Gallery 5043, the unused door of an abandoned storefront in North Hollywood, where I used to randomly put up my artwork for anyone passing by to check out (and steal), back in 2020-2022. The place finally got rented out, and it's a weed shop now.
The 43 thing in BMX started with the Curb Dogs in San Francisco in 1986. The number 43 just started popping up all kinds of places for them. I heard about it when the NorCal posse came down to Wizard Publications, and Karl Rothe asked me how my new job at the magazine was going. I said, "I just transcribed the Robert Peterson interview with Windy, it was like 43 pages long." He freaked, and they told me about the 43 thing. That's how I first heard about it. It kept growing in BMX, behind the scenes. Over many years, it became the "lucky number of BMX," or whatever you want to call it.
So today is April 3rd, and 4/3/2024. 43 Day. BMX day. Go ride.
Here's my 43 Pinterest board, in case you need to find the just right 43 to use today.
I've been doing a lot of deeper writing on a platform called Substack, check it out:
I don't drink, so I pretty much party like the Minions when I hit a milestone.
If you've been into BMX sometimesince 1986, you know 43 is to BMX what "420" is to weed/marijuana/cannabis culture. Check the last post. So I'm totally stoked to hit 143,000 views on a personal blog. Thank you everyone who's read a post, or a bunch of them, over the nearly 7 years of this blog, and my other blogs before this one. I keep trying to write reasonably interesting stuff, and just keep plugging along. Thanks for checking my work out.
I've now written well over 2,500 total blog posts, and pulled in over 450,000 total page views since 2008. I don't have ads on my blogs, I do them because I love writing and have a bunch of ideas at any given time. Every post gets a few views, some really resonate, and get a bunch.
Check out my Patreon page, you can support my creative work for as little as $3.43 a month. There's a few posts open to check out, and other content, including two e-zines you can download, if you sign up and support me. Thanks again! Let me know any thoughts and ideas you have, good or bad, on Facebook or Twitter (@steveemig43). Onward!
I don't know who Dick Cheeseburger is, but a 43 foot jump is a 43 foot jump. So how did the number 43 wind up tied to BMX? Here's what I know.
43 in an address in Hollywood. #steveemigphotos
The whole 43 thing began with NorCal skaters and BMXers in the late summer of 1986. At that time, The Curb Dogs, led by Dave Vanderspek, was a San Francisco bike/skate team that was as famous in the BMX world as the Haro, GT, and Skyway factory teams. Skyway was the main NorCal based freestyle team. Robert Peterson, Hugo Gonzalez, and Oleg Konings were on Skyway in 1986, along with San Diego rider Eddie Roman. Maurice Meyer was both a Curb Dog, and a Skyway factory team member at the time The number 43 became an inside joke among the Curb Dogs in 1986, and it began growing from there.
In the summer of 1986, Maurice Meyer was profiled for a local TV show, called Pacific Currents. The segment focused on Maurice, a solid pro rider who never got enough coverage back then. In the Golden Gate Park footage in that clip, Karl Rothe, Chris Rothe, Mark McKee, Darcy Langlois, Tim Treacy, and myself (chasing bike at 5:07), are in there as well. This piece was shot in June or July of 1986, and the 43 thing had not happened yet. Shortly after this piece was shot, at the end of July in 1986, I moved to Southern California, when I landed a job at BMX Action and FREESTYLIN' magazines.
I asked Maurice Meyer to check out this post, and he retold me the origin story. There was a San Francisco skater named Rob, and his dad came home from the corner store and said, with a thick Persian accent, "How come every thing I buy there ends up in 43 cents?" It was funny the way he said it, and it stuck in Rob's head. He started noticing the number 43 around, as well, and shared the story with skater friends, the Curb Dogs, and other locals. So the whole 43 thing began as a weird inside joke in 1986, in the S.F. skate/BMX freestyle scene. Maurice shared an article in a Scandinavian magazine, that recounts the original story.
