Martin Aparijo now... he just keeps getting smoother

One of the original flatland innovators of the 1980's, long time GT pro, Martin Aparijo, is still riding a lot, and he just keeps getting smoother.  Here are a three of his recent videos, all short sequences, of him in the last month or so, from Martin's YouTube channel.  Above he does a silky smooth backwards wheelie variation.  

Here are some more short clips:

Super controlled forwards peg wheelie

Pinky Squeak to backwards elbow glide

The story of Martin's first backflip

And the link to Martin's YouTube channel main page

Martin Aparijo Old School BMX Pro

If you read have read my blogs on any kind of regular basis, you know my BMX posts are usually my  personal stories, sometimes my own little adventures riding, but often something I witnessed, usually involving a top rider or event.  Basically, I write BMX memoir tales, mostly.  It makes sense to add a little story here.  

Thanks to my zine, and meeting FREESTYLIN' magazine editor, Andy Jenkins, at a contest, I got my first chance to do a freelance article for FREESTYLIN' in the spring of 1986.  Andy asked me to write the article for the Tulsa, Oklahoma AFA Masters contest, which I was going to anyway to compete in.  In the magazine world then, freelance writers would pay our way to an event, write the article afterwards, and then get a check for the work when the magazine issue was published, which was usually about three months later.  I was working at Pizza Hut when I got the gig, making about $450 a month.  I flew solo to Tulsa on a wing and a prayer, with barely enough money to scrape through the weekend.  I didn't didn't have hotel reservations, I didn't even know where the contest was being held.  It was the first time I had ever flown to a contest, and the first time I had ever flown solo anywhere.  In other words, I was an idiot at traveling.  

I headed out of San Jose airport, and like every flight west of the Mississippi seems to do, my my plane flew over the rand Canyon, and then had a layover at Dallas/Fort Worth.  My dad had flown through DFW, and told me to find my next gate while on the first flight, since it could be a long walk, even a run, if I had to go from end to end of the airport.  I got my bearings with the airport map in the online magazine, and made it to the gate of my second flight, and waited there.  I didn't see any other BMX riders, but it was a huge airport, so I didn't really expect to.  

Then, about fifteen minutes before the plane was ready to load, I saw Eddie Fiola, Martin Aparijo, and some blond guy walk up, across the aisle.  I knew Eddie and Martin from all the magazine photos I'd seen of them.  At the time, I was still incredibly shy, and hated to go up and introduce myself to people.  I was like a Rainman level of shy then, or pretty close.  But it was also my first major trip to an AFA contest, and I needed to meet as many top pros and amateurs as I could, to get info for my article.  I got past the shyness, and walked over and introduced myself.  

Martin and Eddie were totally cool, and they introduced me to the other guy, a kid named Josh White.  Josh White had just done the photo shoot and interview for FREESTYLIN' that would blow him up as one of the top new vert riders, but the magazine wouldn't be out for a couple of months.  So he was still unknown to most freestylers.  I hung out and talked to them until the last boarding call, when I was getting really nervous.  But we all walked to the ramp, and made the plane.  That was the day I met Martin Aparijo, late March or early April of 1986.  

I wound up meeting two other up-and-coming vert riders at that contest.  I met an East coast kid named Joe Johnson at the Tulsa airport.  There was another kid, a younger one, who was doing some crazy variations, as well, but I didn't get is name at the contest.  As fate would have it, that kid got his first editorial photo in my first freelance article.  That article, a review of my zine, and most amazing, the Josh White interview, all appeared in the July 1986 issue of FREESTYLIN'.  The kid who got his first photo was none other than Oklahoma local, Mat Hoffman.  

Starting with meeting Martin, Eddie, and Josh, that was the coolest weekend of my life up until that point.  Joe Johnson introduced me to the Haro guys, and I crashed in one of their rooms for the weekend.  I seriously felt like I had won some contest.  The GT guys were at a different motel, but many of the top riders were at the trusty old Holiday Inn, where I stayed.  It was a crazy weekend.

Right about the time that Tulsa article came out, I got flown down to Wizard Publications, to interview for a job there, and getting hired changed the course of my life.  Part of my new job was driving Windy Osborn, the photographer, to photo shoots.  One of the first bike tests we did was for a GT freestyle bike.  We did a photo shoot with Martin Aparijo on a sidewalk in Redondo Beach, doing Miami hop hops.  That was the first time I really talked to Martin at any length.  

Here's Martin praying those mags would hold up, in that FREESTYLIN' photo from 1986.  Windy Osborn photos, borrowed from the web.

Martin's an all around cool guy.  Besides being a pioneering freestyler and a better dirt jumper than most people realized, he's always down to tell you a story or two.  If you're struggling, he's likely to give you a pep talk to get back on track.  When I make it down to H.B. Tuesdays in Huntington Beach, Martin's always there, gliding some new variation of the classic tricks, and telling stories.  

I wanted to do a quick post tonight, and the thought of showing everyone who reads my  blog Martin's YouTube channel seemed like a good idea.  If you haven't already, go check out his channel, as he keeps adding more videos, and keeps getting smoother and smoother it seems.  

