The state of BMX bunnyhops, summer 2023. All three of these are bunnyhops, and they just won BMX Best Trick in Street at the X-Games. Think about that.
It was the fall of 1981, and I was riding the school bus from my house out in the Centennial subdivision, to Boise High School, in downtown Boise. I was leaning against the window, on the right side of the bus, on a rainy fall day. We passed over the Boise River, next to Boise State University, which even us locals didn't take seriously then. The joke for seniors was, "Are you going to college?" "No, I'm going to Boise State." Where BS comes before U. The now famous blue football field was regular green grass then, and that was where our high school team played their games. We only had a practice field by the school.
As the bus crossed the next intersection, by the Morrison-Knudsen main offices, there was a big mud puddle in front of the high curb. The puddle was about three feet across. A young guy on a BMX bike, probably headed towards the junior high, raced along side the school bus below me. He effortlessly pulled the bike up into the air, sailed over the three foot puddle, and landed perfectly smooth on the high curb. The little move blew my fucking mind. That's the first bunnyhop I ever remember seeing in real life. That was a year and a half before my family moved out to the trailer park where I got into BMX. I don't know who the rider was, but seeing that perfectly smooth bunnyhop out the school bus window in 1981, blew my mind then as much as the tricks in the video above blow my mind now.
Several months later, I entered a bike-a-thon to raise money for some cause. I had a tan ten speed that I planned to ride at a 5 minute per mile pace for the full 18 miles. I did just that. About 12 miles into that bike-a-thon, a kid on a BMX bike passed me. We were out in a rural part of town, near Barber park. Ahead of us, there was a cardboard box sitting in the road. Just and empty box, about a foot square. The BMX guy was ahead of me, coasting along, dropcrank. He saw the box, and began pedaling. He effortlessly bunnyhopped the box. Again, that blew my mind. I didn't know any BMX riders then. It was a couple of months before I moved out to the trailer park where I got into BMX (sitting at about 43 degrees, of lattitude, just sayin'). That's the second bunnyhop I remember seeing in my life. The unknown BMX rider pedaled on ahead of me, leaving me to my slow steady pace.
Bunnyhops are what first attracted me to BMX, before I even got into it. I learned them myself, about a year later.
In the last few years, as my hundreds of blog posts have added up, a handful of people have told me, "I started reading one of your posts last night, and got sucked down the rabbit hole." There's this idea I've had for several years now, since I have a bunch of blogs. Now I'm finally doing it. Are you up for a trip down the Rabbit Hole? If so, click the link below. Bon voyage.
This is one of my most popular BMX posts ever, with over 1,200 views originally... It didn't transfer perfectly, I'll come back tomorrow and space the paragraphs.
Here's GT pro rider Josh White working the first four quarterpipe set-up at an AFA Master's contest in the fall of 1987. Blasting out of obscurity (pun intended) in Oregon, to instant fame in the BMX freestyle world, Josh raised the bar considerably as he broke onto the scene in a big way. He was known for going incredibly high for the time period, hitting honest 10 to12 foot plus airs when that's where the ceiling of the best riders was, and doing variations a 7 or 8 feet up. Keep in mind the ramps then were 8 foot high by 8 foot wide, wobbly, wooden quarterpipes, that usually came just up to vert.
Josh also set himself apart with his super stretched variations. This was said to come from years of training in kickboxing (MMA didn't exist then, BTW), and daily stretching through all those years. But the thing that I never could figure out about Josh was that he would approach the ramps at what seemed like half the speed of any other vert rider, amateur or pro, and then blast 9 or 10 feet out. He could just pump more air out of his speed than anyone, and even he didn't seem to know quite how that happened, because I actually asked him about it once.
As fate would have it, I met Josh in the Dallas/Fort Worth airport, on a layover to the Tulsa, Oklahoma, AFA Masters contest in April of 1986. I traveling on my own, but had been tapped to write the article about that contest for FREESTYLIN' magazine. So I knew it was going to be a pretty cool weekend for me. That amazing weekend started when I saw GT pro freestylers Eddie Fiola, Martin Aparijo, and some blond kid in the DFW airport. I'd met Eddie in Whistler, British Columbia the year before, where he and Chris Lashua hung out for a week on a tour break. I knew he didn't remember me, but it gave me, a pretty shy guy by nature, a reason to go say "Hi." Eddie was really cool, remembering the week in Whistler, and introduced me to top flatlander Martin Aparijo, and the new guy, Josh White. Eddie added, "Josh just did his first photo shoot for FREESTYLIN' the other day." I said, "Oh, cool." We talked for about fifteen minutes, until the last possible minute to board our plane, and then took our separate seats.
The next day, I saw just how good of a vert rider Josh was, holding his own (and then some) with all the heavy pros like Fiola, Brian Blyther, Mike Dominguez, and the rest. I wound up hanging out with the Haro team all weekend (since I was traveling on my Pizza Hut salary and had no room or rent-a-car), and spoke with Josh, Eddie, and the others here and there over the course of the weekend. Almost all the pros, and many top ams, were staying at the same Holiday Inn motel, playing pool, and doing flatland in the parking lot all weekend, and everyone was talking about the new GT vert guy, Josh White.
In another bit of coincidence, that photo shoot Josh did with FREESTYLIN' led to a small, and completely amazing, photo on the cover of the August 1986 issue of FREESTYLIN'. In that same issue happened to be an article about zines, where my zine, San Jose Stylin', was listed at the top BMX freestyle zine in the country. And, my article about the Tulsa contest also was published in that same issue. Now I'm definitely biased, but I also think the cover design was the coolest cover FREESTYLIN' ever did, which says a lot. They had many amazing covers. This is it:
In those days, magazines took three months to come out, from writing and photos to finished copies, so this epic issue hit newsstands in late June. A one hand no-footed can-can was simply unheard of then. A seven foot high, super stretched one hand no-footed can-can, on the famous T.O.L. ramp, was simply un-fucking-believable. This cover, all by itself, raised the bar of BMX vert riding, and the article inside raised it even higher. The icing on the cake was Josh's quote, blown up in big letters, "I consider myself a ground rider." With this issue of FREESTYLIN' magazine, Josh White exploded onto the national BMX scene. Meanwhile, deep inside the magazine, I kind of oozed quietly into the background periphery of the national freestyle zine, as a writer/zine guy.