One weird little inside joke turned into a worldwide thing in the BMX freestyle and skateboard subcultures. #steveemigphotos
A couple of months later, in September or October '86, the NorCal crew came to SoCal, and stopped by Wizard Publications, where I worked. Out in the parking lot, after work, the Wizard crew talked with the NorCal posse, about 15 or so riders. Karl Rothe asked me how my new job as a magazine guy, was going. I told him that I had just transcribed a super long interview with Skyway pro, and NorCal local, Robert Peterson, "It was like 43 pages when I typed it all up." Karl, said, "Whoa, 43!" I had no idea what he was talking about.
The 43 origin story, from a Scandinavian magazine
Karl dragged me over to the rest of the guys, and had me tell them that Bert's interview was about 43 pages long when transcribed. I asked what the big deal about 43 was, and they said that the number had been popping up all over for them, so it was like this inside joke among 20 or 30 NorCal BMXers and skaters at that point. That's how I know the 43 thing happened sometime between late July and September 1986. It wasn't a thing when I last rode with them at Golden Gate Park in July, and it had become an inside joke by early fall. In the course of riding and hanging out, the word of the 43 thing slowly spread, like it did to me and the Wizard staff, that night in the magazine's parking lot.
As time passed in the late 80's, the affinity for the number 43 spread from the Curb Dogs to the Skyway team (including Eddie Roman and Mat Hoffman), and to other freestylers. In 1990, I put a big 43 on the back of my video box for The Ultimate Weekend. It said, "43 reasons to buy or rent this video," and listed 43 names of the riders in it, and big tricks in the video. While my video wasn't a BMX blockbuster by any means, pretty much all the serious riders of the day saw it at some point. There were very few videos out then. By then, seeing the number 43 randomly was seen as a bit of good luck by a lot of freestylers.
Tom Green skates, and he's knows what's up.
I think what really put the number 43 in more people's heads was Eddie Roman's 1991 video Headfirst, starring Mat Hoffman. At 20:38 in the video, Eddie asks Mat how much money he makes a week, Mat says, "A million, billion, quadrillion dollars... and 43. Aaaagh 43!" That little clip, in the single most influential BMX video of all time, probably did more to promote the number 43 in BMX freestyle than anything else. Suddenly 43 was pretty much every rider's lucky number. And the 43 thing just kept on growing.
The 43 story in BMX is a lot like the 420 story in marijuana/cannabis/weed culture. Something that started as a weird, little inside joke among a few friends, slowly grew into this worldwide thing in the subculture. I love the idea of that, how a little inside joke can organically grow, spread widely, and become a part of the subculture. So that's my take, with thanks to Maurice Meyer, on how the number 43 became the official lucky number of BMX freestylers worldwide.
A few people, including Drob, reminded me that John Malkovich lives in apartment number 43, in the movie, Being John Malkovich. That movie, of course, was directed by Spike Jonze, who got hired at Wizard Publications after I got laid off for not being cool enough. Spike knew the 43 thing well from his years as a rider and BMX photographer. I couldn't find a shot of the actual door in that movie, though. Just watch the movie again.
Mat Hoffman lands his first 900 at 14:43 in this video. This is footage I shot at the 2-Hip King of Vert in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada in the Spring of 1989. I shot the raw footage, and Eddie Roman edited it, and did the funny commentary, with some friends, for the 2-Hip video, Ride Like a Man.
43 decimal stuff- If you like the number 43, are a math geek, and speak Hindi, this might make sense to you.
The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy (movie) says the meaning of life is 42. But it began as a comedy radio broadcast in 1978. BMX freestyle had not officially become a thing then. It was in its embryonic stage. So the guy who wrote it couldn't possibly have known that the real meaning of life is 43, unless he had been hanging out with Bob Haro, which he wasn't.