Session at Martin Aparijo's ramp in 1990

At 29:08 in this video, you see a couple of guys in front of a garage playing "Dueling Banjos" on a banjo and a guitar.  The guy on the banjo is early skatepark rider, Steve "Bio Air" Bennett, who I'd never met before.  This was around the corner from Martin Aparijo's quarterpipe, which Keith Treanor, John Povah, and I went to for a session, in the late summer of 1990.  This blog post is about that session on Martin's quarterpipe, starting with the "Dueling banjos."

This section, our session at Martin Aparijo's quaterpipe, happened in the late summer or early fall  of 1990.  Keith Treanor, John Povah, and me headed to Martin's house, to join an afternoon session on his quarterpipe.  The riders there that day were Jess Dyrenforth (turquoise shorts, black knee pads), John Povah (no shirt, white cap),    Keith Treanor (white T-shirt, black shin guards), Steve "Bio Air" Bennett (yellow tank top- old ASPA shirt- and neon green bike), Martin Aparijo (white helmet), and Todd Anderson (light blue tank top, black cap).  So there was some serious talent there that afternoon.  This whole session happened because I think a ran into Martin somewhere, told him I'd been shooting footage to make my own video, which was a really weird thing to do then.  Eddie Roman had put out Aggroman a year earlier, and Mark Eaton was making the first Dorkin' in York videos with two VHS machines.  No one took those very serious then.  Just riders goofing around with vieo cameras.  Only big companies like GT, Haro, or BMX Plus, and Vision Street Wear put out "real" BMX videos back then. That was the mindset.

The context for this video was that it was shot and put out in 1990, during a big transition time for BMX freestyle.  At the big bike industry trade show in early 1989, industry people were walking around, all weekend, saying "BMX is dead, mountain bikes are the new thing."  So every major company was getting rid of their BMX and freestyle programs, and putting their effort into the rising trend of mountain bikes, which was really just getting going in the mainstream then.  GT and Haro kept their factory teams, though they paired them down and let some riders go.  So over the course of 1989, most of the sponsorship money in BMX freestyle just disappeared.  So did a huge number of BMX freestyle riders.  From a logical way of thinking, it was time to quit.

It was like, OK we got into this weird little sport in 1984-86, most of us, we saw it grow through the AFA flatland and ramp days.  We had a good time, it was cool, and by 1990 we were in our 20's.  It made sense to give up "that BMX thing," go to college, go get a real job, and move on to the life all the people around us wanted us to live.  But for a few hundred of us, BMX freestyle had become our life.  It was a huge part of who we were.  It was how we coped with all the stupidity in the rest of the world, and the rest of life.  Giving up the thing that made life worth living for us wasn't even a question.  We kept riding, without the money, the sponsorships, the industry jobs.  We kept riding, because that what we did.  That's who we were.

At the same time, Vision Skateboards and Vision Street Wear, which had done something like $60 million in sales in 1988, was collapsing.  That story is a big can of worms, and I was in the middle of it, since I worked at Unreel Productions, Vision's video company.  In January 1990, we had a meeting, and we were told "Vision is shutting down Unreel."  Don Hoffman, who started it, would keep working on a freelance basis, and me and the other lower level employee, were kept, and moved into an office in the main Vision building.  The other 5 or 6 people, they were looking for jobs.

After a month or so, that woman that was kept, got a job in Hollywood, and I was sitting in a big office, with a bunch of video equipment, alone.  I was getting a decent check, but was bored out of my skull every day.  While I was there, other people in Vision were getting laid off nearly every Friday.  Morale was horrible, and the biggest group of really talented people I'd ever seen was falling apart.  Vision just got too big too quick, and the reckoning time was at hand.  At the same time, the whole country was sliding into a recession, which wound up lagging on for about six years.  So pretty much everything was looking pretty bad, on many levels.  All the more reason to go ride a couple of hours every night, just to blow off some steam.

As all that was happening, and I decided I was sick of the goofy Vision videos (in my opinion), with old footage, very little riding progression, guys riding in leathers and helmets on flatland, and all of that.  I wanted to make a video that showed "real riding."  So I took my S-VHS camera every weekend, and usually went somewhere with Mike Sarrail, my flatland riding buddy from the Huntington Beach Pier.  Along the way, I met New Jersey transplant Keith Treanor, a young, hungry, and really good, yet still mostly unknown, rider.  Keith was riding with John Povah most of the time, and they became the core of my video, weekend after weekend.

The whole idea for The Ultimate Weekend was that a group of riders got off work on Friday afternoon, and spent the whole weekend riding all kinds of cool places with all kinds of great riders.  That idea got lost a little, but it's how the video is organized, rather than in sections for each rider, which was just one way to make a video back then.  Like all revolutions, I was just making this shit up as I went.  I was trying to make the video I wanted to watch to get stoked to go ride.  A couple hours away, Eddie Roman was doing the same thing.  Across the country, Mark Eaton and Jeremy Alder were also doing the same thing.  It was time for a change.  A handful of us started making that change.

