Here's the Dig BMX edit of the Rumble in Richmond BMX day O' fun, put on by Steve Crandall and posse. If you like BMX, and you ever get the chance to go to one of Steve Crandall's events, do it. It's as simple as that. Check outRAD Share, and help them out if you can. Bikes to kids who need them.
Just for the record, I was not at the Rumble in Richmond. But I lived there a while back in 2018-2019. I went to the DIY World Championships event in October of 2018, and it was epic, even as an old guy with no bike. That's why I recommend checking out any event Steve Crandall puts on.
This is probably the craziest day of shooting video, for its time period, of any BMX footage I ever shot. In early 1991, pro rider and promoter, Ron Wilkerson, held a 2-Hip King of Dirt contest at Mission Trails, outside of San Diego. The next day there was a King of Vert comp at a halfpipe, somewhere in San Diego. I shot footage there, too, but it never got used in anything. I lost all of my raw footage and video masters when I moved to North Carolina in 2008, this clip is what's left of my footage from that weekend. Here's what I remember...
First I need to set the stage. BMX "died" in early 1989. At the big bike industry trade show in Long Beach, California, that January, the entire bike industry decided, "BMX is dead, mountain bikes are the new thing." So money was sucked out of the BMX world, and the manufacturers focused on the growing mountain bike industry. In 1988, I think there were 12 or 13 "factory" or major BMX freestyle teams touring the U.S.. By the summer of 1989, it was down to Haro and GT teams, going on tour.
With the hype, promotion, and nearly all money drained out of the BMX and freestyle worlds, just the hardcore riders were left by late 1989. To be clear, by "hardcore," I don't just mean the best pros, but all the people who just really loved actually riding bikes, and weren't riding because just to turn pro, try to make money, impress other people, or because their friends thought it was cool. There were a lot of riders, myself included, all over the world, who weren't necessarily the greatest riders, but really loved riding, and kept riding going into the ramen days of the early 1990's. So from 1989 to 1995, when the ESPN's Extreme Games began (renamed "X-Games" in 1996), BMX and BMX freestyle was mostly people working real jobs, and riding as much as possible in their spare time. Ron Wilkerson became the main contest promoter, with the 2-Hip King of Vert halfpipe series, and the Meet the Street comps, going into this era. Mat Hoffman, who turned pro in 1989, just in time for the "death" of BMX, poured his soul into BMX, and started his B.S. contests a couple of years later.
Also in this era, the rider-owned BMX bike companies started, and took hold. Some were partially inspired by skateboarder Steve Rocco who started World Industries skateboards in 1987, which grew rapidly as Street skating took off. BMXers began to start their own businesses. S&M Bikes started in 1987, and Chris Moeller bought out his partner, and began running the business solo, in 1989, I believe. In the following years, FBM Bikes, Standard Byke Company, Eastern Bikes, Hoffman Bikes, Ronnie Bonner's UGP, Brad McDonald's Ride magazine, and others all came out, and got off the ground, among others. So all the punk rock inspired, DIY vibe was really turning into real products and businesses during this same era of the late 1980's and early 1990's.
Another big change during this period was the rise in consumer and prosumer video equipment. When BMX Plus! magazine and the BMX Action Trick Team made their first BMX videos, in 1985 or so, they had to hire a video production company, people that made local TV commercials, industrial training videos, and things like that. Those people knew nothing about BMX or action sports. The "broadcast quality" video cameras and editing equipment (tape to tape editing, not digital), were really expensive. Those early BMX videos, 30 or 40 minutes long, cost $35,000 to $40,000 or more to produce, at a time when no one was really sure if they'd even sell. Then they had to get VHS copies made, which cost about $3 each, make boxes, and then market them. It was really easy to lose money making niche videos, on any subject, in the early and mid 1980's.
By 1989-1990, S-VHS and Hi8 cameras were out, and improving quickly, as those years passed. Those new video cameras, and lower cost editing VCR's, let guys like Eddie Roman make Aggroman(1989), Mark Eaton start the Dorkin' in York series (1988?), and I madeThe Ultimate Weekend (1990). All of the sudden, regular people, like us, could make the kinds of videos we wanted to watch, for a few hundred, or maybe a few thousand dollars. Once one of us owned a decent prosumer camera, S-VHS or Hi-8, we could go shoot video of our friends for the price of a blank video tape, gas money, and lunch. That meant we could try all kinds of ideas, and shoot footage of anything we felt like shooting. A handful of us, started trying to make our own videos in the late 1980's and early 1990's, then many others jumped in, and started making their own videos, until their were dozens of BMX (and skateboard, and snowboard) videos coming out every year.
Not only did the BMX industry dramatically slow down coming out of the late 1980's, but the different types of BMX riding began to slowly morph into their own genre's. In the early 1980's, pretty much every BMX freestyler not only rode flatland and ramps, but often raced sometimes, did some dirt jumping, and did a little street riding. As the freestyle aspect of BMX evolved rapidly, some people began to focus on different aspects of riding, and flatland, dirt jumping, pool and quarter pipe riding, and street riding all began to evolve, and more and riders began to focus on one or two of these genre's, as tricks and moves and bike set-ups changed for each type of riding.