Within days of this magazine hitting the stands, I interviewed for, and was hired at, Wizard Publications. So this issue changed the course of Josh's life, and my own, and shed light on some other up-and-comers in the freestyle world, little Mathew Hoffman got his first editorial photo, Joe Johnson got his first magazine mention, and NorCal bros. Chris and Karl Rothe got a photo. For an obscure part of the country to have a freestyle contest at the time, the 1986 Tulsa AFA contest shined a light on a lot of new blood in the BMX freestyle world.
By the time the magazine hit, Josh was already touring the country for GT Bikes. I moved to Redondo Beach, California, and began a new life of my own, first as a magazine guy for a few months, and then as the guy you yelled at when the ramps moved at AFA contests, and as their newsletter editor. While I never knew Josh well, we knew each other, talked from time to time, mostly at mostly at contests. Josh became legendary as part of the mid-1980's quarterpipe riders, pushing the older skatepark riders in the rapidly progressing vert scene. Josh went on to join the high air posse of Todd Anderson, Dino Deluca, and the other Camarillo riders.
In my life, I spent the last half of 1986 working at Wizard Publications, then nearly all of 1987 working for Bob Morales at the American Freestyle Association down in Huntington Beach. Bob got me into video work, which all happened at Unreel Productions in nearby Costa Mesa. Unreel was the video unit of Vision Skateboards/Vision Street Wear, which were soaring in popularity at the time.
My life turned to one of either taking the bus or riding my freestyle bike the length of Huntington Beach every morning, then cleaning up at work. On the days I rode, my 11 mile ride home was a wandering cruise to a whole series of H.B. street and flatland spots. I spent most of my weekends sessioning under the H.B. Pier with inlander-but-local freestyler Mike Sarrail, and freestyle skaters Pierre Andre', Don Brown, Jeremy Ramey, and the random locals who came by, like Mark Gonzales and Ed Templeton.
On one of those many weekends at the Huntington Beach Pier, in later 1988, I think, Josh White rolled up. We got to talking, and busted some flatland for the beach crowd. Then Josh told me a friend of his said there were some walls right by the beach that would be good to ride on. Wall rides were a brand new thing then, and everyone was looking for good walls to ride. Josh told me where these walls were supposed to be, right on the beach, from Goldenwest south. I rode the bike trail day after day for over a year, right by there, and was always looking for new places to ride. I told Josh would have seen them if they were there. But it sounded like something worth looking for, so he and I headed off to find these mysterious walls.
We rode north from the pier, and where the bike path headed up the hill, kind of across PCH from Taco Bell, (about 11th street), he asked about the lower, dirt path. For some reason, I'd never ridden it. It was dirt, and when I was heading to the pier to flatland all day, I didn't want to get my brakes all dirty, I guess.
So Josh White and me ride up this wide dirt area, below the bike path and above the beach itself. It's actually where the railroad into H.B. was built in the early 1900's, just before the big oil boom of 1920, as I found out later. Much to my surprise, there were all these old, crumbling, slightly under vert, concrete retaining walls, about 11 feet high, with murals on them. Most of them had thick sand in front of them, preventing a ride up to hit them for wall rides. We finally found one that didn't have much loose sand, the wall with the Blues Brother mural, and the Three Stooges painted on it. On the very left corner of the wall, there was a built up mound of dirt, maybe 18 inches high, a lip to get your bike up on the wall. Obviously, someone had ridden it before.
Best of all, the wall was just a bit under vert, maybe 80-85 degrees steep, which made it easy to get much higher up than any normal wall ride. Josh was doing 4 or 5 foot high wall rides right off the bat, and nearly 7 feet up before we left. I wall ride the other way, and found a tiny lip, a few inches high, farther down the wall, and got maybe three feet up the wall. I was stoked. Being able to actually grip on the wall, rather than the wall slides we had been doing, made us feel like a hero on the Blues Brothers Wall.
Then we got into a fakie wall ride session. While I'd done fakies on small walls with launch ramps before, I could never get the back wheel bounce to do a true fakie wall ride and land it. But I could roll up the Blues Brothers Wall, like a ramp fakie, and I was having a blast. Josh was getting a couple feet higher up the wall. Hey, he was Josh White, vert superhero. No surprise there. Right before we gave up on that session, he was doing fakies, pulling off the wall, and tweaking a nearly clicked turndown on the way down, and landing them. I'd never seen anything like that before. While Josh rarely came by the H.B. Pier after that, I started riding those walls on a regular basis. I did have a couple of more sessions with Josh, and others, over the next year or so. So that day, I got to know Josh a bit better, just as a rider. The Blues Brothers Wall, and several others, are in my 1990 video, The Ultimate Weekend (below), from 10:57 to 12:20, and around 13:26.
At that time, I had moved jobs from the AFA to work at Unreel Productions, which was on edge of the Costa Mesa mesa, looking north over the oil fields near what is now Sheep Hills. The Sheep Hills trails we know now didn't exist then, but there were some jumps above Sheep's current location, where the condos above Sheep Hills are now, by the bottom end of 19th street. There was a good sized hip jump, and a roll-in then flyout ditch jump, and also a four foot deep, concrete ditch, with banked walls, at the bottom of the hill. As a freestyler who was never good at jumping doubles, I was all about the ditch jump.
