Unclicked podcast with longtime rider/BMX industry guy John Povah (August 2023)

John Povah is an 1980's BMX freestyler from England, who came to the U.S., found work painting cars, and wound up working for years in the BMX and action sports industries.  He was a team manager for Schwinn Bikes, working with guys like Jay Miron, Dave Osato and others.  He later became BMX team manager for Etnies, working with riders like Rooftop, Taj Mihelich and others.  In this podcast Ryan Fudger, Mike, "Rooftop" Escamilla, and Nathan Williams interview John.  This podcast tracks John's life, riding, and work in a BMX freestyle career spanning five decades.  

This may sound weird, since I've written hundreds of blog posts about BMX freestyle, but I rarely listen to BMX podcasts.  The main reason is that I'm always busy doing other work.  When I draw my Sharpie drawings, I spend hours listening to things on YouTube, but it's usually music, interviews, and documentaries, about the musician I'm drawing.  That's because I usually draw musicians.  When I'm writing and blogging, I usually listen to music, often pretty mellow, stuff in the background.  That's pretty much all I do, seven days a week.  So I just don't get around to listening to many BMX podcasts.  But I've really liked the few I have listened to.  This podcast with John is my favorite, mostly because I knew John well in the early 1990's.  

I met John and Keith Treanor at the Oceanview flyout jump, in Huntington Beach, in the spring of 1990.  Actually I met Keith at the H.B. pier a couple weeks earlier, but I talked to so many people there, Oceanview is where I first remember meeting Keith.  In any case, I started hanging out more with them, and shooting footage of them, for my 1990 self-produced video, The Ultimate Weekend.  

That's John holding his hand up, on the cover of the video, with Keith blasting over him at the Oceanview jump, 1990.  I took Mike Sarrail's photo, Xeroxed it zine style, and went high contrast, because I sucked at graphic design.  I still suck at graphic design.  

John and Keith became the main riders in the video, which I shot footage for, from spring to the fall of 1990.  You can see John, Keith, as well as Josh White, Woody Itson, and H.B. local Andy Mulcahy, at the Oceanview jump, at 23:28 in The Ultimate Weekend.  

John and Keith were both really good, and just getting known, so I just asked them when I was going riding, or they'd call up and I'd take the camera when they went riding different places at times.  The Huntington Beach area scene then, in 1990, was Chris Moeller and his roommates, The P.O.W. House guys in Westminster, Keith, John, Sean McKinney, Alan Valek, Hippy Jay and Hippy Sean just beginning to build Sheep Hills, flatlanders  Andy Mulcahy and 3-4 other guys, and me.  We were all spread out around the H.B./ Westminster area, riding in little groups through the recession days of the early 1990's.  As people got jobs or lost jobs, we moved in and out of different houses and apartments, among the BMX rider houses.  

I was totally surprised, when the podcast spent several minutes going through The Ultimate Weekend, looking for the footage of John doing the first ice pick grind down handrail, which is in TUW at 32:30 (at that link above).  The dark shot of Keith Treanor, after John's ice pick grind, is the first handrail down steps in a BMX video.  Street riding was still really new, and progressing fast then, so every video in 1989-1991 had several first ever, or first on video, tricks.  Listening to this podcast is what inspired me writing this post on Substack, where I tried to figure out the sequence of the first double peg grinds on street, in those early videos in 1990.   

At one point, 1993, I think, I got a better job, and John Paul Rogers and I did a house switch.  I moved out of the P.O.W. House, and J.P. moved in.  I took his place, renting a room in a house in Westminster, with Chris Moeller, John Povah, and John's girlfriend at the time, Bitch Girl, who is mentioned in the podcast.  So I was roommates with John for several months during that period.  In those days, all the people in that scene were riding with each other in groups, on dirt or street day to day.  At night, we were meeting up and going to see punk bands play, or going to night clubs to meet girls.  Almost every night, at the P.O.W. House living room, a group would form, then they'd drink a little, and head out to the night's adventure, in one of more groups. 

Those were fun, often broke, and crazy times.  BMX, according to the bike industry, was "dead" from 1989-1995, between the end of the 80's boom, and the beginning of the X-Games.  During that time, the young kids at Sheep Hills became the SHL crew, and riding just kept progressing.  I broke away and went off on my own in 1995.  While still riding, I was riding alone daily, and not going to events, until about 2003.  I would see guys once in a while, but not often.  So all the stuff John Povah did after that, the amazing stuff, like being Schwinn team manager and then on to Etnies as team manager, I didn't know about until many years later.  So much of that was new to me, hearing it first in this podcast. 

All in all, with Rooftop leading into lots of crazy stories, this is a hilarious and great podcast.  Also, like everyone Rooftop asked, I agree, John Povah is really an all around cool human being.  Just a solid, hard working, dependable guy who was also a really good rider.  It was cool to hear all the stories of the years I didn't know much about, like Jay Miron doing the first double backflip, and all His time working at Schwinn and Etnies.  

If you bothered to read this blog post, stop reading, listening to me babble, on and just watch/listen to the podcast.  It's great stuff if you're an Old School or Mid School BMX rider from the late 1980's, up through today.  

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.

Check out my new mash-up book/blog thing about the future:

Welcome to Dystopia: The Future is Now

I have a couple of new blogs I'm getting off the ground.  Check them out:

Crazy California

The Phoenix Great Depression

Dig BMX's History of the Ice Pick grind

I'd like to thank Matt Picker for the head's up on this video.  DIG BMX had this idea to document the progress of a single trick, starting with the ice pick.  Until Matt told me about this video today, I forgot they'd contacted me about this idea a while ago.