That period also had a real world recession happening, starting in 1990, which dragged on for years in particularly in Southern California real estate. All of these weird things were happening at once coming out of the 1980's and into the early 1990's: BMX "died" in 1989, a long economic recession began, the prosumer video revolution was going on, and guys were starting their own grassroots BMX businesses. There was a lot of change happening in and out of action sports. It was in this context that Ron Wilkerson decided to have one of the first dirt jumping contests, at Mission Trails, home of the already legendary DEATH JUMP.
Dirt jumping itself goes back to way before BMX bikes, and it had been a main part of BMX since the earliest days of the 1970's. But dirt jumping contests were a pretty new thing. There was a big King of Dirt Jam in 1987, bringing racers and freestylers together to jump for fun. Some of the bigger BMX tracks started building one big style jump off the main track, and having jumping comps at national races. The jumps were big sets of doubles, and guys like Chris Moeller, Dave Clymer, John Paul Rogers, Todd Lyons, Tim "Fuzzy" Hall, and a few others were the top jumpers going into the 1990's.
But Death Jump at Mission Trails was different. Today, I think of this as the first step in the mega ramp era. Yes, Mat Hoffman built the first, 21 foot high mega quarterpipe a year later, in 1992. But death jump had the downhill roll-in, to a jump, across a big gap, to a huge downhill landing, like today's mega ramps. It was totally different than the normal 3 or 4 foot high, 10 to 18 foot long, sets of doubles that most jumpers rode then. The roll-in was maybe seven or 8 feet high, dropping down to a four foot high lip, which shot riders over a 25 foot plus gap, to a huge downhill landing. Sure, it was much smaller than today's mega ramps. But bikes also snapped sometimes when riding off loading docks in those days. Death Jump was HUGE by 1991 standards, a major step up in riding evolution. So there was real trepidation in the minds of riders heading to Mission Trails on that sunny, Saturday afternoon in 1991.
I rode down there in John Povah's old car, with Keith Treanor and Alan Valek, who you get a glimpse of in the beginning of this clip. There were maybe 150 people total at this contest, featuring several of the best BMX bike riders in the world at the time. The pro purse for first place was maybe $300, if that. Personally, I had been there once, several months before, and saw Gary Laurent jump Death Jump, a shot that's in The Ultimate Weekend. Gary was a seasoned rider, and he just jumped it, even he didn't try a trick over it. In 1991, Death Jump at Mission Trails was the biggest BMX jump anywhere, and even the best jumpers had to push it to just clear the jump, let alone try any trick over it.
This contest happened four or five months after I finished editing The Ultimate Weekend, in the fall of 1990, and I was shooting footage for my "next video," which I was hoping to make in late 1991 or 1992. I just knew it was going to be a cool contest, and wanted to get video of it. That next video didn't end up happening until 2001. Instead, a few months later, Chris Moeller at S&M called me up, wanting to make the first official S&M Bikes video, Paul Green had done a VHS video already. So, I edited this clip for the first official S&M Bikes video, Feel My Leg Muscles... I'm a Racer. So I used mostly the S&M riders where possible, along with the best tricks by other riders. Tim "Fuzzy" Hall was there, and I didn't use any footage of him, and he was stylish as ever. Mike Krnaich landed tailwhip jumps over the tabletop, and was trying double tailwhips, which no one had done on dirt then, and I didn't use any shots of him.
I edited S&M's "Leg Muscles" video, sitting on the floor or the tiny living room of Chris Moeller's "Winnebago" apartment, with my S-VHS video camera, an S-VHS prosumer VCR that Moeller bought, and a 40 of beer. No edit controller, I did it Play-Record-Pause, by hand. So it sucked, but we were going super low budget at the time. There's some shots of Keith and Chris over the doubles, then Crazy Red with a tailwhip attempt and a decade jump landed over the tabletop jump, in the contest. Then the contest moved to the double jump, which was tall and steep for those days. This was the jump where the most riders did some cool tricks. But I just included a couple shots of S&M flow rider Crazy Red, and Mat Hoffman, who tried the first backflip attempt over a dirt double jump that anybody had ever seen. Mat blew everyone's minds with those two flip attempts, the first on video.
Then the contest went to Death Jump. We have S&M Bikes owner, Chris Moeller clearing the jump several times (yellow bike), and he does a tabletop and a no hander. Nuts. Earlier, freestyler Bill Nitschke comes up short and hangs front wheel, leading to one of the worst slams of the day. Dave Clymer, a double A pro racer then, makes it, then has to eject on his second try, doing his crucifix slide down the gnarly landing, saved by his trusty mailman shorts. Keith Treanor hucks it, doesn't have the distance, and does a unique one hand two foot slide down the landing. The guy with no shirt was a local, who could comfortably clear Death Jump, and he did it several times that day. But he wasn't going to try a trick over it. Dennis McCoy, in jeans, shoulder pads, and full face helmet, the top overall freestyler of the era, hucked a partial backflip attempt and a 720 attempt, and both ended with BASE jumping level bails. Mat Hoffman, known as a vert pro then, not a dirt jumper or pro racer, clears the insane distance several times, and blew everybody's mind with a no footer to no footed can-can to no footer. That, and Moeller's no hander were the tricks of the day over Death Jump. BMX riding jumped up another level with that day's riding at Mission Trails. Everyone knew bigger things than any of us had seen before, were possible. This was one of those contests that changed bike riding forever, in one day.