For me, personally, I had an affinity for the number 43 long before it became a thing in BMX. I was a 5-year-old living in some low income duplexes in about 1971. We lived in Jackson Township, just outside of Massillon, Ohio. One day a neighbor lady told us the number 13 was an "unlucky number." Being little kids, we asked her, "Why?" Like most adults, when asked "why?" she didn't have a good answer. So us little kids spent some time talking about lucky and unlucky numbers. Being a contrarian, even at age 5, I decided that 13 would bemy lucky number.
Our little crew of 5 and 6-year-olds decided to pick some other lucky numbers. 43 was our first pick, mostly because that was the sketchy UHF TV channel in our area that played scary monster movies, old time B movies. "43 just sounds like a cool number," we thought. We also picked 27, and 57. So 13, 43, 27, and 57 seemed like the best "lucky numbers" to us kindergartners in Ohio back then. For my childhood years, 43 was my back-up lucky number, behind 13. That day we even noticed that odd numbers just seemed cooler than even numbers, for some reason, a pretty cool insight for kids that young.
My family moved a lot when my sister and I were growing up. We bounced around several houses in Ohio until I was 14, then lived in New Mexico for a year, and then moved to Boise, Idaho in 1981. I got into BMX while living in a trailer park, outside of Boise, in 1982. There was a 43 thing happening there that I didn't realize until a few years ago.
What does Boise, Idaho have to do with the number 43? By some weird coincidence, Boise sits just above 43 degrees of northern latitude. Without realizing it until a couple of years ago, I got into BMX while living at 43 degrees of latitude. That's also why there is now a Hotel 43 in Boise. That's just another weird little 43 thing in my personal life. Us Boise locals, and a bunch of riders across the top of the U.S., from New Hampshire to Oregon, started riding at, or around, 43 degrees of northern latitude. Some of you reading this may be in that group.
Then, decades later, while living with my mom back in 2017, I was talking on the phone with someone about the 43 thing. My mom overheard me, and asked what the deal was with the number 43. So I explained it to her. "That's funny," she said, "when I worked at the phone company (early 1960's), my operator number was 43." What can I say, it's everywhere...
So that's what I know about the number 43, and how it became associated with BMX freestyle.
The Hollywood American Legion sign, post #43. #steveemigphotos
1/43 scale model at a hobby shop in Studio City, California, that has since closed down. #steveemigphotos
This post had some serious issues originally, and I rewrote it on March 5, 2026.
I do most of my writing on a platform called Substack now, designed specifically for writers. Check it out.
Blog post: What Dave Vanderspek brought to the freestyle party
This is photo of Dave Vanderspek was taken by 13-year-old Bill Batchelor, for his really amazing Shreddin' zine, from July of 1985. This was a couple years before wall rides, three years before the first street peg grind photo in a magazine, and five years before the first handrail grinds on street. Doing a bar endo in a really gnarly urban place was one of Vander's early street moves, setting the stage for the future of street riding to come.
I started hearing about Dave Vanderspek in BMX Plus in 1983, when I was getting serious about BMX racing in Idaho, and only BMX Plus was available in 7-11's and grocery stores in Boise. I didn't run into BMX Action until I started buying parts at Bob's Bikes (and Lawnmower Repair), my local bike shop in Boise. The first photo I can remember of Dave was at a skatepark contest at Pipeline Skatepark, when he was blasting huge 7 and 8 foot high jumps out of the back corner of the square side of the Combi Pool. The pool was 13 feet deep with five feet of vert and huge coping, and Dave was BLASTING out of that pool. It seemed insane. Later, when I got to ride that pool a little, I couldn't even get my front tire up to the tile in that corner, though I could carve right up to the coping in the round bowl. Dave's massive flyouts 3 or 4 years earlier seemed even more amazing. And completely impossible.