This jump was 5 minute ride from the Unreel office, and I realized I could hit it on my lunch break. This was probably the spring of 1989, I think. I started riding over there and getting a quick, half-hour jumping session in at lunch, then hitting the deli near our office on the way back for a sandwich, and eating in my dub room as I got back to work. Life was good.
One day, I was hitting the ditch jump on my lunch break, and Josh White rolled up. I was trying to learn tailwhip jumps, something I'd been struggling with for two years at that time. Joe Johnson did tailwhips on vert then, and even doubles, and I think Mat Hoffman was doing single tailwhips at that time and learning doubles. But no one had done a tailwhip off a jump yet, even off a flyout jump. I had worked out the basic move, leveling the bike off and getting the back end around, but I couldn't land them. I was always beside the bike, not up over it so I could land it. I'd also been trying bunnyhop tailwhips for a year and a half at that point, which everyone knew was impossible. That was just my stupid idea that would never, EVER happen. That's how different the thinking was at the time. Saying you wanted to land a bunnyhop tailwhip in 1989 would be like telling people you want to land a bunnyhop double backflip today. Never gonna happen. (Watch, someone will do a bunnyhop double back off a drop in or something now, give it a year).
At the ditch jump, Josh said he'd thought about learning tailwhips off jumps, but just never tried it. So we took turns hitting the flyout jump, getting maybe 18 inches off the ground, and trying to land a tailwhip. I got close, but couldn't land it. Josh worked out the basic movement pretty quick, and then was getting about to the same point. Neither of us could land it. I headed back to work, leaving Josh riding alone, and that was the last time I saw him at that ditch jump.
A couple of days later, back out at that jump, I snapped my chain heading into the ditch, went over the bars while just rolling in, and dove, Superman-style, into the sandy dirt. The whole side of my face and body was covered in dirt, those painful, stinging scrapes, and then some blood. I scootered my bike painfully back to Unreel, washed up in the bathroom, and went back to work. All afternoon, one person after another walked into my room and asked, "What the hell happened to you?" I only went for a couple more lunchtime jump sessions after that, and started hitting the jump, and other local spots, after work, on my long, sessioning, ride home.
This is my 1990 self-produced video, The Ultimate Weekend. The footage was shot over the spring, summer, and early fall of 1990. If you go to 23:16, you'll see me do three quick double peg grinds on a ledge with screw-on, knurled pegs, and then it leads into a section at a flyout jump. That jump was called Oceanview, and was an epic spot for a few years, in Huntington Beach. It was located at Oceanview High school, on the corner of Warner and Gothard in H.B., and was a big skate spot, as well, in the 1990's. A big addition was built onto the school years later, and this spot is under roof now.
This video section is from a collection of about 6 or 7 different sessions over a few months. Keith Treanor is the standout rider, in the black T-shirt obviously, and John Povah, Woody Itson, Josh White, and Andy Mulcahy are also in it. Josh has the white T-shirt, gray shorts, and light hair. All the footage with Josh was shot in half an hour, one evening when I ran into him there. It was just us, and one local kid, who wandered off pretty quickly. After shooting him doing a bunch of his standard vert variations, some of which he'd never tried on dirt. Josh and I got talking about that time we were both trying tailwhips the year before, at the ditch jump in Costa Mesa. He told me he'd never tried them again. But Oceanview was the perfect jump to land one.
So... with my two-hour camera battery fading, and dusk approaching, Josh White started trying to land his first tailwhip off a jump. He got the feel back pretty quick, and was coming real close. Remember, NO ONE... EVER, had landed a tailwhip off a jump then, as far as I know. If you go to 25:19 in this video, you see Josh come close to landing one, and then, off balance, come running towards the camera. That was the second to last try Josh took that night. I know this because, on the next try, Josh White landed the first tailwhip off a jump I had ever seen, or heard about. Even today, 29 years later, I believe that was the first tailwhip jump ever landed. And my battery died as his bike left the jump. My camera shut off when bike was mid-air. I missed the shot. I missed the shot of the first tailwhip jump ever landed.
I screamed. That wasn't out of place, because Josh White screamed, too. He was super stoked. He didn't realize we were screaming for different reasons. Josh was about ready to strangle me when he asked to see the footage, and I told him my battery had died while he was mid-air. We watched it back, and I think it clicked off just as his bike was leaving the jump. Darkness set it, both in the Huntington Beach evening, and in our souls, knowing what I'd just missed documenting. Ultimately, we just shook our heads and rode off in our separate directions. Sorry about that one, Josh.
If you go to 35:48 in the video, you'll see Mike "Crazy Red" Carlson do what I believe is the first dirt jumping tailwhip to ever appear in a BMX video. This one happened at Edison Jumps, behind Edison High School, on the other end of Huntington Beach. That's located at 21400 Magnolia in H.B. It's a toe dragger, but it's a tailwhip, and it happened on double jumps, not a flyout jump, about three months after the one I saw Josh do. Josh White is also all over this section, but that was shot on a different day than the session with Crazy Red, Chris Moeller, Dave Clymer and the rest. I never met Crazy Red until that day. By the way, this section is the first time the S&M Bikes/P.O.W. House crew appeared in a video as well.
You've
probably seen videos or her, dressed in much more attractive clothes,
doing tricks on You Tube, Instagram, or maybe on TV. But here's Viola
Brand in an actual artistic cycling competition, in a long, and flat out
amazing, routine.
One of the biggest, and longest, adventures in my life was the 20 years
my world revolved around doing tricks on a BMX bike. I got into BMX in a
trailer park, outside of Boise, Idaho, in the summer of 1982, and
entered my first race that fall. BMX changed my life, pure and simple.