But the talk of the day was Mike "Crazy Red" Carlson, who I had only seen once before, when I shot some him landing a toe-dragger tailwhip over the big doubles at Edison High trails, in Huntington Beach, a year earlier. That was the first tailwhip over doubles on video, I think. And I didn't even know Mike when I shot the footage, he just showed up. At the Mission Trails King of Dirt, Mike "Crazy Red" Carlson was just trying every insane idea he could think of, over the biggest jump anywhere, and lived through the bails. He hucked it as hard as the biggest names in the sport, and crashed harder, and more, than all of them. His just ridiculous crashes make this video the craziest shit any of us had seen at that point. If there was a Hugo Gonzales Huck It award that day, Mike would have taken it. It was an epic day of BMX, at a time when only the most hardcore people were still riding, and Eddie Roman and I caught parts of it on video.
I was working at my first "real" TV production job at the time, just over the hill from the Hollywood sign, in the San Fernando Valley above Studio City. A former co-worker got me on that year's production crew making the monster truck and supercross TV show series for 1991. I was just a production assistant. As fate or luck would have it, motorcycle stuntman Johnny Airtime worked in a nearby office of the same company. Though I had only met him once, I made a 3/4" copy (sort of pro caliber) of some of this footage, and sent it through an interoffice memo to Johnny Airtime. Much to my surprise, he called me up a couple of days later, and this BMX footage Mission Trails blew his mind. For those who don't know, Johnny Airtime did stunts like this, and others, back then. He was a stunt coordinator, and motorcycle distance jumper, for The World's Greatest Stunts and Stuntmasters TV shows. He asked what BMXers could do in the way of a big stunt. We brainstormed for 15 or 20 minutes on the phone, and came up with the idea of a rider doing a 360 over three flaming cars. I left that job a month or so later. I never talked to Johnny Airtime again. Much to my surprise, a couple years later, I learned that this had happened. It's a crazy world.
This post was inspired by a podcast I just watched, from a few years ago. Somebody mentioned The Ultimate Weekend, and made fun of it, which is fine. Then they all talked about this contest at Mission Trails for a minute, and that gave me the idea to write this post.
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Here's the Our BMX edit of the highlights of the Triple Jump challenge that just happened in Glendale, AZ. The jumps are huge, and the tricks are video game level stuff. Just watch.
For any of you who didn't catch it, here's the Our BMX Finals Highlights edit of the Triple Challenge BMX dirt jumping contest in Anaheim, California last weekend (January 6, 2024)
Supercross racing in Anaheim in January is a big tradition in Orange County, California. Just over 30 years ago, my first "real" TV crew guy job was working on the 1991 Supercross season. While I heard about people going to check out Supercross races before that, I'd never actually gone to see a race live. It's a freakin' insane thing to witness, and I tried to catch the Anaheim races in the years after that whenever possible.
Years ago, they added a BMX jumping contest out in the pits area, in the parking lot, to each Anaheim race. Now called the BMX Triple Challenge. The jumps, as you can see above, look like a small mountain range, with the mega roll-in heading into the three ginormous sets of doubles. I haven't made it to check out this event since I've been back in CA, the last few years, but that's what the video is for.
I captured this still off the Our BMX footage from the video above. This is not R Willy, it's Jaie Toohey, front bike flip that almost got away from him, but he actually landed this. Video game stuff in real life.
A Supercross story from the P.O.W. BMX House days... 1992 or 1993...
Back in the early 1990's, the first real BMX house formed. In a house on Iroquois street in Westminster, California, a bunch of pro BMX racers moved in, and out over a 4 or 5 year period. The early guys called it the P.O.W. House, for Pros Of Westminster. Rent ranged from about $95 to $120 a month, with guys sharing bedrooms in the 4 bedroom house. The backyard was turned into a little jumping line, and later filled with mini ramps. Alan Foster, Chris Moeller, Dave Clymer, John Paul Rogers, John Salamne, Lawan Cunningham, Jai Lonergan, and Brian Foster were some of the 22 official residents of the house. Pretty much every BMX traveler from around the world crashed on the couches of the floor during those years, at some point. I lived there twice, for several months each time, in 1992-93,
In January, either 1992 or 1993, our crew from the P.O.W. House headed out to watch the Anaheim Supercross, and we got there late. The only tickets were way up high, and kind of expensive to our meager wallets, $14 each or something like that. The other guys took off, I told them to leave me there. Since I had worked on TV crews the year before, I had an idea.
I walked around the stadium, found the TV camera crew, told them I was a good P.A., a production assistant, and offered to work for free. I was believable enough, and the producer hired me on the spot, saying he'd pay me $50 for the night's work. Deal. He pointed me to a cameraman I'd be helping, and I was soon helping unroll cables for the cameras.