While obviously an amazingly talented rider, Dave didn't spend his riding career on one factory team. He rode a Schwinn in the first issue of FREESTYLIN' magazine. He later rode for the Skyway factory team, and later for Kuwahara, and Boss. But he spent most of his time promoting the Curb Dogs, the local, San Francisco bike/skate team he helped found. With guys like Maurice Meyer, skater Tommy Guerrero, and several others, The Curb Dogs was the best known independent team in the world, and always landed in the top 5 teams when polls were taken, always beating some of the factory teams of the day. Since I just did the drawing below as a tribute to Vander, I'm going to be writing some posts about my memories of riding, hanging out, and talking with him. But in this post, I want to list five big things Dave Vanderspek brought to BMX freestyle in the 1980's.
Street riding- Dave was one of the earliest pioneers of BMX street riding. Yes, I know, every early rider rode on "the streets." Bob Haro and R.L. Osborn used to practice kickturns at the Larry's Donuts bank in Redondo Beach, and there's a classic photo of Bob Haro doing an edged kickturn on the 6th and Commonwealth banks, in downtown L.A.. Yes, everyone rode on the streets on their bikes, and hit little curb jumps. But not everyone had an urban terrain like San Francisco. Dave Vanderspek was one of the first riders to see the paved world as a big skatepark/bike park, ready to be explored and sessioned, just for the fun and thrill of riding it. Dave and the Curb Dogs were one of the big early forces in pushing the use of urban terrain in all news ways and figuring out how it could be used to have fun on a bike.
Punk Rock- As a BMXer, skater, and a punker, Dave brought the "fuck it" punk rock attitude into BMX in a way no one else did in the early 1980's. With the Curb Dogs bike/skate demo team, he also took the "Do It Yourself/DIY" attitude of punk, and brought it into BMX freestyle, where we were listening to all kinds of music, and wearing motorcycle-style leathers and helmets to compete in flatland. Vander's punk rock vibe, and attitude, led the way in BMX freestylers learning to be ourselves, wear more functional clothing, and working hard to build and promote our own teams, invent new tricks, and figuring out a way to make things we wanted to see happen in the world.
The Curb Dogs- In the early days of BMX freestyle spreading across the U.S. and the world, there was no team like the Curb Dogs. In the annual NORA cup awards, the Curb Dogs were always in the top 5 most popular freestyle teams, ranking among all the factory teams of the day. They always beat 3 or 4 factory teams in the magazine reader polls. That happened because Dave, while coming across as a Jeff Spiccoli-like goofball sometimes, worked his ass off to be weird, have fun, and promote the hell out of the Curb Dogs, and BMX freestyle itself.
The first BMX halfpipe contest- While Ron Wilkerson took vert to a new level by putting on the 2-Hip King of Vert contests from 1987 on, the very first BMX halfpipe contest was promoted by Dave Vanderspek at skater Joe Lopes' ramp, in San Francisco.
The first BMX street contest- If you ask an old school rider when the first BMX street contest was, they'll most likely say it was the 2-Hip Meet the Street contest in Santee, California, in the spring of 1988. Heck for years, I thought that was the first street contest, because that was the first I heard of and went to. But once again, Dave Vanderspek led the way, holding a small, NorCal street contest months before Santee happened. It was a regional thing, none of the magazines showed up to cover it. From what I heard, that wasn't the point, Dave just decided someone needed to throw a BMX street contest, so he put one on, before anyone else.
Dave Vanderspek, airing out of the Pipe Bowl at Pipeline Skatepark, 1983 or 1984. Dave didn't have a skatepark to practice at in NorCal, and he rode a coaster brake in the pools. That pool is 12 feet deep with four feet of vert. Few, if any, skateparks today are as hard to air out of as the Pipe Bowl was.
How good of a rider was Dave Vanderspek? While Dave Vanderspek was known for doing easy tricks like track stands and and harder tricks like bar endos, he had a full bag of flatland tricks, many of them, like the bar endo, and the Vander Roll, were tricks he invented. Some were not super hard, and more for show, like the Vander Roll, but some tricks were really hard. I also saw Dave doing blunts on parking blocks on top of banks, a predecessor to the street abubaca, a year before the abubaca was invented.