I learned my first trick from a magazine how-to, the Haro bar hop, in
early 1983. BMX freestyle became the main theme of my life up until
2003. It only stopped then because I started working 7 days a week as a
taxi driver, and there was no time for anything except work. I've been
trying to get my life back on track, so I can start riding again, in
the last few years.
But before that, back in 1978 or 1979, I was a kid living by a lake in
rural Ohio. I didn't even know BMX existed then. In those days of very
little media, and almost no alternative media, word of BMX racing
hadn't made it to me and my friends in Ohio. I had a banana seat three
speed bike, with a T-shifter on the top tube. My friend Tom, who lived
about half a mile away, had a similar bike. One day I rode to his
house, and he told me he made a little bike jump in the edge of a
field. We would ride down a small hill on the two lane country road,
dodge the potholes, and swerve to the side, where the tractor entrance
to a farmer's wheat field was. Tom had built a little jump, maybe 8
inches high, at the edge of the field. We took turns, riding down the
hill, swerving off the road into the edge of the field, and hitting the
little jump. In 1978, that was a big jump to us.
As we were hitting the jump, a younger kid, Mark Cofer, came riding up.
That was pretty weird, because the kid was about 7 years old, and he
lived a mile and a half away, on a farm. We'd never seen him ride up
our way before. Mark was the youngest of 4 brothers, I think, all of
whom road dirtbikes. They had a sort of motocross track on their farm, a
trail through their cow pasture with small jumps and whoop-dee-doos.
Anyhow, Mark had a beach cruiser-style bike, but it was a 20 inch. It
had a big triangle seat, like all cruiser bikes did then. Mark saw what
we were doing, and started hitting the jump as well. Riding was in his
blood, thanks to his older brothers, and he jumped as well as we did,
on his weird bike.
Then one time he came back up to the top of the hill and said, "Watch
this." He pedaled a little bit, then he climbed one foot up onto his
top tube, and then to his seat. Much to our surprise, Mark stood up on
the seat of his bike, then took his hands off the bars, riding down the
hill, standing straight up on his seat. He somehow swerved around the
potholes, and leaned to swerve into the pasture. He hit the jump in the
seat stand, and flew away from his bike, landing in the grass, as his
bike tumbled to stop. Tom and my minds were blown. We'd never seen
anyone even try to stand up on his seat before. But he not only rode
down the hill on his seat, he managed to hit the jump, too. We were
12-year-olds who just got shown up by a first grader. He did the seat
stand, and hit the jump three times, I think.
I think Tom's mom called him into the house at that point, and we all
went home. I watched Mark Cofer ride down the hill, standing on his
seat, in 1978 or '79. That was 3-4 years before I got into BMX. That
was about the same time that Bob Haro, way out in California, was
riding skateparks and learning his first flatland tricks, before
he did the first BMX "trick riding" demo at a race. BMX freestyle was
just being invented. That was about 15-16 years before Viola Brand was
even born.
I got into BMX in 1982, and wound up in the industry in 1986, and
watched the best riders in the world for the next couple of decades. I
did framestands, and short bar rides ( jumping off, never landing one)
myself. I saw riders do surfers, and really good bar rides. Jeff
Cotter, and a few others did Pop Tarts, jumping up into bar rides. But
for over 30 years, I never once saw, or even heard of, a rider
standing up and riding while standing on their seat. Not until I saw a
video of Viola Brand two or three years ago. She does a seat stand at
2:23 in the video above, the first person I saw do that trick since
little Mark Cofer.
BMX freestyle is its own thing, actually several things now. It's split
into dirt, park, vert, flatland, street, and mega ramp genre's. BMX
freestyle came along at just the right time, along with the other action
sports, to grow exponentially into a worldwide sport and lifestyle
thing. Then it faded some, as mountain bikes took over much of what BMX
riding once was. But there were people doing tricks on bikes long before BMX bikes were even invented in 1970.
Artistic cycling, what Viola is competing in above, officially goes back
to 1956 for men, and 1970 for women, in Europe. But unofficially,
there was an artistic cycling competition way back in 1888. Pedal
bicycles, as we know them today, were invented somewhere around 1875.
I've always thought that bicycle trick riding was probably invented
about 15 minutes after the first bike was invented, when a hot girl
walked by, and some guy tried to impress her. But that's just an
educated guess on my part. We know bicycle trick riding goes back to at least
1899, because Thomas Edison shot movies of it. Yeah, Edison, the guy
who invented the light bulb and the movie camera, among other things.
Here's the movie.
To put that in perspective, the first airplane (invented by bike shop
owners and riders, Orville and Wilbur Wright), was invented four years
after this video above. Here are a few other photos of bicycle trick
riding 100 or more years ago. Old School BMX freestylers in the 1980's
created the BMX freestyle scene, that we now see around the world. But
we didn't invent bicycle trick riding itself. We were lucky
enough to get into it at a time when the world was ready for it to grow
into a worldwide, pretty popular sport/lifestyle.
Dennis McCoy may be middle aged now, but he didn't invent footwork. He just rocked it.
Grandma did trackstands.
Ow. Just ow.
Mega Ramp, circa 1905.
Circus people have always been crazy. I worked on five Cirque du Soleil tours, trust me on this one.
It took about 100 years, and Morgan Wade,
to repeat this trick. Think about that one for a minute. This guy
has no helmet, no emergency rooms. Hell, they didn't even have chromoly
frames back then..
Days ago, as I write this, Mike Varga landed the first 1260 air (that's 3 1/2 spins folks) on a BMX bike, on a halfpipe. It was so crazy, even Mike's tire had its mind blown. As fate would have it, I happened to be there when Mat Hoffman landed the first 900 on vert in a contest, 32 years ago, in the Spring of 1989, in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. As an Old School BMX blogger guy, I decided this would be a good time to go back and look at the history of aerial spins (not flips, just spins) in BMX history. Here goes.