I wound up getting a free spaghetti dinner, and then working all evening with the starting line cameraman. Instead of watching the motos from the nosebleed seats, I was literally standing in front of that motorcycles, on the track, as they revved up, right before the start of every moto. My cameraman was right in the middle of the first straight, getting the head on shot of all the racers. I was about a third of the way across the starting straight, holding the camera cable, there were no wireless cameras in TV back then. When the model turned the starting card sideways, we had something like 30 seconds to run off the racetrack, and I had to pull all the camera cable out of the way before the riders raced by, so they wouldn't get tangled up in it.
It's a hell of the way to see the Supercross. After each start, we'd run through the infield to the third turn, dodging all the assorted people down there, and I'd unwind the cable along the way. The camerman took position on the backside of the berm, on the third turn, and the racers would be coming at us each lap, through the whoop-de-doo section. Then they would charge through the berm, right in front of us. It was hard work, but man, that was the coolest way to watch a Supercross race ever.
The celebrity guest that night was David Faustino, Bud Bundy from the TV show Married with Children, so I saw him walk by, surrounded by security (he's a really small guy), at close range. He waved to the crowd, and said a few words on the mic, I think. Then it was back to racing. Standing on the berm, watching all the top MX racers bouncing through the whoops right at me, was a sight I'll never forget. Amazing night.
After the race, it took maybe 45 minutes to coil all the cables, and pack up the camera gear, and I learned the over/under technique for coiling the coax cable used for video cameras. It was a solid 6 or 7 hours of work, but fun work. I wound up getting either $75 or $100, I think. A check came in the mail a few days later. They asked if I wanted to help them at the next Anaheim race, a year later. I caught a bunch of buses back to the P.O.W. House, getting home like 3am, with a hell of a story to tell the next morning. My crazy idea to not only watch it for free, but get paid to watch the Anaheim Supercross, paid off. If you've never seen a supercross race live, go see one when you get the chance. It's about the most insane sport ever.
OK, not the biggest, gnarliest thing in the best trick jam, but definitely innovative. Tucker Smith with a nac-nac seat spinner. He loosened his seat, and spun it around mid air. I'm 57 years old, never seen this one before. Video still from the Our BMX edit.
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From Our BMX, this a short documentary of the Florideah Swampfest, put on by Trey Jones and his crew, every year, for 7 years now. This video is just a really fun watch, narrated by clips of Trey, explaining the process of building and putting Swampfest on.
BMX freestyle was an activity long before it became a sport. A few kids were riding bikes in empty pools and skateparks in the mid 1970's. Bob Haro started learning flatland tricks and kickturns in the late 1970's. He put on the first BMX "trick riding" demos at races around 1979. Around 1982 or 1983, Bob Morales put on some of the first contests at skateparks, and they were relatively small events, by sports competition standards. It was mostly a bunch of riders. What crowd there was could hang out and mix with the pros, shoot photos up close in many cases, and be real close to the action.
As BMX freestyle grew into a worldwide and legitimate sport, and eventually into huge contest events like the X-Games, Dew Tour, and others, things got more rigid, more formal, more expensive, and ultimately less fun. At the bleachers, paid admission, and wristband events, you can still see amazing riding. But that crazy, anything could happen feel of the backyard jam went out the window.
But through all the 43 or so years of the history of BMX freestyle, there have been smaller, hardcore, lower budget, almost anything goes events. Those are the jams and comps where even spectators have a small chance of being hit by flying bikes or riders. Let's face it, Those are the fun events. Even of there is no pro purse, a bunch of top riders will always show up to the small, hardcore, semi-underground events. For seven years, Trey Jones and his crew have been putting on Florideah Swampfest, and from the videos, it obviously looks like a crazy and fun time for all. So check out the video above, about what it takes to make a Swampfest happen.
First of all, Google maps has to add a new mountain range to their map every time there's a BMX dirt contest now. The size of the jumps is just ridiculous at this point. Second, everything the riders are doing, and almost doing, is fucking incredible these days. But I'm sharing this for one reason, the guy you see comment at 11:06. Wow.
Here's the Real Street Best Trick... at Rincon... BMX and skate.
Here's the Our BMX edit with highlights of the BMX jumping event from one of the Anaheim Supercross events in January 2023.
First of all... exactly when did BMX six packs turn into mountain ranges? These jumps are HUGE. I remember working at a Supercross event in the early 1990's, and all the MX jumps, except the finish tabletop, were about 6 feet tall. Then I rode down to Sheep Hills a couple of days later, and KOD jump take off and landing were about 7 feet tall. I thought, "Holy crap, BMX jumps are taller than motocross doubles and triples now, that's nuts."
Now BMX rhythm sections are gigantic. Seriously, they're insane in size now. And then we see the crazy stuff they're pulling off now. This six minutes just blew my mind. Enjoy.
Yesterday was April Fool's Day, tomorrow is BMX Freestyler's New Year (4/3), and today was a soggy, but still epic day at Swampfest, from the looks of it. This year with real alligator removal footage. Here's the first look. The full video edits usually come out a few days after...
