Fat Man Bikin' again

Riding backwards, no hands one foot, 2010
I'm old and fat, and my trick bag has shriveled up like a prune. This is the new Schwinn cruiser sent to me by Nick Ziegler and friends. I can ride backwards, bunnyhop about an inch and a half, and do sketchy curb endos, that's it right now. It's just good to get out and ride a little after all those years sitting in a taxi getting fat. I am once again amazing the neighborhood kids. Thanks again Nick and everyone else!

Evel Knievel, eh

The craziest thing I saw during that week in Whistler in 1985, was one of the Canadian guys on the race track. The races had ended for the day, it was early evening, and a bunch of us were hanging out near the track. I think it was the second and third berms of the track that made a big canyon between them. Seriously, the Whistler BMX track built for the Worlds looked more like one of today's boardercross tracks. It was huge, it had a major downhill drop, and was just a gnarly track for the day.
All week guys had been joking about jumping the massive canyon between the two berms. The way they had been laid out, it looked like a jump. Come in high on the second berm, swoop to the inside, then blast straight up the bottom half of the berm, across a huge gap, dropping several feet and land on the third berm. Then carve like hell to the left to stay on the track and slow down.
Now that was nearly 25 years ago, and I know well how the memory can stretch distances and raise heights. But I'd have to say the gap was at least 25 feet, and quite possibly 30. People had jumped that far on BMX bikes. If you look back through the archives, you'll find quite a few photos or videos of guys jumping 20 or 25 feet in the late '70's and early '80's. But the bikes were lighter, the frames weren't as strong, and riders didn't jump with the height they do now. And that berm to berm jump was crazy high. It was a canyon between those two berms, and you'd be fifteen feet up mid jump, probably more, at a time when riders rarely got their wheels more than five or six feet off the ground.
I don't know if beer was involved, but one of the Canadian guys decided to try it. And none of us believed him. He got up to the start, and rode down the track to the berm a couple times scoping out the line. The rest of us stood nearby and kept talking, not thinking he would actually try it. The sun toyed with the horizon and the rider kept rolling up to the edge of the berm and stopping, looking across the crazy gap. We gave up on him and started riding down the hill to the village. A little ways down, a yell came from up the hill, and we saw the crazy Canadian take off from the starting gate again. He didn't slow down. He launched off the berm in the fading light and just barely made the landing on the lower berm. He got all squirrelly, slipped his pedals and weaved a bit, but rode it out. None of us watching from below could believe it. This crazy Canadian guy we'd never heard of had just jumped the biggest jump any of us had ever seen, or even heard of. I don't know who the guy was, and I don't think he was even entered in the race or the freestyle contest. He was just some crazy Canadian rider who wanted to show all these out-of towners what a Canadian could do. And he did. He was the talk of Whistler village that night. Eddie Fiola and Chris Lashua had enough sense not to try that jump. Stu Thomsen and Greg Hill had enough sense not to try that jump. But some unknown Canadian made the gap, and left an impression on the rest of us. I think he got quite a few free beers that night. That was the reward for doing the biggest jump in BMX history in 1985.
Jumping feats that I personally saw later that compared to that were Fuzzy Hall jumping the canton at the first King of Dirt in Palmdale in 1987, Chris Moeller jumping the Cadillac lengthwise in Palm Springs off a two foot high launch ramp in about '91, Guys jumping Death Jump at Mission Trails in 1991, then Brian Foster, Dave Clymer and the crew jumping the Dover Cliff Jump in '93. There's footage of that Dover jump in S&M's 44 Something video.
Sometimes you go to a big event, and the top pros blow your mind with their riding. But over and over, I've seen some guy pop out of the woodwork and just tear it up and amaze everybody. The Canadian guy who jumped that crazy berm jump was one of the first of those guys. And I have no idea what his name was.

Why we went to contests...