In that weird, crazy, broke-ass context, riding wasn't about making sponsors happy anymore.  It wasn't about placing well in the next contest.  We just went out day after day to have fun, and to push our limits.  Sure, these days, everyone knows that.  But all during the 1980's, most of us had to tell people around us that we were trying to get sponsored, or working to go pro, or practicing for a contest, to justify why we spent all of our time and money on "little kids' bikes."  By the time 1990 crashed down on us, we were down to the truth, "Fuck it, let's go ride and have fun."  We were getting over the need justify riding to other people.  "Fuck'em, we have more fun than they do, anyhow, let them think what they want."  I doubt the top pros had to deal with people like that, but a lot of the rest of us did.

In that context I ran into Martin Aparijo, or maybe I got a phone call, because he heard I was working on a video.  He said something like, "Hey, I have a quarterpipe, bring the guys over for a session."  So we went to Martin's house one afternoon, and we ran late, I remember that.  But the guys had a great little session right before dusk.  It wasn't that long.  There was no hype.  It was just a bunch of good riders on one of the few ramps that existed then, trying their newest moves.

Here's the crazy part.  I'd never seen anyone do a solid nosepick to fakie on a ramp.  Both Jess and Todd pulled it that day.  I'd never seen anyone do a Smith disaster (front peg, back wheel), Jess did it.  I'd never seen a one footed tailtap, Todd did that.  I'd never seen a barspin abubaca, Todd did that.  I'd never seen an abubaca to nosepick to fakie.  Keith did that.  I'd never seen Keith (or anyone) pull an icepick, and Keith did that.  While freestyle was "dead," it was progressing at light speed.  This little session, a half an hour or so at Martin Aparijo's quarterpipe, turned into one of the most innovative segments in a video full of new tricks and progression.

Then there's Martin Aparijo himself, the flatlander.  By the time of this session, I'd pretty much forgot that I first saw Martin in BMX Plus as a test rider, jumping.  So when he rode up to his ramp and just stomped that front wheel 540 on the bottom of the ramp, I wasn't too surprised.  Then he whipped the back wheel 900 (or so) megaspin, and it got away from him.  That's to be expected, this is Martin the flatland legend.  Todd Anderson, quarterpipe legend, rolls up and does a back wheel 540, to show his ground chops.  But then, out of nowhere, Martin hit the ramp at speed and flew out onto the roof.  I did not expect that.  Then it kicked in, "Oh yeah, Martin was a really good jumper back in the day."  I actually missed the shot the first time he did it, he flew right out of frame, I was expecting him to do a small air.  The second time he did it, he flew out of sight, but I got the shot.
  
At the time this video came out, a whole bunch of riders were pausing and rewinding this little section of the video, because it broke a lot of new ground.  So thanks Martin, for giving me that phone call back then, I'm really glad this short but awesome session made it into that video.

 My drawing of Martin Aparijo, in classic BITD GT pro rider form, still has copies available.  About 20 copies of the run of 50 are still up for grabs.  They're all signed and numbered by me, and Martin has agreed to sign them all as well.  Huge thanks for that Martin.  I'm taking the next batch to HB Tuesday tomorrow to get him to sign them.  If you're interested in one, hit me up on Facebook, or email me at: stevenemig13@gmail.com, and we'll work it out.  They're 11" X 14", all drawn in my #sharpiescribblestyle.

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Martin Aparijo drawing

My third in the series of Old School pro BMX freestyle drawings is this one of Martin Aparijo.  A lot of people liked the "Dizz-pocalypse" drawing of John "Dizz" Hicks, and I sold a few.  Then there was a bigger response to the Dave Voelker foot plant drawing, and I sold about 15.  Talking to Martin a month or so ago, he said I could draw one of him.  So here it is.  My deal with these drawings is to draw something and make copies average people an afford.  Then I ultimately give the original to the rider themselves.  This way I make some money to get my act together again, people who like my art get a cool, affordable piece to hang on the wall, and the riders get a cool original drawing of themselves for decoration or promotion. 

Martin Aparijo is one of the pioneers of a ton of standard flatland tricks, and one of the first pros many of us looked up to, when getting into BMX freestyle in the first wave of popularity in the mid-1980's.  He was a long time GT pro rider, kicked butt in contests, and did hundreds, probably a few thousand, shows over many years.  This drawing is classic Martin Aparijo all they way, full GT leathers, doing a bar endo.

It's drawn in my unique Sharpie scribble style, from a photo.  The whole thing is layers of scribbles, and each color is made up of 3 to 8 colors of scribbles layered over each other.  It's a technique I invented. 

I'm selling 50 copies of this drawing, each full size, 11" X 14," high quality color copies on card stock.  I'm going to sign and number each one, and Martin has agreed to sign them all as well, which is awesome.  You can by one (or more) for $20 each, and that includes shipping (about $8 total usually) in the continental U.S..  Elsewhere, it will be $15 plus shipping costs. 

To order one:

Message me on Facebook (Steve Emig- Huntington Beach), or email me at: stevenemig13@gmail.com  . Payment will be $20 to by Paypal at that same email address.  

15 sold... 35 left (as of 4 pm Pacific, 10/16/2019)

Please send your address in the message, email, or paypal payment.  For foreign orders, email or message me, so I can reserve your place number, and then I'll figure shipping costs and get back to you to arrange payment.

Here are some more photos of Martin signing drawings last night at H.B. Tuesday, and one of Martin and Edgar Plascencia with his drawing.  Thanks again Martin for this opportunity.