Blogger's note (11/24/2021): I wrote this blog originally in July 2021, on myWPOS Kreative Ideasblog, the blog I was doing primarily at the time. Since I' moved back to this blog, I decided to bring this post back here, so you know I haven't forgotten about BMX. I'm also going to put this post onFreestyle BMX Tales, where I'll do most of my Old School BMX posts from now on.
Bob Haro- forwards 540 on wedge ramp and rollback 360- 1980-This video says Bob is 22 years old, and he was born inJune of 1958, so this is 1980, or early 1981. That's the very early days of BMX freestyle as a demo activity, years before the first competitions. The rollback to 360 by Bob Haro (1:22) is probably the first spinning trick on a BMX bike. I'm pretty sure the front wheel 360 spin came later. Bob also does a solid forwards 540 on the wedge ramp at :27.
Andy Ruffel- 360 jump in 1983-26:05 Andy also does Old School 360 bunnyhops, also called 360 floaters BITD, at 25:32. He also does a front wheel 360 on a wedge ramp at 21:44. Oh, and don't play chicken with airplanes, they have propellers.
Eddie Fiola- 360's over small doubles (by today's standards) in races in 1983? 1984? I remember reading an interview with Eddie Fiola in 1983 or maybe early 1984, where he said he had done 360's in BMX races over doubles. I actually asked Eddie about this a few months back. If I remember correctly, I think he said they were about 2 foot high doubles, maybe 8 feet apart, standard for BMX tracks in that era. No photos or video for this, but I did get the story straight from Eddie himself.
R.L. Osborn, front wheel 360 on a quarterpipe on video, 1984.This Mountain Dew commercial, which featured R.L. Osborn, Eddie Fiola, Ron Wilkerson, and bike stuntman Pat Romano, aired nationwide on network Tv in the summer of 1984. I was about a year into learning tricks on BMX bikes myself, and RAN to the TV to see this commercial, every time I heard the music start. As a high school kid in Idaho then, I'd never seen a 540 on a quarterpipe, or a front wheel 360, which is what R.L. does here at :27. It took me all summer to figure out what R.L. was doing, we didn't have a VCR, and no one I knew to tape the commercial in those days. Also R.L. with a 360 lake jump at the end.
Legend has it the Woody Itson did the first 540 on a quarterpipe, about halfway up the ramp, sometime about 1984-1985. While known as mainly flatland rider to us younger guys of that era, Woody rode jumps, skateparks, and ramps, as well, in the early days. I can't confirm this, so if anyone can, let me know.
Eddie Fiola- 360 flyout on quarterpipe to deck-1984. It's at 1:33 in this clip. This one is at the AFA Master contest in the old Surf Theater parking lot in Huntington Beach, in the late summer of 1984.
Eddie Fiola- 540 in the Pipe Bowl, Pipeline Skatepark in 1985.To the best of my knowledge, this was the first 540 on video in a skatepark, though not the first 540 on a ramp. Leave it to the original King of the Skateparks, Eddie Fiola, to bust this one first.
Josh White- One of the first 540's on a quarterpipe, on video- 1985-It's at 1:29 in this clip. This is the Huntington Beach, CA AFA Masters contest in 1985, in the old Surf Theater parking lot. At the time of this contest, Josh White was a completely unknown amateur from Oregon, so you can bet he turned some heads blasting huge airs, and a 540, at this comp. He debuted to the rest of us in a feature interview inFREESTYLIN'magazine, in the August 1986 issue, and was riding for the GT factory team by then.
Mike Dominguez- 7'-8' high 540(judging by sprocket height)- 1987- It's at 9:33 in this clip. AFA Masters contest in Oregon. This was in the 8 foot high by 8 foot wide AFA quarterpipe, with no vert.
Craig Campbell- Wall ride to 360 (aka 540 wall ride)-Spring 1988- It was the first 2-Hip Meet the Street contest in Santee, California, at one of Dave Voelker's favorite riding spots. Street had been emerging, but there had been only one contest in NorCal, no one really knew what to expect at this comp. Craig Campbell blew everyone's mind pull this wall ride to 360 out of nowhere, at 4:53 in the clip.
Jeremy Alder- the world's first barspin air- 1988-In a small East Coast contest at the Crownsville Fairgrounds in Maryland, Jeremy Alder, largely unknown to West Coast riders, stepped up the game with the world's first barspin air. It's right at the end of the video, go to 3:50. He also does a couple of half barspin airs early on, a couple really big 540's for that era, and a 360 flyout to abubaca. Jeremy was sponsored by Haro Bikes for a couple of years. Progression.
Mike Dominguez nearly lands a 900 in fall 1988-4:55-Mike Dominguez claimed to have landed 2 or 3 900's on his own ramp, months before Mat Hoffman landed the first one in a contest. But there was no video and no photos. Some people believed Mike, some weren't sure. At 4:55 in this video, shot at the 2-Hip King of Vert finals in September or October of 1988, Mike hucks a 900 attempt and just barely misses landing it. I believe Mike on nailing the 900. About six months later, Mat did it with several camerasrolling (including mine, as Vision cameraman), and made the 900 official.
Mat Hoffman- first 900 on vert in a contest-2-Hip King of Vert, Spring, 1989. Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. (My angle of that 900 is at the end ofthis clip- 14:43). None of us knew he was planning to try that (except Steve Swope), until he tried the first one. Mat missed the first attempt, and landed it on his second try.
Mat Hoffman- First no handed 540- 1989-It's at 1:34:00 in this video. Mat actually pulled the no handed 540 the contest before this, at Woodward in Pennsylvania, but I couldn't find video on YouTube. This is the 2-Hip King of Vert after that, in Colorado Springs. I was the cameraman on this shot, and the video (Ride Like a Man) was edited by Eddie Roman.