Sean Murphy put a great comment on the last post about contests, and I tried to add a link but it didn't work. This is from the video Snowboarders in Exile in 1990, and I think it sums up why alternative sports athletes go to contest more than anything else I've seen. Go to 8:22 on this clip:

Finally... a Mat Hoffman movie

I can't tell you how stoked I am to hear this. I've been hoping for years that Spike Jonze would use all his success in the entertainment world to give some props to BMX freestyle at some point. I was thinking maybe a cool fiction movie with a great character who rides. But this is even better. Spike Jonze and Johnny Knoxville are producing what appears to be a feature length movie about Mat Hoffman. That's just so cool I can't even explain it. I've said before, Mat was the Evel Knievel of Generation X. He just took it to a whole 'nother level beyond what anyone else was even thinking. If you go way back in this blog, there are some of my tales about Mat. Just watch the trailer linked below.

Old School BMX gathering 2010

Steve Swope is hosting another Old School BMX jam/session/get-together/reunion. The event is being held April 2-4, at Woodward West in Stallion Springs, California. There's a pretty hefty list signed up already. If you're over 32 years old, used to ride BITD, and interested in going, check Swope's blog, Kickstand BMX for the details and a list of whose already signed up.
If you read this blog, you probably know this already, I'm out of the loop on old school news since I type away at my blogs and don't bother reading other people's stuff near as much as I should.
I'm not sure if I would even qualify to go, as it's invite only. It doesn't really matter this year, because I'm broke and in North Carolina. I do actually intend to make it to one of these events someday. I plan on making the trip next year... I'll be back in Cali by then.
Scot Beithaupt is scheduled to be there. He still owes me $170 for working as his cameraman at the Reno Nationals in 1989, so if anyone wants to tackle Scot and grab my money, you can keep half as a finder's fee and send me the other half... heh, heh, heh.

The week in Whistler... in 1985

I started writing this earlier, and I just put some Rush on to listen to as I finish it. Hmmmm... maybe Red Fisher would be more appropriate since it's the Left Coast of the Great White North.

As I write this, the Vancouver, B.C. area is overwhelmed with the 2010 Winter Olympics. But on my first trip to that area in 1985, Whistler was almost a ghost town. In so many ways, it was a different world then. People didn't carry phones around everywhere they went, stumbling over things as the text dumb messages to other people not paying attention. The very first car phones were just coming to market then, which were the size of a Kleenex box and cost a couple thousand dollars each. People with pagers were thought to be either doctors or drug dealers. The little biege Apple Macintosh personal computer, with an AMAZING kilobyte or two of memory, had come out the year before. A few rich people had radical VHS video cameras, which consisted of a recorder unit, bascially a VCR that you wore on a shoulder strap, with cables connecting to a shoe box sized camera. Speaking of cameras, most public places didn't have security cameras then. Mountain bikes, basically BMX bikes for adults, were starting to show up in bike shops.
The little village of Whistler, British Columbia was a ski resort then. There were no snowboard resorts then. There were only a handful of snowboarders in California and the Eastern mountains, they even had a few contests, but few of us had even heard of them.
We were at a ski resort in the summer, which was kind of like being at Disneyland when it's closed. There were cool buildings, but only a handful of people wandering around them. Thanks to Jay's parents, we had the amazing condo of a room right in the middle of this biking wonderland. The square in front of our hotel was the gathering ground for the freestylers, most of whom were staying in cheaper motels down towards Vancouver, or camping down the mountain a few miles. We'd sleep in, only until 9 am or so, and have breakfast in the room. Then it was out to the mountain. There were intermittent flatland sessions on the square all day long. Most of the racers, which was a tiny number for a contest called the World Championships, spent the day up the hill at the track. Us freestylers would go up and watch the racers practice, or even ride the crazy downhill track ourselves at times during practice.

