Synchronicity

Just for the record, that recent post about the AFA Oregon Pro Ramps video I produced came up as a consequence of the two rider-made video posts I did just before it.  I wrote those two posts to kind of set the stage for going through my 1990 bike video, The Ultimate Weekend, section by section, telling the stories of how it came to be.  So that's coming soon in this blog.

In a complete bit of synchronicity, last night happened to be the 2018 induction ceremony for the BMX Hall of Fame.  In the industry category, my boss at the AFA, and the guy who started me making videos, Bob Morales, got inducted.  He totally deserves it, his story goes through the entire early history of BMX freestyle.  Not only that, he's the guy who made BMX freestyle an actual sport, he put on the first skatepark contests and then the flatland and quarterpipe contests. 

Months ago, I heard Bob, and my one time P.O.W. House roommate, Brian Foster, were both getting into the HOF this year.  I did a congratulatory Facebook post  for them, and then went on with my life.  I've had more than enough to deal with the last few weeks to pay any attention to today's official BMX world.  So it was a complete surprise when Bob's sister Riki, my co-worker and friend from the AFA days, told me Bob gave me a shout-out in his acceptance speech.  If you go to the USA BMX facebook page, a couple of posts down, you can watch the entire 2018 BMX Hall Of Fame induction ceremony and speeches.  I watched those by both Bob and Brian Foster.  To be honest, it's kind of surreal for me.

On one hand, I'm simply struggling to survive day to day in a new city.  My life, in the financial and material sense, is sketchy as hell.  But since landing very unexpectedly in Richmond, I've been reconnecting to the BMX scene in a real world way.  It's like I'm coming full circle in a sense, with BMX, and I'm now an old guy who some younger people actually want to hear stories from.  When I worked in the bike/skate industries in the 1980's and 1990's, the idea of us being in our 50's and someone actually having a Hall Of Fame, and a big event, seemed ludicrous.   But now it's real.  And I got a personal shout out from Bob Morales as an AFA worker who helped him, and from Brian Foster, who shouted out the P.O.W. House posse as a group.  Both of those bring back a ton of good memories.  I don't waste time on the not-so-good memories any more.

I don't know where things are headed in my life.  But I'm getting back in touch with the BMX world, and it's not me trying to, it's just happening.  In the last crazy couple of decades where I went through some really crazy shit, and was focused mostly on trying to figure out the whole point of life itself, I've learned that life is like that.  For those of us who've spent a fair amount of time following our intuition, and doing things that seemed stupid to most people around us, we know about following a strong hunch, the gut feeling, the "still small voice," that draws us in weird directions.  Sometimes it seems the whole world is against us, and we get tested to our core, to see if we're serious about following our dreams.  At other times, things just start happening, fast forwarding us into the next level and place we seemed needed in, by the world.  Since my leg infection and major allergic reaction to the medicine a couple of weeks ago, I seem to have reached a turning point.  I'm getting drawn back to the world of BMX, and that's just fine with me.  We'll see where it takes me.  It took me some really cool places 30+ years ago. 

But right now, I want to congratulate Bob Morales and (future physical therapy doctor) Brian Foster on getting much deserved props from the BMX establishment.  I'd like to thank them both for the shout outs as one of many people in their lives along the way.  As for me, I have a BMX rider drawing to get back to work on, which is another piece of synchronicity, as you'll soon see on social media.  Props to all the BMX people who got recognized last night, now, back to work.

Congratulations Dave Voelker on making the BMX Hall of Fame

Last night, at Dave Voelker's house in the San Diego area, he held a big party to celebrate making it into the BMX Hall of Fame.  It's 9:30 am East Coast time now, 6:30 West Coast time, so I figure Dave has just recently passed out in the desert somewhere near his house, as a coyote looks on and wonders what the fuck this human is doing laying out in the brush.  I imagine it was one hell of a party, and had I been anywhere near the West Coast, I would have joined in the festivities. 

Congratulations Dave!  Voelker making the HOF is a no-brainer.  Few riders have blown minds on a 20 inch bike for as many years as Dave has.  I had the good fortune to meet Dave when he was an unknown ramp rider that Brian Scura had just hired to ride in his shows.  During my short stint at FREESTYLIN' magazine, I was told to go out front one afternoon and help some guy set up Scura's quarterpipe for a photo shoot.  I went outside, and offered to help this kid with white-blond, stringy hair.  After all, it took two or three people to set up the typical wooden quarterpipe in those days. 