 #sharpiescribblestyle

 

Martin Aparijo: The Chairman of Flatland

Martin Aparijo, The Chairman, and one of the two pros (Woody Itson was the other) to focus on flatland as BMX freestyle was surging in its first wave of popularity in the mid-1980's.  Here's Martin in 1986, showing several of the tricks he invented, and the classic style all of us kids around the country looked up to when we first started reading the BMX magazines.

Pure and simple, as "BMX trick riding" turned into the sport of BMX freestyle in 1984-85-86, Martin Aparijo and Woody Itson invented a ton of the foundational flatland tricks all of us guys around the country started learning.  In this 1986 contest run, we see Martin going through the spectrum, Framestands, decades, tailwhips and double tailwhips, surfers, backwards wheelies, Switzerland squeakers, grasshoppers, and the bar ride, which was a brand new trick at this time.  As BMX freestyle grew in its first wave of popularity, Martin Aparijo was a leader in the progression of flatland, and we all started learning some of his tricks.

Freestyle was new to the world then, and we were all learning some of the established tricks, and practicing every day, to begin our own lives in the the world of freestyle.  At a time when nearly every rider competed in flatland, Martin was a pioneer of flatland riding whose influence can not be understated.  Those of you who made it to AFA Masters contests in the mid-80's remember that there were often 300 to 400, sometimes more, flatland riders in a contest.  Those were days when it was normal to have 40 or 50 riders in an amateur flatland class.  Every single one of those riders was doing at least one or two, and probably several, tricks that Martin Aparijo invented.

My new Martin Aparijo drawing in my unique Sharpie scribble style.  It's 11" X 14," and a limited number of copies of this drawing are available, message me on Facebook or email me at stevenemig13@gmail.com, if you're interested in one of the copies still available.  They will all be signed and numbered by me, and signed by Martin as well.

As I was working on a drawing of Martin (above) over the last few days, I tried to remember when I first met him.  There are a handful of people in freestyle who I remember the exact moment I met, because of the weird circumstances, like Andy Jenkins, Spike Jonze, and Mat Hoffman.  Those were weird little incidents.  Many of the other top riders, I saw first saw ride in a contest, then maybe rode with in a jam circle, and later actually talked to them, so the first meeting didn't stick out as much in my mind.  Martin seemed to be one of those.

He was a big influence on my riding from very early on.  As I mentioned in the last BMX post, the first jumping trick I learned was a Hannah, which I saw Martin doing in a bike test in BMX Plus! in early 1983.  I started learning BMX tricks at a time when the only book about freestyle told us, "Put a coaster brake on your race bike, and that's your freestyle bike."  Yeah, that was the thinking in 1982-1983, and into early 1984.  My first BMX bike, a "Kmart special" piece of crap, had a coaster brake on the aluminum mag wheels.  But it had a bad coaster brake.  Sometimes I would pedal half a crank before the pedals would catch, and start turning the wheel.  Other times the pedals would go all the way around once, even twice, before catching.  Because of that, I hated coaster brakes.

At that time, Martin Aparijo was the one top flatlander known for riding a freewheel.  So I decided I wanted to be like Martin, and learn BMX freestyle tricks on a bike with a freewheel.  So Martin seriously influenced my riding long before I met him.  As I started learning tricks, backwards wheelies, sliders, and squeakers were favorites of mine, all of which Martin either invented, or added style to.

As I took things back in time, I finally realized that I did remember exactly when I met Martin Aparijo.  Like many other epic firsts in my BMX freestyle life, it happened on my trip to the Tulsa, Oklahoma AFA Masters contest in April of 1986.  I was going there on my own to compete, but got a surprise call from Andy Jenkins a couple of weeks earlier, who'd been reading the zines I'd sent him, and asked me to cover the contest for FREESTYLIN'.  I flew from San Jose and had a layover in Dallas, changing planes for the flight to Tulsa.  I'd never flown alone before, and I was pretty nervous.  I wasn't nervous about flying itself, but about missing a connection or getting stuck somewhere halfway across the country with no money.  I was really neurotic about stuff like that back then.  I made it to the waiting area for my connecting flight, and sat there alone for a while.  Then, across the aisle-way, three guys walked up, two I recognized, from the magazines.  There was Eddie Fiola, Martin Aparijo, and some blond guy I didn't know.  I got up my nerve and walked over and said, "Hi."  Eddie and Martin were totally cool and friendly, and introduced me to their new teammate, a kid named Josh White.

Josh had just done the epic FREESTYLIN' magazine photo shoot and interview that made him an instant star in the sport, but it hadn't been published yet.  As luck would have it, my article for the contest, a zine article naming my zine as the top in the country, and Josh's epic interview and photo shoot, all came out in the August 1986 issue of FREESTYLIN'.  Josh got a tiny photo on a blank white cover, a brilliant design idea by Andy Jenkins and his sister Janice, the art director.

Martin, Eddie, Josh, and me were all on the same flight into Tulsa, and I spent about 15 or 20 minutes talking to them until we sauntered onto the plane on the final final boarding call.  I didn't talk to Martin much more over the weekend, but I'd made his acquaintance, which I was stoked as hell about.