Dylan Stark took a pounding trying to roll away from a tailwhip 180 at the Boozer Memorial Jam last weekend. While he was punishing his body, someone in his posse got this footage. It's the first edit I've seen up from the weekend.
Roughly 7 years after being paralyzed in a racing accident, Sheep Hills local from the earliest days, and all around character, Boozer Mike Brown died from his continuing health issues in August. This Halloween Jam was originally planned to be the next Boozer Jam. Since Mike passed on, it turned into the first annual Boozer Mike Memorial Jam. In a series of blog posts, here are my photos, some videos from YouTube, and a few words about Mike, and the jam. This is what BMX is all about in my book. It was a great day at Sheep Hills. I think Mike would have been stoked on it.
Drawing I did for Boozer Jam 2016. But I got it to Mike late, so he ended up with it. Josh Stricker with some classic one handed table style at Sheep.
This is my Sharpie art take on a photo Sean Duncan loaned me of Boozer Mike Brown, clicking an X-up, over the Boozer line he built at Sheep Hills. Sheep Hills was the most influential set of trails in the early years of the 1990's, as BMX dirt jumping evolved into its own sport. Mike was a hardcore part of the Sheep Hills scene from the earliest days of the trails. He was also a lifelong BMX racer as well. He didn't jump the highest, or win double A pro. But he was an integral part of the BMX scene that produced some of the best jumpers in BMX history.
What jumpers? In the earliest days of Sheep Hills, P.O.W. House (Pros Of Westminster) riders like Dave Clymer, Chris Moeller, John Paul Rogers, Alan Foster, Brian Foster, Lawan Cunningham, and Jay Lonegran were some of the top riders at Sheep, among others. Following them were the guys who became the first generation to start jumping at Sheep as kids, the Sheep Hills Locals (SHL) posse, including Ryan "Barspinner" Brennan, Sean Butler, Josh Stricker, Freddie Chulo, and Jason and Adam Pope, Jason "Timmy" Ball, Neal Wood, and a few others. A bit later Cory Nastazio, Chris Duncan, Stephen Murray, and Christophe Leveque were locals at Sheep.
During all that time, and for many years after, Boozer Mike was a part of the scene, riding, jumping, and putting in plenty of shovel time, keeping the trails in good shape. He was a long time part of the riding scene of some of the best jumpers ever.
Several years ago, Mike had a freak accident while racing, and was paralyzed from the waist down. That's a big hit to take when you're a BMXer. Mike lived with his mom in the years after, money was tight, life was tough, and began to have health issues, and they progressed over time. There were a few Boozer Jams over the years, to get Mike back out to the trails for a day, and to raise money to help Mike and his mom, Cathy, pay the bills. This jam, last Saturday, was supposed to be a Halloween Boozer Jam. But Mike succumbed to his health issues, and died in August.
So the first annual Boozer Mike Memorial Jam was held to honor Mike, October 26, 2019. It was to raffle off some goodies to raise money to help Cathy with funeral, and other expenses, and to have a great day of BMX riding. It was hot and sunny, 300 or 400 people showed up, and it was just a great day of BMX riding hanging out, and spectating. The vibe was good and fun, the riding was phenomenal, and everyone seemed to have a great time. I think Mike would have been stoked on the day. It was a day that showed the best of what BMX is all about. Ride In Peace, Mike.
"Boozer is my homeboy" T-shirt for sale.
Boozer Mike S&M shield stickers for sale.
Boozer Brown Ale stickers for sale.
Jason German, who we have called Dogger as long as I can remember, was the man on the mic, and a driving force to make this jam happen. Sean Duncan and several others worked with him to provide a good day for riders, old and young, and all the spectators who showed up. Big props to Dogger and the whole crew for all their work. Make American Bikes Again.
Epic Leary over the hip that heads into the side of the Titties landing.
Here's a guy flipping out over Titties. But then, most of us guys do.
Great MTB style over the hip. Bummed this photo washed out, because these just looked so cool. Only one I got a decent shot of, and the photo quality sucks. Oh well.
Kicked out crossed up style over the hip.
Big 360 over the big jump.
For years, there weren't many girls at Sheep, except the occasional girlfriend du'jour of a rider. Now girls are riding, little girls like this one, and ones that seriously shred, like S&M's Jesse Gregory. Kinda cool that it's not a boys only game these days. Male, female, old, young, grey alien or unicorn, if you want to ride, go ride. This girl could be a major shredder some day, you never know.
Up top, Boozer Mike's favorite trick, an X-up, over the Boozer line that Mike first built in 1992 or so. Also one of my favorite photos of the day.
Just above, I backed up, standing between two jump line runways, to get somebody jumping this gap over the pump track line. Instead, I got this epic shot. When you come to the trails to ride, this is what you don't want to do. Dead Sailor to downtube hang. Hey, we've all done it, but not on a jump this gnarly in most cases. Below is the next shot. He got out of it well, and walked without serious pain. That's always good. When you survive it, it's kind of cool when there's a photo. Like that Halloween meme that's been on Facebook this week... Willie Makit? Betty Wont.