One day at a contest at the velodrome, I was talking to Dave, and he looked over at a hubba, an angled concrete wall on the side of a small set of stairs. He asked, "You think I can pedal stall that?" Since I'd never seen a pedal stall, I said, "Huh?" Dave pedaled slowly towards it, did a huge bunnyhop, and landed on his pedal, on the angled wall, 4 1/2 feet off the ground. First try. He literally did a 3 1/2 foot high bunnyhop, turned 90 degrees, and landed on his pedal, at a time when street peg stalls didn't exist, and peg grinds on ledges were a year or two away from being invented. Then he hopped down and kinda of laughed. I'd never seen anything like that, and Vander blew my fucking mind. Again.
On one or more occasions, Dave put a freewheel on his freestyle bike, and raced B Pro, and was in the mix with the other pro racers of the day. He didn't have a skatepark to practice in, but competed in skatepark contests. He was so far ahead of the game in early street riding, that we usually didn't understand how hard and gnarly his tricks really were. Then there's that insanely high bunnyhop tabletop photo from 1983 (in a previous section). That photo is now 37 years old, and I've never seen anyone equal it in height and style, to this day. Dave Vanderspek wasn't just a funny and charismatic goofball, and a good promoter, he was seriously one of the best all around riders in BMX freestyle in the early and mid 1980's, and a pioneer in many different ways.
While he died tragically in 1988, Dave Vanderspek was a huge influence on the world of BMX freestyle, and many of the top riders of the era. That's why I chose to draw a picture of him with my Sharpies, the 4th drawing in my series of Old School BMX freestyle pros. Here's the picture I drew. It's 11" X 14", drawn in my signature Sharpie scribble style, and some signed (by me) and numbered copies are still available. Contact me at: stevenemig13@gmail.com for info.
Straight outta the Midwest, John Wold and Scotty Zabielski take over the Old Fat Guy video series and fly out to the San Francisco Bay Area to meet a couple of legends and the land where the whole 43 thing was born. They skipped episode 43 and no one noticed, then came back and took it out to the Bay Area for issue #43.
So how did the 43 thing start? One of the skaters in the Curb Dogs had a dad who came home from the local store one day, pulled the changed out of his pocket, counted it, and asked, "How come every time I come home from the store, I always have 43 cents in my pocket?" His son, the skater, told this funny story to the Curb Dogs, and suddenly they started seeing the number 43 pop up over and over.
I know this, because I lived in NorCal for a year in 1985-86, and left in August of '86 to go work at FREESTYLIN' and BMX Action magazines. The little incident above happened a month of so later. A couple of months after that, the Curb Dogs and the rest of the NorCal hardcore riders came down to Southern California for a road trip. They came to Wizard Publications, and Windy the photographer went out and shot the epic photo of Dave Vanderspek doing the back wheel lipslide by the reflection pool. They came back to the warehouse, and I got off work, along with Andy Jenkins, Lew, and Gork. We were all in the parking lot hanging and bullshitting. Karl Rothe asked me what I'd been up to working there. I told Karl I had just spent a day and a half transcribing the 90 minute interview Windy did with Robert Peterson. "It was so freakin' long," I told Karl, "I transcribed like 43 pages." Karl freaked out, and had me tell the other guys. And me saying Bert's interview filled 43 pages became one of the early "43 incidents" where that number popped up randomly. The 43 thing grew among the NorCal guys, and strengthened with each 43 randomly run into. Eventually the whole "Lucky 43" idea seeped into the larger BMX freestyle collective mind, and became our lucky number as a sport.
This video is a cool little ride down memory lane. Maurice Meyer, who I always thought of as the assistant manager of NorCal is in this video, and so is Ron Wilkerson, pro rider, trick innovator, and contest promoter.