All through those years, 1984-85-86 and on, Martin Aparijo, in his classic GT factory uniform, was a fixture in the magazines, when that's where all of us riders around the country and the world got all of our info, from the mags.  Whether showing off new tricks, like the cherrypicker, or just shredding and adding cool style to known tricks, Martin was is nearly every magazine somewhere.  His photos were getting the rest of us guys (and a few gals) stoked to keep riding and pushing our skills.  What's really weird, thinking back to my early days riding Blue Valley trailer park outside Boise, none of us ever thought we would get to know the guys riding in the magazines.  My biggest dream in freestyle then was thinking that maybe... somehow... someday... I could hang out at a photo shoot, and just watch it happen.  Since Martin was a test rider or BMX Plus then, he's the guy I imagined being the rider at the photo shoot.  Becoming a pro rider didn't seem possible to a high school junior in Idaho.  But watching John Ker shoot photos of Martin someday, seemed like something that was... kind of... possible.

A couple of years later, a few months after meeting Martin in the airport in Dallas, with Eddie and Josh, I was actually driving the Wizard Publications Astro van to a photo shoot with Martin and Windy Osborn, almost exactly what I had once dreamed.  But better, since the photographer was Windy, not John Ker.  No offense John, but Windy's better looking.  We went to a gray wall we new of, Windy thought Martin's GT uniform would really pop with that wall as the back drop.  As luck would have it, right when we got there, the shadow was perfect, and Windy got really excited.

The whole wall was was in shadow, making it look extra dark, and the shadow line was rightwas in the light.  Martin busted his hop hops on the test bike, Windy did her photo magic, and this is the shot published from that shoot, Martin busting Miami hop hops. 

The cool thing about a magazine photo shoot is that they're usually fun, and there were only the three of us.  There was no crazy pressure like in a contest setting.  Windy would take her time, although the slowly moving shadow play rushed a bit that day.  But when it's a cool rider, like Martin, we're all talking and joking around, and having a good time.  It's a good way to get to know someone a bit better.  By that time I was becoming an industry guy, and getting to know all the pros.  After that shoot, I knew Martin well enough that we'd just start talking at contests or when he came down to the Huntington Pier later on, and we'd session with a bunch of other riders.  

As the years of the 1980's went by, Martin was always a guy bringing out new tricks, and keeping the progression going, and keeping the rest of us riders (who weren't pros) stoked to keep pushing and progressing in our riding.  While riding contests, doing tons of shows for GT, and just sessioning one place or another, Martin's been one of those guys who has inspired us 80's riders, and helped us learn tricks, and always been a cool guy to just talk to or hang out with.  On a more personal level, he's gone out of his way to help me out over the last couple of decades at times, and is doing so again, right now, by letting me sell copies of the drawing I just did of him, to help get my life back on track.  Thanks a ton for that and all the help and fun sessions over many years, Martin.

I'll have another post of some more Martin stories and memories in a day or two.  Martin is in the BMX Hall of Fame, for good reason, here's his acceptance speech.  If you watch it, you'll find out where his nickname, The Chairman, comes from.  If you're interested in a copy of my drawing of Martin, check my Facebook page (Steve Emig-Huntington Beach) or email me at: stevenemig13@gmail.com .

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Martin Aparijo: Dirt Jumper

 Blog Post: Martin Aparijo- dirt jumper

 

The first photos I ever saw of Martin Aparijo, back in 1983.

 

Martin Aparijo, who most of us Old School BMX freestylers remember as a pioneering flatlander, here as a BMX Plus test rider.  This is a Champion 24inch cruiser test, from the February 1983 issue of BMX Plus.  That was the second or third BMX magazine I ever bought, the first being the December 1982 issue of BMX Plus with Stompin' Stu Thomsen on the cover.  This issue has Bob Haro doing a wheelie on the cover, and a Bob Haro how-to inside for the Haro bar-hop, the first trick I ever learned out of a magazine. 

Somebody shared this two photo combo on Facebook a couple of days ago, and it instantly took me back to my earliest days as a BMX rider in 1982 and 1983.  I knew without reading the caption, that the rider was Martin Aparijo.  Yes, Martin is best remembered as the pioneering flatland rider, one of the two riders of the early and mid-1980's that focused on flatland, the other being Woody Itson.  Like Woody, Martin could jump well, too.  In fact, Martin was the first jumper to do a front flip off a jump, also in the early 80's.  You can ask him that story if you meet him sometime.

The trick above is called the Hannah, after motocross legend Bob Hannah.  In this case, obviously, Martin pushed it and popped his visor off with the front tire.  I knew the name Bob Hannah, because it got thrown around at the trailer park.  Motocross showed up on TV maybe a couple of times a year back then, and if people knew one rider, it was Bob "Hurricane" Hannah.

This magazine came out during the cold Idaho winter, while I was living in Blue Valley trailer park. But we didn't have snow all the time, and we rode when the dirt was frozen, we rode on the ice on the pond, and even made jumps out of snow that winter.   

There were Jeep trails heading out in several directions from Blue Valley, and often we'd just go out riding, by ourselves, or with a couple other guys, and just ride the Jeep trails for a mile or two in one direction or another, and then ride back.  It was all BMX to us, jumping, racing each other, trying to do early tricks like bunnyhops or endos, or riding the Jeep trails like a mountain biker would now.