Cool idea.  Even cooler, from my perspective, is that I shot the video of the first ice pick grind.  My shot from The Ultimate Weekend (1990) video of John Povah grinding the little handrail into the kiddie pool at the Regional Pool (Cypress, CA) is when John took Mat Hoffman's ice pick stall on vert, and turned it into a grind.  In 1989-90, the corporate money pulled out of BMX freestyle, riding went underground and low budget, and rider-made videos, like me making The Ultimate Weekend, was in its infancy.  But the riding was progressing at high speed.

Props to DIG (pun intended) for coming up with this idea, and it's cool to see how a little trick Keith Treanor and John Povah had been thinking about, and John pioneered, turned into something huge and gnarly as fuck since.  The one I totally remember in this sequence was Josh Heino's ice pick at El Toro.  That blew my mind when it came out.  It was so huge and crazy for that time.  I've never even managed an icepick stall on street, but this is a really cool watch to see one trick progress over a couple of decades.  

Just realized this is blog post #430 for this blog.  That's a lot of posts in 17 months.  The number 43 is EVERYWHERE for me lately.

Desert Treasure...The Nude Bowl: then and now

Here's old school BMXer Rick Thorne with even older school skate legend Steve Alba at one of my favorite places in the world, The Nude Bowl.  Way out in the SoCal desert, on a hillside past Palm Springs and overlooking Desert Hot Springs, there lies the remains of a nudist colony.  Sometime in the late 1970's or early 80's, the naked people abandoned it.  Somehow, skaters found it.

I started working on an old school BMX project today, and looked up some riders from BITD on You Tube.  Much to my surprise, I found Rick Thorne's Pool Hunters.  The bald guy in this clip looks vaguely familiar.  Anyhow, I watched four different clips tonight, and this one at the Nude Bowl with pool skating legend Steve Alba reminded me of my sessions there.  A blog post was inevitable.  I even learned a few things about the pool I didn't know in this clip. 

I first heard of the Nude Bowl in 1988, in my little cubby hole of a room at Unreel Productions, the Vision Skateboards video company.  The biggest part of my job then was dubbing copies of videos for people throughout the Vision world.  People of all different jobs needed videos, mostly VHS copies, of different things, and I made those copies.  I was also the tape librarian, so I made window dubs of all the raw footage that got shot, labeled the tapes, and organized them in the tape vault.  One of the best parts of that job was that I got to watch raw footage that the skaters shot, usually a day or two after it happened.  In those tapes, I first saw footage of this crazy pool out in the desert called the Nude Bowl, and several other skate spots.  This was at a time when Del Mar skatepark closed, and the sole surviving skatepark in Southern California was Pipeline in Upland.

While I always sucked at riding ramps, and never could air much above coping, but I loved riding pools.  Figuring out lines and carving pools was a blast, just pumping around at speed seemed one of the best things to do on a bike.  I finally bought Mike Sarrail's old truck in '88, and managed to ride Pipeline five or six times right before it closed.  Since I happened to work for Don Hoffman, whose parents owned Pipeline, I was able to ride Pipeline a bunch more times after it closed.  I loved riding pools from then on, even though I never rose above coping.

Sometime in late '88 or early '89, I got the job of taking a couple of the Vision skaters out to the Nude Bowl for a session and a low key video shoot.  I can't remember which skaters, though Kele Rosecrans comes to mind.  So we made the trip inland, and I bounced the little Unreel Toyota van off road and got about 100 yards from the pool.  The road was too gnarly at the time to get the van to the top.  We hiked the last little bit, and when I first saw the pool, it seemed like the best thing in the world.  In those days, we had to worry about police or security guards nearly every spot we rode.  But at the Nude Bowl, nobody gave a fuck.  That was awesome.

I went out to the Nude Bowl two or three more times in '89, to shoot video of skaters, and I made sure to take my bike and carve some lines when I could.  In those days, when there were no concrete skateparks at all, it was amazing to ride a pool, hour after hour, and not worry about anybody shutting the session down.

When I started working on my self-produced video, The Ultimate Weekend, in 1990, a session at the Nude Bowl was one of the first places I thought of.  It was sometime in the summer when I finally got it to happen.  Somehow, I was able to talk skatepark legend Brian Blyther to make the trip out there, though he wasn't riding vert all the time then.  He brought Xavier Mendez, another skatepark rider from the 80's.  I got the then unknown ripper Keith Treanor, English vert rider John Povah, and flatlander/photographer Mike Sarrail, and we headed out.  Despite it being 105 degrees out, we had a great little session.  I got footage for my video, and it was a good day all around, despite the heat.  You can watch it at 25:54 in this video.

As luck would have it, that session at the Nude Bowl wound up being the first time the pool showed up in a bike video.  To make it even better, I used music from Toledo punk band, The Stain, and they had recorded a song called "Pool Party" for some skater friends.  It was the perfect song, and I had these crazy dreams of making it a music video and getting it played on MTV.  That never happened, but it was a cool video section anyway.  In these two clips, you can see a 27 year span of one of the most legendary skate/bike pools ever.  Props to Rick Thorne for doing a great series on real life pool riding and skating.

Rick's Nude Bowl clip had 2,605 views when I wrote this post.  I'm just curious how many views this post may help it get.

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