Craig Campbell with the first dirt jump 720 on video-1989-In this Ozone freestyle team segment onHome Turf, a local San Francisco Bay Area TV show for kids, Craig lands a 720 at the Calabassas jumps in San Jose, at 1:49.This video has interviews with Craig Grasso, Craig Campbell, and Pete Brandt, I believe, and there's some funny stuff. It's worth watching the whole video.
Ride Like a Man- 2-Hip/Eddie Roman directed video- 1990-3:32- Maurice Meyer- 360 street abubaca. 4:02- Eddie Roman and ?, 360 down 6 long steps. 7:06- Rider?- 360 nsoepick over spine. 13:04- Rider? Flatland body varial spin thing around the seat. 22:06- Vic Murphy?- fastplant to 360 on flat.24:44- Mike Krnaich- tailtap 540 on spine. 28:34- Bob Kohl- tailwhip drop-in on 8 foot ramp.
The Ultimate Weekend (my self-produced video) 1990-Chris Moellerwith thebiggest 360 over doubles on videoat that time- 35:45 (Mike "Crazy Red" Carlsonlands a toe dragger tailwhip earlier, same session). Keith Treanorwith thefirst 360 over a spine on video- 22:12.Gary Laurentalso does one at- 22:56 (same session). Josh White, lookback 360 (on a flyout)- 23:59. Josh White, one hand one foot 360 (flyout)- 24:13. Keith Treanor, big one hand 360- 25:25
Eddie Roman's Ride On video-1992-Intro-Huge 360 over doubles(rider unknown). Dave Voelker(?)- turndown 360- 1:39. First no handed 360 on video (?) Rider unknown- 1:55. There will be more, I need to watch this whole video again...
Mat Hoffman jumps three flaming cars on Stuntmasters- 5:53. 1991or 1992? Crazy as it sounds, I got this idea underway, but never knew the stunt actually happened. I was working at a TV production company in 1991, and sent some footage from the 2-Hip King of Dirt at Mission Trails to motorcycle distance jumper Johnny Airtime, who worked in the other office. Much to my surprise, the BMX stuff blew his mind, and he wanted to know what kind of real stunts a BMXer might be able to do. Johnny and I threw ideas back and forth over the phone, and came up with a 360 over three flaming cars. I was trying to hook up Chris Moeller or Dave Clymer for the gig. Johnny had sen footage of Mat Hoffman, and asked, "Could Mat do it?" I said, "Yeah." I quit that company about a month later, but the Stuntmaster's show happened, and Mat did the stunt with ease. In a side note, according to Mat's book, it was Johnny Airtime, on this stunt show, who told Mat that if he wanted to do bigger airs, he needed a bigger ramp. Mat and Steve Swope built the first 20 foot tall mega quarterpipe soon after.
Jay Miron- First public 540 tailwhip- 1998- at 8:24. There's a lot of vert ripping in this clip, by Miron, Dave Osato, Tony Hawk, and others. That rollback nosewheelie tailwhip to drop back in thing Jay does? WTF? Never seen that trick. I'll make you watch the whole clip to find that one. The info says this was a small comp. at BC Place. Sponsored by Kokanee beer! Canada, eh.
Nitcholi Rogatkin- mountain bike 1440- 2017-That's 4 full spins, corked out. That's the record right now on a jump, and 3 1/2 (1260), in the video at the top of this post, is the reigning record on vert.
Dennis McCoy- Longest span being able to do BMX 900's on vert-1990-2021? First 900- Summer 1990-in Indianapolis, IN. 900 at age 52 in 2018.That's a 28 year span of being able to land one of the craziest vert tricks ever, on video. I believe he has pulled at least one 900 in 2021, stretching that span to 31 years. DMC continues to amaze us all.
What about the women? BMX freestyle has been a boy's club from the start, but since girls like racers likeDeanna EdwardsandCheri Elliot,and freestylersKrys Dauchyfrom Ohio andAlma Jo Barrerafrom Texas in the 80's, there have been some women riding hard on BMX bikes. So here are some of the best women's clips of spinning tricks from recent years.
Women spinning tricks in 2019-Mexico City Van's comp-2:28- gnarly backflip attempt. 3:06- Macarena Perez- Tailwhip air. 7:00-Natalya Diehm- tailwhip jump.
Top Ten Women's BMX tricks compilation- 2021-:02 Macarena Perez- backflip over box jump. :07- Nikita Ducarroz- 540 on vert. :16- Charlotte Worthington- Flair on vert. :20- Shanice Silva Cruz- front flip on box jump. :26- Hannah Roberts- tuck no handed 360 jump. :29- Hannah Roberts- double tailwhip jump. :39- Hannah Roberts- triple barspin. :43- Hannah Roberts- double truckdriver jump (360 barspin to barspin). So yeah, there are a lot fewer women riders than men, but they're holding there own out there at the parks.
This blog post got out of hand real quick. I did a similar post about backflips a while back, but there are a lot more spinning tricks. I could watch and dig into old videos, and add 100 more variations to this list. But I'm going to stop it here. I did say a "brief" history of spinning tricks. The idea for this post, after seeing Mike Varga's insane 1260 on vert, was to show the long and continuing progression on the basic idea of spinning your bike around, one way or another. I seriously never thought a 1260 on vert would happen.
The craziest thing about this post is that I couldn't figure out who did the first truck driver, a 360 over a jump with a barspin. Logic would say Chris Moeller might have been the guy, but I was roommates with Chris for quite a while in the earl 90's, and I think he was the 2nd or 3rd guy to do one. Maybe Tim "Fuzzy" Hall did it first? But I'm not sure on that, the first and most basic 360 variation.