The locals at Blue Valley were the Damon Brothers, Mike, Steve, Brian, Andy, and their step brother Greg.  Mike and Steve were the best riders, but were in high school (like me), and were more into girls and parties, than BMX.  I was more of a dork, so I hung with the younger guys and rode my bike, a Sentinal Exploder GX.  Any collector got one of those?  I doubt it, it was a "Kmart special" bike.  The Damon brothers (except Greg) had all ridden BMX while living in California years before, I think.  So they all had BMX bikes and a bit more skill than the rest of us, who had none.

Andy, the youngest, had a classic Mongoose with Motomags, a 1980 or 81 model, I think.  I jumped it once, off our "big" jump, which was about 2 1/2 feet high... to flat.  I landed back wheel first, and the next thing I knew, both of my heels hit the ground, the handlebars were still in my hands, but the bike was rolling away, 8 feet in front of me.  Like a cartoon, with a look on my face that made everyone laugh, I slid on my heels, and fell right to my butt, handlebars still in my hands.

Like all ghetto BMXers, we had a "you break, you pay" rule, when riding other kid's bikes. All I could think was that I suddenly owed Andy a bunch of money for whatever broke.  It turned out he just hadn't tightened the gooseneck, and the bars and stem slid right out of the head tube when the back wheel hit the ground.  Nothing broke, my ass hurt from the hard landing, and everybody laughed about it for a while.

Brian and Andy were the main Damons riding every day.  The there were Scott and Rocky, from the other side of the pond (in the trailer park, not England), and Buzzard, Me, and occasionally Shane from our side.  Yes, we had a friend named Buzzard.  He had a real name, but I have no idea what it was.  He got made fun of for a buzz haircut a couple of years before, and got nicknamed "Buzz."  then someone mentioned that, with his hair short, he looked a lot like a buzzard (turkey vulture), and he did.  From then on, he was Buzzard.

Our trails were about 40 yards long, a dirt area with one foot high berms on each end.  A motorcycle rider, a couple of years earlier, had roosted the berms, and rode them for a while, and we kept them shaped.  On one side there was an 18 inch high jump to flat, which I jumped 18' 2" off of once, when it had just rained and the dirt was hard and fast.  A little past that were our doubles, six inches high and three feet apart.  When we all improved a bit, we added a third jump, making them a six foot long set of triples.  Then we'd hit the left hand berm at the bottom (it sloped a tiny bit), and head back up to a one foot high jump to flat.  That was our "style" jump.  It was over that little jump that I spent a couple of days learning to pull the bike vertical and do a Hannah, inspired by that photos of Martin Aparijo above.  The was the first jump variation I ever learned, and it's all thanks to Martin on that Champion 24" cruiser bike test, in the photos above. 

In the middle of our jumping area was our "big jump."  It ranged from 2 feet to 3 feet high, depending on how thrashed it was.  We rebuilt it time after time.  Like the others, it was a jump to flat.  that's the jump I hit on Andy's bike, where the bars came out.

So thanks whoever shared those pics of Martin on Facebook, those took me back to the time I was just getting really stoked on BMX.  There wasn't much else to do in the trailer park.  There were three cute girls and one ugly one.  One cute girl was 16, my age, and had an older boyfriend.  No play there.  Of the other two cute ones, one had the same boyfriend the whole time, and one was prude/shy, and didn't make out with anybody.  So all of us horny, frustrated, young guys rode our BMX bikes all the time, and took turns making out with the ugly girl.  Hey, it was a trailer park.

When I started getting more into freestyle in 1983, and into 1984, most freestylers rode coaster brakes.  I always hated coaster brakes, since my first crappy BMX bike had one that never worked right.  So I decided to freestyle on a freewheel, which was unusual at the time.  Martin Aparijo rode a freewheel, and so I figured I could learn tricks on a freewheel bike, too.  If other riders asked why I didn't ride a coaster brake, I's say, "Martin rides a freewheel, and look at all the tricks he's invented." 

When I originally wrote this blog post, in the fall of 2019, I was working on one of my drawings of Martin Aparijo to sell.  Homeless and struggling to get my act back together at the time, Martin helped me out by letting my draw a picture of him, and sell them.  I first met Martin on a FREESTYLIN' magazine photo shoot in 1986.  He's a first class guy, and helps a lot of people out behind the scenes, but he'd never tell you that.  We've talked a lot over the years, and he's given me advice many times. 

  Here's the 11" X 14" drawing I did of Martin, my take on a classic photo from his GT days in the 1980's, done in my Sharpie Scribble Style. 

To insure the drawings actually sold, Martin offered to sign each one, and it this was the best selling drawing of the six Old School BMX Freestyle drawings I've done.  This is Martin with one of the drawings, right after he signed it.  Most of them went to diehard fans of Martin, around the world, including Europe, Australia, South America, and even one to Taiwan.  Martin Aparijo is global, these days.  Thanks again Martin, that was a huge help, at the time. 

HB Tuesday 9/3/2019

 It was pretty quiet this past Tuesday, for the HB Tuesday, since it was the day after Labor Day.  Here are my pics.  As always, it was fun hanging with the Old School BMX freestylers, talking some smack, and jokin' around.  Above, Martin Aparijo with a circular backwards wheelie, with the H.B. Pier in the background.