This video is a good watch for the old guys out there, fat or not, riding a lot, or not. Check it out. Oh, and this one's for Old School Joe:
Want some more old school BMX freestyle goodness? Specifically, Freestyle BMX Tales zines. You can order my pack with two, big, fat, 48 page zines about The Spot in Redondo Beach. I'm behind on sending these out, so it may be 2 to 3 weeks until I ship them. But if that's cool with you, send $15 paypal to stevenemig13@gmail.com , (steven not steve), and send your address to ship them to. Shipping included in the continental U.S. Other places, email for info. That's it. Go ride.
43.
I've got a new blog going, it's about building and running an art or creative business, or any small business. You can check it out here: WPOS Kreative Ideas
Blog post: The big thing I learned from Dave Vanderspek and the Curb Dogs
Dave Vanderspek head shot, as they call them in the entertainment industry. Courtesy of Maurice Meyer. Pro BMX racer, pro freestyler, super promoter, contest promoter, and BMX pioneer.
Dave Vanderspek was the visionary leader of the whole Bay Area scene, and he started the Curb Dogs bike and skate team. At that time, there were a few factory teams that toured every summer, The BMX Action Trick Team, Haro, GT, and CW teams were the best known. But when the magazines took a poll of the most popular teams, the Curb Dogs were always ranked right up among the factory teams. At the time, every little group of BMX freestylers around the country had a trick team in their area. We had one when I live in Idaho. Ron Wilkerson started the 2-Hip Trick Team when he lived in San Francisco. Chris Lashua and Dennis Langlais had the GT/Mountain Dew team on the East Coast. The Curb Dogs were the only completely independent team that ranked with the top teams in popularity time after time. The main reason was the Dave Vanderspek was an incredible promoter.
But Dave also came across as a kind of goofball. At a time when Bob Haro and R.L. Osborn were working to look respectable and be clean cut businessmen, Vander was more like Jeff Spicoli in the movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Check out this clip of Dave doing damage control after skaters got a bit rowdy at a show and the police were called. This was the Dave we saw and hung out with. He was the opposite of the clean cut business guys like R.L., Bob Haro, Bob Morales and others at the time. I think that's why the magazines loved him so much, you never knew what Dave was going to do or say. He was fun to hang around, and he could RIDE. And he could skate well, too. But it was hard for me to take him seriously when I first got to know him. And I was jealous, as were some other riders, of all the coverage Dave got in the magazines.
At the same time, the Bay Area BMX freestyle scene was the best scene in the country. Vander, Maurice Meyer, Robert Peterson, Oleg Konings, Rick Allison, and Hugo Gonzales were the pros we all got to hang out and ride with. The Ground Control team, the top amateurs at the time, included Chris and Karl Rothe, Mike Perkins, Mark McKee, Darcy Langlois, and John Ficarra. Down in San Jose, where Hugo lived, was his brother Oscar, John Vasquez (an INSANELY good rider), Vince Torres, Mike Golden and others. The posse came together every Sunday afternoon in Golden Gate Park to session. Once a month or so, most of us gathered in Foster City (halfway between S.F. and San Jose), where Robert Peterson worked, and the Skyway guys set up their ramps, and we all sessioned. During all the time in between, we rode by our selves or in small groups in our area.
Over 20 years, I was a part of many BMX and freestyle scenes; the Bois, Idaho local scene, The Spot in Redondo Beach, CA, Huntington Beach Pier scene, the P.O.W. House/S&M Bikes crew, and Sheep Hills. I met and hung out with nearly all the riders around the country in those days. There were many really good scenes that had influence over BMX and freestyle as it evolved. But none of those scenes compared to the Golden Gate Park/Curb Dogs scene. And the main reason was Dave Vanderspek. He set the tone. Somehow, when the rest of us were mostly trying to promote ourselves and get coverage and sponsors, Dave recognized the importance of building the actual scene. That attitude was shared by the other pros and the rest of us. They wanted all of us to improve. They wanted all of us to get sponsors and coverage when possible. The better riders were always helping out younger and newer riders learn new tricks, or better style.
