Bob Haro invented BMX freestyle. If you ride flatland, ramps, pools, park, street or anything similar, you do that, because Bob Haro started doing tricks on his bike in the 1970's, and then started doing trick shows. Bob Haro invented BMX freestyle, that's what us old riders all learned, when getting into "trick riding," the emerging sport of BMX freestyle, in the early 1980's. Yes, other people rode BMX bikes in pools, and most BMX racers jumped and did some tricks. But Bob started doing trick shows at BMX races, and those early demos led to the growth of "trick riding," which became BMX freestyle, all the non-racing aspects of BMX, except dirt jumping. This short video above gives a quick overview of Bob Haro talking about riding skateparks in the mid 1970's, then starting the business that became Haro Designs, and eventually Haro Bikes. This video is from 1985 or 1986, I believe.
Bob Haro (left) and Bob Morales- around 1979 or 1980. This is the first touring BMX freestyle team, and two incredibly entrepreneurial young guys. Bob Haro invented the first BMX freestyle bike in 1983, redesigning the twin top tube Torker to work better for trick riding. He sold Haro, and has been doing other design work in the decades since. Bob Morales designed the first Dyno bike, and helped design the GT performer freestyle bike, and later put out Auburn race bikes, and Morales flatland bikes. He started the ASPA, put on BMX skatepark contests, and then the AFA, the flatland and ramps comps of the 1980's. He went on to create mountain bike and motorcycle components. Early BMX freestyle was about shows, and was completely intertwined with entrepreneurship. If this photo is from 1980, then Haro is about 22 and Morales is about 17.
Bob Haro- one man freestyle show in the U.K. in 1983- This 5 1/2 minute video shows Bob doing a demo, and then has a short interview. While these tricks look pretty simple now, Bob was inventing the foundational tricks that everything since has been built on. Do you ride now? Go out and try to do a back wheel 540 on a wedge ramp or bank, like Bob does in this video. Forty one years later and that's still a solid trick, and not as simple as it looks, is it?
Bob Haro describing the original Haro Freestyler bike in 1984, It came out in 1983, and was later known as the Haro Master. This is the first BMX bike designed specifically for trick riding.
23Mag page on Bob Haro- This page includes a BMX drawing from 1976, rock walk how-to from 1979, and several more really early photos and some written description of Bob's work in BMX freestyle.
Bob Haro and the original BMX freestyle bike, the Haro Freestyler, 1983. Photo nabbed from internet.
The BMX chase scene from the movie E.T. (1982)- Bob Haro was one of the riders in this scene- In the recent Unclicked podcast with Bob Haro (linked below), Ryan Fudger and Dennis Enarson talk with Haro about the two early movies featuring BMX, E.T.- The Extraterrestrial from 1982, and RAD from 1986. To people coming up after the 1980's in BMX, those two movies seem comparable. But there was a huge difference between them. E.T. was a mainstream hit movie, directed by Steven Spielberg, and it grossed over $359 million in North America, $619 million worldwide, and sold over 120 million movie tickets, in theaters. Riding a BMX bike in E.T. in 1982 would be like riding in a BMX chase scene in a movie like one of the Harry Potter movies, or a Star Wars or Avengers movie in recent years. E.T. was that big in its day, at a time when most people had never really seen BMX racing before.
RAD, on the other hand, cost $3 million to make, and completely bombed in theaters, grossing only $2 million. Theaters were the game in the 1980's movies, the whole home video market was just getting going in the 1980's. As I wrote in one of my most popular blog posts, I hated RAD when it came out. I actually liked the Kevin Bacon bicycle messenger movie, Quicksilver, which came out about the same time, much better. That bombed in theaters, too, grossing $7 million, after costing $10 million to make.
RAD, however, turned into a cult classic, in the early 1990's when the home video market grew. In the home video era, RAD was watched over and over by kids coming up then, and drew a lot of people into BMX. RAD, as you older riders know, featured Eddie Fiola and Martin Aparijo stunts for the main characters, plus several other top BMXers of that era. Quicksilver featured Martin Aparijo and Woody Itson, along with bike stuntman Pat Romano, in the jam session scene, which was more like an actual BMX freestyle session in those days.
So E.T. showed a really cool scene of BMX jumping and riding to well over 100 million people in 1982, just as BMX freestyle was beginning to emerge as a separate thing to BMX racing. RAD was a whole movie about BMX, that despite a pretty goofy story line, it showed BMX riding to hundreds of thousands of kids in the early 1990's, and drew a lot of new riders into the sport, earning is a cult status to riders coming up in that era.
Bob Haro BMX Masters- This is a short video talking about his art and cartoons. Bob's artwork is what first got him drawn into working at BMX Action magazine in the mid 1970's.
Talk Tales- This is a 7 minute video, from 2023, of Bob talking about life as a kid, freestyle, his music, and other stuff.
Born from BMX/Bell Helmets- This is a short clip of Bob looking back at drawing, and how he developed his cartoon style of BMX drawings.
Bob Haro- Master Class in France in 2012 (put on by Frank Beliot & crew)- 59 minutes-This is a one hour video, with Bob talking about his whole life in BMX freestyle, and work since. He shares a lot of his own photos in this presentation. This predates all of the more recent podcasts, and is Bob himself giving a talk about his life and work.
Unclicked podcast with Bob Haro- 2:32:00- Ryan Fudger of Our BMX and current Haro pro rider Dennis Enarson, sit down with Bob Haro and talk about his whole life, in and out of BMX, for 2 1/2 hours, in early 2024.
Bob Haro with an edged, coaster brake kickturn, on an early quarterpipe, about 1982 or 1983. Photo nabbed from internet.
This new blog post idea, looking at pioneers in BMX freestyle, was inspired by the recent Unclicked podcast with Bob Haro. While I really liked the podcast, I realized while listening to it that today's BMX media people weren't around in the 1980's. So there are certain questions they may not even think to ask, or aspects of that first decade of BMX freestyle that they just aren't aware of. I'm a rider and industry guy from that era, who is now a blogger operating outside today's real world of BMX. I decided I could do a series of blog posts where, instead of my personal stories of some event, I gather the best videos and material about a pioneering rider, and bring the best info about that rider into one place. This isn't everything there is about Bob Haro on the web. But if you want to learn about Bob's influence on BMX freestyle, going through the videos and info in this post will give you a solid understanding of who he was, what he's done, and his input in the early years of BMX freestyle. In future "Freestyle Pioneers" posts, I'll do the same with other riders and industry people.