I also found tricks and clips I had no idea existed, like Andy Ruffel doing a 360 on film in 1983, and the Australian video supposedly from 1980. This post is not complete, by any means, but I've got a lot of the firsts, or firsts on video, in a timeline in one place. That was the basic idea, to see when spinning tricks and certain variations began, and how they fit into the 43 or so years that BMX freestyle has been a thing. Thanks, as always, for checking out my blog post. I'm not going to do as many Old School BMX posts as I have in years past, I've written well over 1,000 already. But I'll try to make the ones I do good ones.
What's a Spinaroonie? Listen to Eddie Roman's color commentary, 4:58 inthis clip. I was the cameraman for that footage, by the way.
Allen Valek, street abubaca at the Santa Ana Civic Center in 1990. Still from my 1990 video, The Ultimate Weekend.
This one happened in the early fall of 1986, when the Haro team got back from their summer tour. Actually, there were two Haro touring teams then, this one was Ron Wilkerson, Brian Blyther, and Dave Nourie, the other with the remaining Haro riders. I was working at Wizard Publications, home of FREESTYLIN', magazine, and editor Andy Jenkins came over my intercom, and asked me to come down to his office. That was 50 feet away, across the little warehouse area in the Wizard building. Andy said there was a photo shoot later that day. Ron Wilkerson had some new trick called," and Andy made a funny face as he said it, "the abubaca." I looked perplexed, "A -boob-a-what?" I asked. Andy said, "I don't know, that's Ron's name for some new trick. We're going to a shoot a how-to of it."
Andy gave me the info, I had to drive Windy Osborn, the Wizard photographer, and Ron, in the Wizard Astro van, to the alley behind a well known bike shop in Redondo Beach, where they had a quarterpipe. I headed back to my office, and looked up the address in the Thomas Guide, a big, phone book sized map book of Southern California, so I could find the place. I made sure there was some gas in the van, and headed back into my office to work on other stuff until it was time for the shoot.
Ron showed up later that afternoon, and I saw him talking to Andy and Windy. Windy swung by my office, and said she was taking Ron out to the T.O.L. Ramp in the parking lot, to shoot some pics there, and they'd be ready to head to the bike shop in 15 minutes or so. I headed down to Andy's office, and he and Lew told gave me a microcassette recorder, and told me to wedge it by my leg, out of sight, and try to get Ron talking about tour and saying some crazy stuff. I was baffled. "Ron's crazy, we all know that, I'm pretty sure he'll say some crazy stuff anyhow." The whole sneaky recording bit bothered me, and seemed kind of pointless. But I just nodded, and took the recorder.
Meanwhile, Ron Wilkerson was outside, completely wrecking himself for Windy's camera. He was doing a no footed backwards drop-in on the T.O.L. ramp. Stand the bike on the edge of the deck, backwards, step up into an endo, sit on the seat, take both feet off and stretch the legs wide, then bring the feet back to the pedals, as he dropped backwards into the 8 foot ramp, landing fakie. He could do the trick, but not consistently, and he got the seat jammed into his ass on 3 out of 4 tries. But it made for a great photo, I remember it ran at some point. Despite the painful bails on the backwards drop-ins, Ron was ready to head to the bike shop, and show us this new trick, the a-boob-a-something...
Windy hopped in the white Astro van, sitting shotgun, and Ron sat right behind us, on the floor. I pulled out the micro recorder, in full view, and said something like, "Let's hear some crazy tour stories..." I set the recorder on the floor in front of Ron. I can't remember what he talked about, but it was funny shit. Windy, of course, knew Ron well, so they pretty much talked the whole way to the shop, maybe 15 minutes away. I rolled up this alley, and saw the quarterpipe in the back, and parked nearby.
One thing a lot of people don't know, or forget, from those early days of freestyle, is that there was no standard quarterpipe size until about 1987. The original Bob Haro designs, printed in the magazine, for riders around the country to see, was for a six foot high, eight foot wide ramp, that came just under vert. That's what my Boise teammate Justin Bickel had, and what a lot of us kids then rode in our local shows or in our driveways. Those ramps would be considered a mini-ramp today.
When the factory teams built ramps on trailers to go on tour, the sizes ranged widely. The Skyway team had a 9 foot high, 8 foot wide quarterpipe, with 2 or 3 inches of vert, I believe. The Haro ramp was 8 foot high, and 8 foot wide, just up to vert. The GT ramp was 9 feet high, 9 foot transition, and 5 feet wide ramp (seriously, ask Eddie Fiola about drifting a little to the side on that toothpick). Everybody had slightly different ramps then, and it took some getting used to when you rode some new one somewhere, or at a contest.
The bike shop quarterpipe, best I can recall, was seven feet high, with an elliptical transition, and about a foot of vert. It was one seriously fucked up transition. By elliptical, I mean that it hit vert six feet up, but it wasn't a six foot radius, it got steep real quick. Take an egg out of the fridge, and hold it vertical on a table, with the small end down. Now imagine a quarterpipe with the transition like one side of that egg. It was rideable, but really weird and steep.
Ron Wilkerson, already known as a master of lip tricks, wasn't phased. He did a couple of small airs to get the feel of the ramp, and let Windy get set up for the shot. Then he went for the new trick, the abubaca. He went fairly slow, like he was going to do a fakie air. But then he landed the back wheel on the edge of the deck, the bike leaned forward, and then Ron hopped backwards, trying to land back on the transition. But the ramp was so steep, he landed at the very bottom of the ramp... hard... and shot backwards, landing on his back on the ground. It had to hurt.
But the trick dumbfounded me. It just seemed too gnarly to land right on the edge of the ramp, 7 feet up, and then hop backwards into the ramp, blind. I'd seen Eddie Fiola, earlier that summer, do a trick he called the Expo, that also dropped in backwards. Eddie would flyout, doing a 90 degree turn, landing sideways on the deck of the ramp, balance a second, then hop back in fakie. Both tricks were insane at the time. But the abubaca depended on landing right on the edge of the ramp, any mistake, and a painful would result.