In those days, in every scene I was a part of, we would hide the new tricks we were working on from the other riders. Even Jay Bickel and I in Idaho, when there was only two of us, we would work on a new trick in secret, and be able to pull it off, before we'd show it to each other. But the Golden Gate Park/Curb Dogs crew was different. I could show up at Golden Gate Park, and tell everyone about some idea for a trick, but could not come close to pulling off yet. Unlike every other riding scene, the other riders would give me (or any of us) ideas and tips, and they wouldn't even try to steal my idea until I could do it. That was true of every rider from pro to the newest kid who showed up. We could share ideas for new tricks, and it was our trick, and the rest of the posse would be stoked to see us finally land it, and then get it wired. Only then would the other riders try to learn our trick. That little bit of difference in how the scene operated made a huge difference. Because of it, we all improved as riders, but also as people.
Dave Vanderspek didn't always show up at Golden Gate Park on the weekends. At the time I thought that was lame. We all made the trip from around the huge Bay Area, and Dave wouldn't be there sometimes. I didn't realize that it was because he was out promoting and doing things that would ultimately help all of us, and riding in general. The Golden Gate Park scene, and the Curb Dogs and Skyway teams, had a big influence on the freestyle world.
Vander put on the first BMX halfpipe contest and the first bike street contest. EVER. He brought punk rock and D.I.Y. attitude into BMX and freestyle. The NorCal guys were pioneers of street riding. Ron Wilkerson got the cover of the first issue of FREESTYLIN' magazine at Golden Gate Park. Ron became a top Haro pro, moved to SoCal, went on to promote the 2-Hip King of Vert, Meet the Street, and King of Dirt contests. Those were the first halfpipe and street contest series. Later came Wilkerson Air Lines and 2-Hip Bikes.
My zine got me a job at BMX Action and FREESTYLIN' magazines in August of 1986, and I moved to SoCal. I later worked at the AFA, Unreel Productions (Vision's video company) and produced several early, low budget videos, including vids for the AFA, 2-Hip, and S&M Bikes. Chris Rothe was the first rider I ever saw do a bar ride, though not the very first guy to do it. Karl Rothe went on to become the longtime editor of BMX Plus! magazine. Mark McKee went on to become a graphic designer at World Industries skateboards, and created the most influential skateboard graphics of all time. Oleg Konings did the first scuff trick I ever saw, a couple years before scuff tricks changed flatland forever. The time and attention that Vander and the others put in to creating a great scene, not just a few egomaniacs trying to out ride each other, made all the difference in the world. But I still didn't really get it.
Then, one day in late 1987 or early 1988, some promoter guy held a street and jump box jam in Huntington Beach. H.B. Pier local, and my good friend, Mike Sarrail gave the guy the idea. We got word out, and riders from all over showed up for the jam. During that jam, Dave Vanderspek rolled up on his bike and pulled me aside. Dave told me he noticed how much I had improved as a rider since he first met me, and that he was really stoked that I had worked at FREESTYLIN', and then edited the AFA newsletter. As he was talking to me, he had his back to the whole jam. Over his shoulder I saw Brian Blyther, Dave Voelker and many others blasting off the Stonehenge jump box. It blew me away that Dave Vanderspek, this guy I'd talked some smack about, and was secretly jealous of, literally turned his back on an insane session to tell me he was proud of how I had improved both on and off my bike since he first met me.
And then I got it. Dave actually gave a shit about me. And not just me, but every single kid that rolled up to him at Golden Gate Park or a ramp jam or at a show. He wanted ALL OF US to improve, both on and off our bikes. He was stoked when one of us got a job in the industry or came up with a new trick or had any kind of success. At 24 years old, Dave Vanderspek intuitively understood that by building a great scene, all of us would have a better chance to reach our personal potential. We helped each other. We fed off each other. And we helped invent, improve, and change the bike world forever. That was what he had been doing all along, and I just didn't see it. Finally, at the ramp jam in H.B., I got it. I finally saw why pretty much everyone in the sport was a fan of Vander. That was the last time I ever saw Dave Vanderspek. He died in a crazy and tragic way in the months after.