Back in the day, these lines were called French, Office, and something else. Now the pump track line goes sideways between the first sets of jumps, and these jumps look way more professional and manicured than way back when. Old School double A pro, P.O.W., and another of my old roommates, Alan Foster, was flowing through here like it was nothing. Alan's still got it.
Most riders weren't, this is still a serious set of lines, and not many others were jumping them. Alan also donated one of his old Schwinn factory uniforms for the raffle. Serious BMX history folks. By the way, Alan had a little brother who was a pretty good rider as well. Damn, what was his name? Oh yeah, it's this guy. He was an Sheep Hills local as well in the early 1990's.
Freddie Chulo's slightly heavier stunt double was there all day as well. You know, in case he was needed. Classic Boozer Brown Ale T-shirt in effect.
There was a skid contest, judged on distance plus style. The winning skid was like 60 feet... one handed. This kid jumped in and gave it his best as the last guy in the skid contest. Good try for a little dude. And not one adult was yelling at him to "PEDAL, PEDAL, PEDAL!"
View from the cheap seats. This is where I sat down when my fat ass got tired (I did walk to Sheep from the bus stop at Brookhurst and PCH). Just liked the way this looked with the S&M logos lit up in the canopy, and the riders jumping in the background.
Here's GT pro rider Josh White working the first four quarterpipe set-up at an AFA Master's contest in the fall of 1987. Blasting out of obscurity (pun intended) in Oregon, to instant fame in the BMX freestyle world, Josh raised the bar considerably as he broke onto the scene in a big way. He was known for going incredibly high for the time period, hitting honest 10 to12 foot plus airs when that's where the ceiling of the best riders was, and doing variations a 7 or 8 feet up. Keep in mind the ramps then were 8 foot high by 8 foot wide, wobbly, wooden quarterpipes, that usually came just up to vert.
Josh also set himself apart with his super stretched variations. This was said to come from years of training in kickboxing (MMA didn't exist then, BTW), and daily stretching through all those years. But the thing that I never could figure out about Josh was that he would approach the ramps at what seemed like half the speed of any other vert rider, amateur or pro, and then blast 9 or 10 feet out. He could just pump more air out of his speed than anyone, and even he didn't seem to know quite how that happened, because I actually asked him about it once.
As fate would have it, I met Josh in the Dallas/Fort Worth airport, on a layover to the Tulsa, Oklahoma, AFA Masters contest in April of 1986. I traveling on my own, but had been tapped to write the article about that contest for FREESTYLIN' magazine. So I knew it was going to be a pretty cool weekend for me. That amazing weekend started when I saw GT pro freestylers Eddie Fiola, Martin Aparijo, and some blond kid in the DFW airport. I'd met Eddie in Whistler, British Columbia the year before, where he and Chris Lashua hung out for a week on a tour break. I knew he didn't remember me, but it gave me, a pretty shy guy by nature, a reason to go say "Hi." Eddie was really cool, remembering the week in Whistler, and introduced me to top flatlander Martin Aparijo, and the new guy, Josh White. Eddie added, "Josh just did his first photo shoot for FREESTYLIN' the other day." I said, "Oh, cool." We talked for about fifteen minutes, until the last possible minute to board our plane, and then took our separate seats.
The next day, I saw just how good of a vert rider Josh was, holding his own (and then some) with all the heavy pros like Fiola, Brian Blyther, Mike Dominguez, and the rest. I wound up hanging out with the Haro team all weekend (since I was traveling on my Pizza Hut salary and had no room or rent-a-car), and spoke with Josh, Eddie, and the others here and there over the course of the weekend. Almost all the pros, and many top ams, were staying at the same Holiday Inn motel, playing pool, and doing flatland in the parking lot all weekend, and everyone was talking about the new GT vert guy, Josh White.
In another bit of coincidence, that photo shoot Josh did with FREESTYLIN' led to a small, and completely amazing, photo on the cover of the August 1986 issue of FREESTYLIN'. In that same issue happened to be an article about zines, where my zine, San Jose Stylin', was listed at the top BMX freestyle zine in the country. And, my article about the Tulsa contest also was published in that same issue. Now I'm definitely biased, but I also think the cover design was the coolest cover FREESTYLIN' ever did, which says a lot. They had many amazing covers. This is it:
In those days, magazines took three months to come out, from writing and photos to finished copies, so this epic issue hit newsstands in late June. A one hand no-footed can-can was simply unheard of then. A seven foot high, super stretched one hand no-footed can-can, on the famous T.O.L. ramp, was simply un-fucking-believable. This cover, all by itself, raised the bar of BMX vert riding, and the article inside raised it even higher. The icing on the cake was Josh's quote, blown up in big letters, "I consider myself a ground rider." With this issue of FREESTYLIN' magazine, Josh White exploded onto the national BMX scene. Meanwhile, deep inside the magazine, I kind of oozed quietly into the background periphery of the national freestyle zine, as a writer/zine guy.
Within days of this magazine hitting the stands, I interviewed for, and was hired at, Wizard Publications. So this issue changed the course of Josh's life, and my own, and shed light on some other up-and-comers in the freestyle world, little Mathew Hoffman got his first editorial photo, Joe Johnson got his first magazine mention, and NorCal bros. Chris and Karl Rothe got a photo. For an obscure part of the country to have a freestyle contest at the time, the 1986 Tulsa AFA contest shined a light on a lot of new blood in the BMX freestyle world.