 Still forget this guy's name, sorry man.  But he's all about the fire hydrant variations.  Good thing, he was on fire.

 The Cowboy, Chuck Johnson, with his home made high tech freecoaster/direct drive combo back hub.  He's actually pedaling from left to right.  Really. 

Huntington Beach at dusk from south of the pier.  It's great to be able to see this view in person once again, after only seeing this on Facebook for ten years... 

Next Tuesday is the anniversary of Martin and Eddie's H.B. Tuesdays, big party farther down the beach.  Check Martin's Facebook page for details...

The Story of My Keychain: part 2

Blog post: The story of my key chain: part 2- "My friends have a van"

Joe Johnson, while riding for GT, Candybar air at height, Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, 1989.  Still from video I shot.

 
I got a call one day, about a month after the spring 1986 AFA Masters contest at the Cal State Dominguez Velodrome.  I was upstairs in my room, I still lived with my parents in San Jose then, but we had moved to a two story house, about a half mile from the first apartment.  I was 19, and still working nights at Pizza Hut.  I usually got off work between 11:00 pm to midnight, and often I'd ride my bike home.   When I got home, I'd work on my zine at night, or practice balance tricks in my bedroom, until about 3:00 am.  I usually woke up about 10:30 am ate some breakfast, ran some errands with my mom, and then went out riding solo in the afternoons.

On the day in March 1986, my mom called me from downstairs, and I picked up the upstairs phone, because that's how we did it back then, before cell phones.  Much to my surprise, it was Andy Jenkins, the editor of FREESTYLIN' magazine.  He said, "Hi," and asked me if I was planning on going to the upcoming AFA Masters contest in Tulsa, Oklahoma.  I'd saved up my Pizza Hut money, and was planning to go to compete in flatland, and cover it for my zine.  Andy asked, "Do you want to write the article about the contest for FREESTYLIN?"  I was floored.

When I started doing my zine, there was an actual printed zine, a newsprint mini-magazine, published by this kid named Bill Batchelor in SoCal.  He was 13 or 14, and put out this really professional looking zine called Shreddin'.  That was about 20 large size pages.  I thought that maybe... someday, that kid with amazing publishing skills, might ask me to write a little piece for him.  That was as big as my ambitions would allow me to dream as a zine publisher.  Honestly, it never occurred to me that writing for a magazine was a possibility.  So when Andy Jenkins of FREESTYLIN' asked me to write an article for the magazine, a magazine I literally read every word of each month, including the ad copy, I had no context for it.  Writing for FREESTYLIN' magazine wasn't a dream, because I never thought it was even possible.  All I really remember was that I hung up the phone, and ran downstairs, I jumped down the stairs to the landing, halfway down, and the jumped down the rest.  I couldn't believe it.  But the freelance job was mine, and I was determined to do a good job.  I think I hopped on my bike and just rode around for an hour, trying to believe it.

So I flew solo for the first time about three weeks later.  I had a big box for my bike, but it was only about half the size of a typical bike box.  Tall and skinny, like a standard bike box, but only half as long.  If you looked at it, there didn't seem to be any way a bike could fit in it.  Before traveling, I asked Skyway pros Robert Peterson and Maurice Meyer, for tips on traveling cheap, and traveling with a bike.  I'd never flown with a bike, and I was operating on a Pizza Hut income, which I think was about $3.50 an hour then. So I needed to cut some corners.

Bert told me that I would get charged $30 or something, if I said I had a bike in the box.  So his tip was to tell the airlines my box had "camping  equipment" in it.  There was no fee for that.  When I went looking for a bike box, I got this half-sized one, with no writing on the outside.  Everyone thought of bikes as "ten speeds," the common name for road bikes then, since 20 inch bikes were "kid's bikes."  So my box didn't look like anything an adult-sized bike would fit in.

I took my handlebars off the of stem, took my wheels off, and pulled the seat and seat post out, and packed everything but my wheels in the box, packed my tools in it, and stuffed paper in it so it wouldn't rattle very much.  Then I used a big old suitcase, the old school style made of thick plastic, with a single handle, and no wheels.  I put my wheels in the suitcase, and packed clothes and stuff around them.  That suitcase and odd sized box saved me from paying the airlines bike fee for the trip, and several trips after that.  I used that same box for well over a year, it worked so well.

Obviously, I wasn't a seasoned traveler.  I was focused on trying to write a decent article that would actually be printed in a real magazine.  I thought a lot about who to talk to at the contest, what questions to ask, and all of that.  I didn't think much about the trip itself.  So I flew by myself from San Jose to a layover in Dallas/Fort Worth.  My dad flew occasionally for business, and warned me about how big DFW airport was, and to not waste time finding the next terminal.  He said that if you landed on one end, and flew out of the other, it could take half an hour figure out where your gate was, and to walk the distance.

I landed in DFW, no carry on, because I didn't think of one, everything was in the box and the suitcase, packed in the cargo.  I had my ticket, and found the gate I needed to get to, and hurried to it, a 15 minute walk or so.  I was nervous about everything back then, being the uptight, anal retentive dork that was, except about the things I should have been nervous about.  I didn't know the name of the venue where the contest was being held.  I wasn't old enough to rent a car, and couldn't afford one, anyhow.  I didn't know how far it was from the airport to the venue.  I didn't have hotel reservations.  I just figured there would be all kinds of guys with bike boxes at the airport, and I'd hitch a ride with one of those guys or groups, and find a hotel floor in someone's room to crash on. In other words, I was a typical low budget freestyler.  From the previous couple of contests, I knew anyone with a room usually let a few other guys crash on their floor to save money.