Now, as a 50-something guy starting over, yet again, I'm trying to take what I learned from Vander and put it into practice in the art scene I'm now a part of here in Winston-Salem. It's my turn to be a kind of Vander, and help this local art scene progress and grow. All of you out there riding or doing some other kind of creative thing, it's your turn to be Vander, too.
Help the beginners and young kids in your scene. Share the D.I.Y. spirit. Become better people on AND off your bikes or skateboards. Do the same in your art, music, film, or other creative scenes. If anyone in your scene does well, you win. You all win. Dave Vanderspek understood this way back when. He lived it. Now it's our turn to live it.
I was almost 20 years old in 1986, when Eddie Fiola walked up to me and started talking at the AFA Masters contest in Tulsa, Oklahoma. My little San Jose' Stylin' zine somehow got me the job of writing about that contest for FREESTYLIN' magazine. It was the biggest weekend of my life up to that point, and I couldn't believe it when Eddie just came up and started talking. It was a fanboy moment, talking to the best know pro in freestyle like it was no big deal. Then a curly headed kid and his buddy rode up and interrupted us. Damn little grommets. That kid was asking Eddie if he'd ever seen a trick, he did the motions of a switch-handed air. Eddie had never seen that trick. Neither had I. The kid smiled and him and the buddy rode off.
In the 1980's, a really weird, mostly screwed up, group of kids were attracted by the obscure, new, little sport of BMX freestyle. Most of us were hardcore riders, if never really great riders. Some guys excelled at riding. I found my niche as one of the guys recording parts of our weird little world, first with a 110 camera and a typewriter, then at magazines, then a newsletter, then with video. I wasn't one of the pro riders. But I wound up part of the scene, sessioning with the best in the nightime jam circles and street rides, and then documenting them at the contest the next day. Because of that, I just happened to be standing there when I lot of really cool stuff went down. On good days, I had a camera of some kind with me. On the bad days, I waited for Windy or John Ker's magazine photos to come out.
The spring of 1986 in Tulsa was one of those good days. Without realizing it at the time, vert legend Eddie Fiola and I happened to meet an unsponsored Mat Hoffman and Steve Swope, before the national scene had heard of them. Three years later, in a school gym in Ontario, Canada, was another good day. I was the Unreel Productions (Vision) cameraman that day, the only person in the gym with a broadcast quality video camera on my shoulder. The talk of the weekend was about some Canadian kid called the Terminator doing an abubaca backflip, or maybe a fakie backflip, no one was sure. Both of those tricks seemed completely insane then. He tried it earlier that day, but didn't commit, and it was underwhelming. After that, there were no big expectations. As usual, several riders hucked 900 attempts. Then something amazing happened. Go to 14:43 to see it. Mat wound up having a good day that day, as well. Happy Birthday Mat Hoffman. Hope today's another good day, as well.
Remember everyone... you never know who that goofy looking kid who rides up to you at the skatepark may turn out to be. Eddie and I had no idea what that curly headed kid would unleash into the bike world. So don't be too quick to discount those crazy kids you run into out riding.
My take on Vic Murphy's classic (black and white) photo doing a one footed tabletop off a curb. My unique scribble style. Sharpies on paper, 18" X 24". Sold.
This is my drawing take on my own B &W photo of the legendary Dave Vanderspek on his GPV at the Palm Springs Tramway race in 1987. Sharpies on paper, 18" X 24". Sold.
This is one of my earlier BMX drawings. Ron Wilkerson with a stretched one hand one footer. Sharpies on paper, 18" X 24". Available.