By the time the magazine hit, Josh was already touring the country for GT Bikes. I moved to Redondo Beach, California, and began a new life of my own, first as a magazine guy for a few months, and then as the guy you yelled at when the ramps moved at AFA contests, and as their newsletter editor. While I never knew Josh well, we knew each other, talked from time to time, mostly at mostly at contests. Josh became legendary as part of the mid-1980's quarterpipe riders, pushing the older skatepark riders in the rapidly progressing vert scene. Josh went on to join the high air posse of Todd Anderson, Dino Deluca, and the other Camarillo riders.
In my life, I spent the last half of 1986 working at Wizard Publications, then nearly all of 1987 working for Bob Morales at the American Freestyle Association down in Huntington Beach. Bob got me into video work, which all happened at Unreel Productions in nearby Costa Mesa. Unreel was the video unit of Vision Skateboards/Vision Street Wear, which were soaring in popularity at the time.
My life turned to one of either taking the bus or riding my freestyle bike the length of Huntington Beach every morning, then cleaning up at work. On the days I rode, my 11 mile ride home was a wandering cruise to a whole series of H.B. street and flatland spots. I spent most of my weekends sessioning under the H.B. Pier with inlander-but-local freestyler Mike Sarrail, and freestyle skaters Pierre Andre', Don Brown, Jeremy Ramey, and the random locals who came by, like Mark Gonzales and Ed Templeton.
On one of those many weekends at the Huntington Beach Pier, in later 1988, I think, Josh White rolled up. We got to talking, and busted some flatland for the beach crowd. Then Josh told me a friend of his said there were some walls right by the beach that would be good to ride on. Wall rides were a brand new thing then, and everyone was looking for good walls to ride. Josh told me where these walls were supposed to be, right on the beach, from Goldenwest south. I rode the bike trail day after day for over a year, right by there, and was always looking for new places to ride. I told Josh would have seen them if they were there. But it sounded like something worth looking for, so he and I headed off to find these mysterious walls.
We rode north from the pier, and where the bike path headed up the hill, kind of across PCH from Taco Bell, (about 11th street), he asked about the lower, dirt path. For some reason, I'd never ridden it. It was dirt, and when I was heading to the pier to flatland all day, I didn't want to get my brakes all dirty, I guess.
So Josh White and me ride up this wide dirt area, below the bike path and above the beach itself. It's actually where the railroad into H.B. was built in the early 1900's, just before the big oil boom of 1920, as I found out later. Much to my surprise, there were all these old, crumbling, slightly under vert, concrete retaining walls, about 11 feet high, with murals on them. Most of them had thick sand in front of them, preventing a ride up to hit them for wall rides. We finally found one that didn't have much loose sand, the wall with the Blues Brother mural, and the Three Stooges painted on it. On the very left corner of the wall, there was a built up mound of dirt, maybe 18 inches high, a lip to get your bike up on the wall. Obviously, someone had ridden it before.
Best of all, the wall was just a bit under vert, maybe 80-85 degrees steep, which made it easy to get much higher up than any normal wall ride. Josh was doing 4 or 5 foot high wall rides right off the bat, and nearly 7 feet up before we left. I wall ride the other way, and found a tiny lip, a few inches high, farther down the wall, and got maybe three feet up the wall. I was stoked. Being able to actually grip on the wall, rather than the wall slides we had been doing, made us feel like a hero on the Blues Brothers Wall.
Then we got into a fakie wall ride session. While I'd done fakies on small walls with launch ramps before, I could never get the back wheel bounce to do a true fakie wall ride and land it. But I could roll up the Blues Brothers Wall, like a ramp fakie, and I was having a blast. Josh was getting a couple feet higher up the wall. Hey, he was Josh White, vert superhero. No surprise there. Right before we gave up on that session, he was doing fakies, pulling off the wall, and tweaking a nearly clicked turndown on the way down, and landing them. I'd never seen anything like that before. While Josh rarely came by the H.B. Pier after that, I started riding those walls on a regular basis. I did have a couple of more sessions with Josh, and others, over the next year or so. So that day, I got to know Josh a bit better, just as a rider. The Blues Brothers Wall, and several others, are in my 1990 video, The Ultimate Weekend (below), from 10:57 to 12:20, and around 13:26.
At that time, I had moved jobs from the AFA to work at Unreel Productions, which was on edge of the Costa Mesa mesa, looking north over the oil fields near what is now Sheep Hills. The Sheep Hills trails we know now didn't exist then, but there were some jumps above Sheep's current location, where the condos above Sheep Hills are now, by the bottom end of 19th street. There was a good sized hip jump, and a roll-in then flyout ditch jump, and also a four foot deep, concrete ditch, with banked walls, at the bottom of the hill. As a freestyler who was never good at jumping doubles, I was all about the ditch jump.