At the time, the abubaca seemed completely insane. Ron got up, dusted himself off, sore after that crash, and the other bails at Wizard. Then he tried again, as Windy's Nikon's motordrive clicked and whirred. Same thing, Ron caught a tiny bit of the bottom of the ramp, but ate shit hard again. He ended up doing the trick about 7 times, I think, and ate shit hard on 3 or 4 of them. But he landed the first abubaca Windy Osborn and I had ever seen, and then a couple more. That sequence that got printed, and changed vert riding, and later street riding, forever. While Ron played it off as no big deal, I know he was hurtin' when we headed back to the shop. With Windy confident she had the sequence on film, we thanked the bike shop owner, who walked out to watch, and loaded up for the short trip back to 3162 Kashiwa Street in Torrance, the Wizard warehouse.
I turned the recorder on again, and Ron told us some more funny stories about tour. I gave the micro-recorder back to Andy, and him and Lew were both stoked on Ron Wilkerson's stories. Windy got the sequence, but I don't know what issue it came out in. I checked Old School Mags.com, but they're missing issues around this time. It was probably in the January 1987 issue of FREESTYLIN'. So that's the story of how Ron Wilkerson's foundational vert and street trick, the abubaca, got into FREESTYLIN' magazine, for the first time.
Here's a Pacific Currents news segment on Maurice Meyer, and the Golden Gate Park BMX freestyle scene, from 1986. Since my laptop got stolen a month ago, and the new (refurbished) one hasn't arrived yet, I can't share any of my own photos of me riding on this post. So I went with this clip, which is much cooler, anyway.
There are a bunch of things I love about this Pacific Currents segment from 1986. First of all it focuses on Maurice "Drob" Meyer, who never got near enough coverage as a rider in the BMX mags back in the day, (or in my blogs, for that matter). Drob is an all around solid human being, he was back then, and still is. I've written way more than I should have about Dave Vanderspek over the years. But in the year I lived in San Jose (1985-86), and rode and did a zine with these guys, it was Maurice, of the six BMX freestyle pros, that I actually talked to the most, and who helped me with my riding the most. I did really appreciate that. The other Bay Area pros then were Dave Vanderspek, Robert Peterson, Hugo Gonzales, Oleg Konings, and Rick Allison. Those guys were who I interviewed and wrote about in San Jose Stylin' zine, and who helped me to become a better rider, a known zine publisher, and hopefully a somewhat better human being.
Now, as a moderate egomaniac, the other thing I love about this segment is... that I'm in it, chasing my bike at 5:07. My goofy Idaho parade trick, the "chaser" got me in this segment. This is the oldest video of me riding, which is why I've used this clip too many times. Another great aspect of this TV clip is the rest of the Golden Gate locals posse, also in it. Was it just a really creative group of young guys who were drawn to BMX freestyle? Or did coming together as riders on Sundays help us become more creative people later in life? I think it was probably a bit of both. There's Karl Rothe at 4:22 (later a sponsored am and editor at BMX Plus!), Mike Perkins at 4:26, Chris Rothe at 4:35 (runs a ranch for E-Bikes in the Sierras these days), Marc McKee at 4:44 (became the single most influential skateboard graphics designer at World Industries later on), and not featured in this clip were John Ficarra (later ran a movie car rental business and is now an auto racing industry historian), among others. We were just a bunch of guys drawn to this new, weird, little sport of BMX freestyle at the time. But this was a really creative bunch, which became apparent as the years went on.
This blog came out of some recent Facebook chats with Sven in Norway, who had trouble trying to support my Patreon page, because of currency issues. The U.S. dollar has been beating up foreign currencies for a while now, though it's dropped back a little recently. He was telling me recently how he "went down the rabbit hole" into a bunch of my blog posts the other day, one post leading to another. I've heard that from other readers over the years.
Sven has done a ton to sell my drawing prints in Scandinavia and Europe, which really helped me survive the pandemic years. But I can't sign anyone into my Patreon page, where I do some exclusive content, unless they sign up for a monthly contribution. I wanted to at least collect a bunch of my better BMX posts in one spot, and thought about calling this "Sven Blog" at first. As I started thinking about the idea, I thought of a whole bunch of people who have helped me over the last several years. So the idea morphed into Club White Bear blog. This blog is for all of you who have helped me keep going in some way, over the last several years.
I'm not going to promote this blog, or add tags to raise its profile in the search engines, like I usually do. While anyone can find it by typing in the URL, it will sit here quietly, and I'm going to cut and paste several of my best BMX related posts here, as time goes on, and write some original posts, from time to time, as well. Those of you reading this blog can share it all you like, and link to it wherever you like. But its main purpose is to sit here on the down low, with a bunch of my best Old School BMX freestyle content, for those of you in the know.
When I actually tried to sell memberships to Club White Bear, a few years ago, Brian Reed, a zine publisher from the South Bay area of L.A., and friend since about 1986, was the original member. All of you I let know about this blog are the people I consider Club White Bear "members." I'd like to thank you all for your help, support, and encouragement over the years. I have a bunch of my own struggles, some of which I can't talk about, that have kept me from getting back on top financially, for many years now. These issues have also kept me from being able to get a bike, and to ride again, for many years, because I can't keep a bike safe while homeless, basically. But I can keep writing about riding, and the cool experiences I've had thanks to BMX freestyle (and a bit of skateboarding, as well).
If I sent you the link to this blog, welcome to Club White Bear.
All of you have helped me in some way, and I do actually appreciate it, even if I get overwhelmed by life, and seem like a dick at times. I'm going to add 2 or 3 of my best BMX posts below, and then start sharing this link. There will be a lot more here to come. Thanks again, and enjoy the blog.