"I got it," Dave said.  "Scura designed this ramp so one person can set it up.  Brian Scura was not only a weird, yet talented, rider, he was a mad scientist (he invented the Gyro), and owned one of the few pro trick teams at the time.  So I chatted with this Dave kid as I watched him set up the ramp solo, which was amazing in itself. 

Then he grabbed his bike, no helmet, to do a few warm-up airs, and see how the ramp felt.  His first air was five or six feet out, pretty respectable at the time.  "This kid's pretty good," I thought.  After a handful of airs in the six to seven foot range, Dave rode at the ramp a little slower.  The bike was suddenly upside down as his foot stopped at the very top of the transition.  I screamed, thinking this guy was going to eat shit and land on his head with no helmet.  But Dave was snapping one of his now-famous upside down footplants.  I'd never seen anything like it at the time.  It blew my mind. 

About then, Windy Osborn walked out with her camera.  I watched her check out Dave's huge airs (with a helmet).  But there really wasn't anything for me to do, so I reluctantly headed back in side and left Windy and Dave to do the photo shoot.  That was the fall of 1986. 

Dave stormed on the scene, soon became a GT factory rider, and toured the world like crazy.  We all watched him blow minds on both flatland and ramps year after year.  I can honestly say Dave has been one of my favorite riders to watch... ever.  There are a ton of memories, like sitting on a curb in New Jersey outside an AFA contest.  Riders were goofing around in the parking lot.  I was talking to some rider, and we were both leaning back on our hands, with our legs stretched out over the curb and our feet in the parking lot.  Dave Voelker comes racing towards us and yells, "Watch out!"  He bunnyhopped, at speed, into a manual on top of the curb, hopped over our legs, and landed in a manual, hauling ass.  He rode it for another 20 feet, and then hopped off the curb and headed towards some other obstacle. 

At the huge (for the time) 1989 2-Hip King of Vert contest that Unreel Productions (where I worked) helped put on, one of the cameramen asked Dave what he thought of the halfpipe.  I love his answer, "You have to be able to land on these things (halfpipes), I never really had to do that before." 

When it comes to my memories of Dave Voelker riding, the top is the first 2-Hip Meet the Street contest in Santee, California in the spring of 1988.  That's my edit of the contest above, from the 2-Hip BHIP video, and as you can see, Dave's all over it.  None of us really knew what to expect that day.  Dave Vanderspek and his NorCal Curb Dogs were legends on street then, as was San Diego rider Eddie Roman.  But the location of that first big street contest was Voelker's personal spot.  Before that contest, the only wall rides we'd seen photos of were two or three feet high. 

Unreel cameraman Pat Wallace shot the video in this clip, at a time when Spike Jonze was a photographer, R.L. Osborn came back from contest retirement, and there were far more riders than there were video cameras.  It was the changing of the guards that day in that parking lot behind a shopping center in Santee.  Dave Vanderspek, one of the earliest pioneers of street riding showed off the bar endo on a ledge and fun-filled style that made him a legend.  But a whole new crop of riders, several unexpected, rose to the occasion and established themselves at the new school of BMX street riding.  South Bay rider Craig Grasso, ramp legend Todd Anderson, NorCal ramp kid Mike Golden (the only one to jump the roof of the car), Orange County local George Smoot, rider/industry guy Scott Towne, and several others made their mark on the exploding street riding scene.  Englishman Craig Campbell hucked the trick of the day, the 540 wall ride (or wall ride to 360 out).  Eddie Roman, long time innovator, already a street legend, cemented his place in street riding.

But it was Dave Voelker who blew every fucking mind that day with wall rides bigger than any of us had ever dreamed of, and his crazy jump over the sixteen foot box where he clipped and cleared the final 8 feet without his bike.  Not one person at that Santee contest had any idea what a street contest would look like, what obstacles would be there, or just how big street riding could be.  Except maybe Vander, he'd already held the first street contest in NorCal.  But it was Dave Voelker that went so fast and so big that we all realized we were just scratching the surface of what could be done with a BMX bike on the urban terrain all around us. 

Dave showed us a taste of the future that day, and pretty much every day since.  Thanks for blowing our freakin' minds Dave.  Congratulations on a well deserved spot in the BMX Hall of Fame.  And I hope today's hangover isn't too bad.

Now.  There's only one way to end this post.  Everybody get out your air guitars.  Duh... nuh, nuh, nuh...nuh, nuh, nuh....