As I sat during my layover, about ten minutes before the flight was supposed to board, I saw a couple of familiar faces walk up and stand across the big airport walkway.  I recognized GT pro freestylers Eddie Fiola and Martin Aparijo.  Eddie was best known as the original King of the Skateparks, the biggest name in the sport at the time, judging by magazine coverage.  Martin was one of the two best flatland pros then, along with Woody Itson.  There was a blond guy, about my age, that I didn't recognize, with them.  I took a deep breath, and got my courage up.  I was deathly shy in those days, and introducing myself to anyone was hard for me.  Introducing myself to two of the top pros I'd been reading about in the magazines for a couple of years, was super scary.  But I walked over and did it.

Eddie and Martin were totally cool, and I told them I was hired by FREESTYLIN' to write an article for the contest.  They said, "Cool," or something like that, and introduced me to the blond guy with them.  "This is Josh White, " they said, "he's amazing on ramps.  He just did a big photo shoot for FREESTYLIN'."  That photo shoot not only change Josh's life, it changed vert riding.  Josh took high air variations, and extension to a new level.  But only Eddie and Martin and a couple others knew just how good Josh was then.  We talked for the next ten minutes, up until the final final boarding call.  I was totally nervous about missing the plane, but they were casual, so I hung out until we all walked over, and were the last ones to board the plane.

We sat quite a ways apart, and I didn't see them again until the Tulsa airport, claiming my luggage.  I asked if they could give me a ride to the venue, but Eddie and Martin said they had a mid-sized rental car, and with them and the three bike boxes, the car was filled up.  I said, "Cool, see you guys tomorrow."  I got one of those airport luggage carts, and waited for the next group of guys with bike boxes to show up, so I could asked them for a ride.  I waited... and waited, for about an hour, and I was getting really nervous by that time.  I realized that there were not hundreds of guys flying in for the contest, and that's when it finally occurred to me that I didn't even know where the contest was. 

Finally I saw a quite normal looking guy with dark hair, maybe a year or two younger than me, get a bike box from the conveyor belt.  I went over and introduced myself, and he said his name was Joe.  I asked if he was going to the contest.  He said he was, and I asked if I could catch a ride to the venue.  Joe said, "My friends are picking me up, they have a van, and they can probably give you a ride."  So Joe got a luggage cart, and we wheeled our stuff out through the airport, out the door, to the pick up area.

He said we had about an hour until they were supposed to show up.  Joe seemed pretty quiet, too, so the conversation was a bit slow at first.  Then we started goofing around, and doing tricks on our luggage cars, like infinity rolls.  The conversation flowed a bit smoother then, and Joe said he was from Massachusetts, and rode for Haro.  I figured he meant he had a co-sponsorship from Haro, and got a free bike and some stickers, and maybe a uniform to wear at local contests.  I'd never heard of Joe in the magazines, or from the zine publishers I traded with, so how good could he actually be? 

After over an hour of hanging out, the Haro factory team tour van pulled up.  My jaw dropped.  Legendary Haro pro Ron Wilkerson hopped out of the driver's seat, and shouted across the front of the van, "Hey Joe, what's up!"  I soon learned that the mild mannered Joe Johnson from the East Coast was a brand new, full factory Haro rider.  Like Josh White, he'd just been picked up, and no magazine photos of him had come out yet.  Joe asked if they could give me a ride, when the side door  of the van opened, and told them I was writing the contest article for FREESTYLIN'.  I saw about 7 or 8 people already in the van.

Ron said, "Sure, jam the bike boxes wherever you can.  There were 6 or 7 bikes in the very back, we jammed the bike boxes down one side above them, and I wound up sitting on top of the bike frames, my legs hanging over the mass of handlebars, crammed into the Haro tour van, with Ron Wilkerson, team manager Billy Hop (sitting shotgun), Brian Blyther, Mike Dominguez, assistant team manager Jon Peterson, Joe, and about three other guys.  The van smelled like a locker room, and nobody cared.  Ron jumped back in the driver's seat, and took off towards the hotel at speed.

At that point, I was 8 months out from being a dorky freestyle kid in Idaho, who only saw pro freestylers in the magazines.  Yeah, I had become friends with the Curb Dogs and Skyway team riders in the months since Boise, but the Haro and GT freestyle teams were the top pros of the sport then, and I'd never met any of them.  Somehow, on my first solo trip, I'd met most of those guys, before even getting to the hotel or the contest site.  On the rough ride to the hotel, Jon Peterson started talking to me, asking where I came from, and said he'd take me around to meet everyone I needed to, and help me however he could.  It didn't feel like I was a young guy with a cool side gig.  It suddenly felt like I had won a BMX freestyle lottery trip or something.  I had no idea how much fun that trip was going to wind up being, as I rode in the Haro team van to the Holiday Inn where most of the riders were staying.

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Crazy California