rocco, and you can see the inside-the-chopper footage in the documentary, The Man Who Souled The World. I picked up four of the dollars, each with a World Industries figure stamped on it. Mike Dominguez, Jr. wired from drinking Mountain Dew all day, ran around an got about 50 of them. The funny thing was, almost all of the money fell on the BMX halfpipe, missing the skate halfpipe next to it, the intended target. If you know anything about Steve Rocco's hatred for BMX, that's petty dang funny.
Anyhow, Drob and I kept talking, and since we both had cool guy passes, we walked over to watch the skate best trick contest, which was getting started. Unlike everything else in the X-Games up until then, it was like an actual, real, skate session. A bunch of the very best vert skaters trying their hardest tricks. I think Bob Burnquist was trying a one footed Smith grind to revert. PLG was trying a Caballerial heelflip, or maybe a frontside Cab heelflip. It was off the chain. Tony Hawk landed his trademark varial 720 halfway through the half hour jam. Maurice and I kept talking about how huge these sports had become, and how crazy the whole scene was, compared to when I rode at Golden Gate Park with him and the other guys in 1985-86.
Then Tony Hawk got this crazy idea, and decided to try the elusive 900 he'd been trying to land for ten years, since about the time Mat pulled the bike 900 in Kitchener. Tony hucked a couple of wild spins and unraveled at the end of each. But on about the third or fourth try, he started to get it back towards the landing. Suddenly, it went from a crazy huck to looking possible. Maybe.
There were about 30 folding chairs, in 3 or 4 rows, in the skater's area next to the halfpipe. Those were filled with the skaters, girlfriends, a couple of wives, and a few bros. Drob and I were standing about ten feet behind those. From our vantage point, we could see that after that 3rd or 4th try, Tony Hawk suddenly had the thousand yard stare. We could see it in his eyes. He wanted the 900... BAD. I looked at Drob, "Holy shit, he's serious now, he's either going to land it or wreck himself." Drob agreed. We both knew that intense stare. We'd seen it before, and we'd had it before. Pure focus.
Tony kept trying, everyone else stopped skating, and it became a scene I'll never forget. There was nothing about competition. It was real skateboarding. One guy, focused on landing one trick, and everyone of the other skaters wanted to see it happen. Everyone in the seats, and us just behind, wanted to see it happen. The 5,000 spectators in the crowded bleachers on the other side of the ramp, wanted to see it happen. It took tony 11 attempts, I think. But he landed the first skateboard 900 ever, and it was amazing to see.
The funny thing for me was, I'd been shooting video all day with my little Sony Digital 8 camera. My batteries were dead. I watched this whole scene with a dead camera in my hand... and I didn't care. I didn't want to be a cameraman right then, focusing on framing the shot each try. I just wanted to see the whole thing play out. I wanted to just experience it happening. And that's what I did.
When Tony landed the 900, a bunch of people, including Maurice, ran up to congratulate him. You can see Drob if you freeze it at 6:04, when Tony has is mouth open. That's Maurice in the sunglasses and light colored hoodie, to Tony's right.
Those were two huge jumps in the progression of vert riding and skating. The impossible became possible. Somehow, for reasons unknown to me, the Universe saw fit to put me there to see those two events happen, in person. Both were moments I'll remember my whole life, you know, unless Alzheimer's kicks in, of course.
Last night at the X-Games, 30 years after Mat's 900, 20 years after Tony's 900, Mitchie Brusco stepped the progression of vert skateboarding up another huge notch, adding a 360, and landing the first 1260 on a vert mega ramp. Freakin' amazing. Congratulations Mitchie.