This jump was 5 minute ride from the Unreel office, and I realized I could hit it on my lunch break. This was probably the spring of 1989, I think. I started riding over there and getting a quick, half-hour jumping session in at lunch, then hitting the deli near our office on the way back for a sandwich, and eating in my dub room as I got back to work. Life was good.
One day, I was hitting the ditch jump on my lunch break, and Josh White rolled up. I was trying to learn tailwhip jumps, something I'd been struggling with for two years at that time. Joe Johnson did tailwhips on vert then, and even doubles, and I think Mat Hoffman was doing single tailwhips at that time and learning doubles. But no one had done a tailwhip off a jump yet, even off a flyout jump. I had worked out the basic move, leveling the bike off and getting the back end around, but I couldn't land them. I was always beside the bike, not up over it so I could land it. I'd also been trying bunnyhop tailwhips for a year and a half at that point, which everyone knew was impossible. That was just my stupid idea that would never, EVER happen. That's how different the thinking was at the time. Saying you wanted to land a bunnyhop tailwhip in 1989 would be like telling people you want to land a bunnyhop double backflip today. Never gonna happen. (Watch, someone will do a bunnyhop double back off a drop in or something now, give it a year).
At the ditch jump, Josh said he'd thought about learning tailwhips off jumps, but just never tried it. So we took turns hitting the flyout jump, getting maybe 18 inches off the ground, and trying to land a tailwhip. I got close, but couldn't land it. Josh worked out the basic movement pretty quick, and then was getting about to the same point. Neither of us could land it. I headed back to work, leaving Josh riding alone, and that was the last time I saw him at that ditch jump.
A couple of days later, back out at that jump, I snapped my chain heading into the ditch, went over the bars while just rolling in, and dove, Superman-style, into the sandy dirt. The whole side of my face and body was covered in dirt, those painful, stinging scrapes, and then some blood. I scootered my bike painfully back to Unreel, washed up in the bathroom, and went back to work. All afternoon, one person after another walked into my room and asked, "What the hell happened to you?" I only went for a couple more lunchtime jump sessions after that, and started hitting the jump, and other local spots, after work, on my long, sessioning, ride home.
This is my 1990 self-produced video, The Ultimate Weekend. The footage was shot over the spring, summer, and early fall of 1990. If you go to 23:16, you'll see me do three quick double peg grinds on a ledge with screw-on, knurled pegs, and then it leads into a section at a flyout jump. That jump was called Oceanview, and was an epic spot for a few years, in Huntington Beach. It was located at Oceanview High school, on the corner of Warner and Gothard in H.B., and was a big skate spot, as well, in the 1990's. A big addition was built onto the school years later, and this spot is under roof now.
This video section is from a collection of about 6 or 7 different sessions over a few months. Keith Treanor is the standout rider, in the black T-shirt obviously, and John Povah, Woody Itson, Josh White, and Andy Mulcahy are also in it. Josh has the white T-shirt, gray shorts, and light hair. All the footage with Josh was shot in half an hour, one evening when I ran into him there. It was just us, and one local kid, who wandered off pretty quickly. After shooting him doing a bunch of his standard vert variations, some of which he'd never tried on dirt. Josh and I got talking about that time we were both trying tailwhips the year before, at the ditch jump in Costa Mesa. He told me he'd never tried them again. But Oceanview was the perfect jump to land one.
So... with my two-hour camera battery fading, and dusk approaching, Josh White started trying to land his first tailwhip off a jump. He got the feel back pretty quick, and was coming real close. Remember, NO ONE... EVER, had landed a tailwhip off a jump then, as far as I know. If you go to 25:19 in this video, you see Josh come close to landing one, and then, off balance, come running towards the camera. That was the second to last try Josh took that night. I know this because, on the next try, Josh White landed the first tailwhip off a jump I had ever seen, or heard about. Even today, 29 years later, I believe that was the first tailwhip jump ever landed. And my battery died as his bike left the jump. My camera shut off when bike was mid-air. I missed the shot. I missed the shot of the first tailwhip jump ever landed.
I screamed. That wasn't out of place, because Josh White screamed, too. He was super stoked. He didn't realize we were screaming for different reasons. Josh was about ready to strangle me when he asked to see the footage, and I told him my battery had died while he was mid-air. We watched it back, and I think it clicked off just as his bike was leaving the jump. Darkness set it, both in the Huntington Beach evening, and in our souls, knowing what I'd just missed documenting. Ultimately, we just shook our heads and rode off in our separate directions. Sorry about that one, Josh.
If you go to 35:48 in the video, you'll see Mike "Crazy Red" Carlson do what I believe is the first dirt jumping tailwhip to ever appear in a BMX video. This one happened at Edison Jumps, behind Edison High School, on the other end of Huntington Beach. That's located at 21400 Magnolia in H.B. It's a toe dragger, but it's a tailwhip, and it happened on double jumps, not a flyout jump, about three months after the one I saw Josh do. Josh White is also all over this section, but that was shot on a different day than the session with Crazy Red, Chris Moeller, Dave Clymer and the rest. I never met Crazy Red until that day. By the way, this section is the first time the S&M Bikes/P.O.W. House crew appeared in a video as well.
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