Props for my new bike

Finally, a cap that matches my sideburns!Remember those fashion articles in FREESTYLIN' magazine, where you'd go, "What's this crap! Who care's what R.L. or Wilkerson wears, this page could be a photo of jumping or Dominguez at Pipline or something good." Well, this isn't one of those articles. But Here I am, sporting my "bouncer look," in a Standard Bykes cap and Porkchop BMX T-shirt. Yeah, I know, hard to believe some lucky woman hasn't snapped me up yet. Heh, heh, heh.
I'm holding the new bike sent to me by Nick Zielger, donated by a whole bunch of people who I haven't given proper credit to. So that's what I'm doing in this post. Here's who gave me the bike and other stuff:
Nick Ziegler- Redline Flight cranks, Profile sealed bearing bottome bracket, gear bag, four shirts: Giving out bikes is a program Nick has, so he does all the work on getting donations from all over the bike world for riders he thinks need a bike. Here's a link to his thread on Vintage BMX:
Nick Zielger's bike donation project
If you'd like to donate bike parts, stickers, gear, or money to help Nick out email him here:
nziegler@istate.com
Porkchop BMX- Schwinn Pro cruiser frame, DK seat post, chain, freewheel, Duro CompIII style tires, chrome pad set, number plate, 4 inner tubes
Indy Lo Down- Schwinn Pro Cruiser fork, FSA headset
Midwest BMX Program- bought FLY Bars cruiser bars, Sinz V-Brake kit, seat clamp
Standard Bykes/Good Times Superstore- (Rick Moliterno & crew) - Two pairs Standard jeans, Standard cap
Odyssey BMX- Magnesium Jim Cielencki pedals, polished stem, grips
Sun Ringle- 24 x 1.75 Super Stock rims
O'Reilley's - Allen wrenches, standard wrench set, flat wrenches
Callie Graphics - decals

A massive thank you to everyone above for all the stuff. And if I left anyone out, let me know, I'll add you to the list.

By the way, in that photo above, you can see a wooden fence by my right shoulder with a patch of fresh concrete in front of it. That patch of concrete is covering the old swimming pool in this complex. When they drained it it had a beautiful seven foot high face wall, six foot tranny with a foot of vert. It would have been a blast to ride or skate. And now it's filled with dirt and covered with concrete. Another good pool bites the dust. Bummer.

Session

In the past fifteen months, I've written about 350 blog posts about my days in BMX freestyle. But this whole time, I've just been an old, fat guy pecking at a computer, writing about "the good old days." This has been partly because because I think somebody needs to write this stuff. But's been mostly because after years of homelessness and other assorted craziness, I wound up sleeping on the floor of my parents tiny apartment in a town where I don't have a chance in Hell of ever getting a good paying job. I had time and a computer, so I started writing.
You've all heard me bitch about this whole situation way too much, even though I try to keep it to a minimum. During this time, a bunch of you have written to encourage me to keep writing, Sean Murphy from Standard has become my unofficial promotions guy, spreading news about this blog and the FREESTYLIN' one. I thank you all for the comments and encouragement along the way.
But a guy I never met named Nick Ziegler took this encouragement to a whole 'nother level. He got a bunch of people to donate parts and sent me a bike that I couldn't possibly afford. I'll show some pics and details in the next couple posts. The wheels showed up yesterday, and I spent the evening getting the bike running. I got out on it last night, but the chain was a little too long, so this morning I got the bike actually running. Then I went out for a ride.
I started really getting into BMX jumping in 1982, followed shortly by racing and then freestyle. Like many of you, I rode two or three hours a day for the next ten years. Even after fading out of the industry in the mid '90's, I was still riding some kind of bike every day until I became a taxi driver in 1999. Taxi driving is a lifestyle, not a job, so I sat in a cab and got fat for several months. Then I lost my license for not paying a fine and got back to riding nearly every day until I started driving a cab again in late 2003. Then the daily sessions ended, and I spent the next four years sitting in a car up to 23 hours a day. I ballooned up to 374 pounds at one point, nearly died from cellulitis, a gnarly bacterial infection, three times. As most of you know, this led to a year on the streets, and finally to my parents' apartment in a state I'd never lived in. A state where BMX and freestyle barely exist. Yes, I know a handful of top contest riders live in NC, and Eastern Bikes is here, but there is no scene at all in this part of the state. Being a BMXer and being here is like going back in time 30 years. It's frustrating for a lot of reasons. For a couple of decades, my bike was my main way to relieve frustration. And I didn't have one here. Until yesterday.