The First Mega Ramp

This is footage I shot at the 2-Hip King of Dirt in spring of 1991.  The footage was edited and used in the first official S&M Bikes video, Feel My Leg Muscles... I'm A Racer.  That video title was a line Dave Clymer used to pick up his girlfriend at the time. 

OK, for this second post on the new version of Freestyle BMX Tales, I'm jumping forward a bit to 1991.  To set the mood, BMX and freestyle had nearly died in 1989.  At the bike trade show in early 1989 I heard one thing over and over, "BMX is dead, mountain bikes are the new thing."  After that trade show, nearly every company either dropped completely or seriously cut back their BMX and freestyle programs.  At the same time, street riding was becoming its own genre, and the AFA's flatland and quarterpipe contests were fading in popularity.  Veteran Haro pro Ron Wilkerson became the main promoter of contests, putting on halfpipe, street, and dirt contests.  At this time, the fledgling indy company S&M Bikes, headed by racer/jumper Chris Moeller, was being run out of a tiny one bedroom apartment.  There were a whole bunch of hardcore riders still, but the industry just plain gave up on us.  Those were some of the best days of BMX, when pros traded ramen recipes and slept on whatever motel floor was available at contests.  Pro purses were small but the tricks kept getting bigger.  Into this world came the word that Ron Wilkerson was going to hold a dirt contest at the legendary Mission Trails jumps near San Diego.  Mission Trails was home to Death Jump, a steep roll in to a three foot kicker that launched riders over 25 feet of flat and then to a steep down hill landing that was hardpack covered by sandy dirt.  Wiping out was like landing on sandpaper.  We were seriously worried someone might die at that contest. 

There was a crowd of 150 or so people that day, nearly all hitting the jumps one after another.  In those days there were many more people riding than taking photos or shooting video.  I went there with the S&M Bikes/P.O.W. House crew including Chris Moeller, Dave Clymer, Keith Treanor, and others.  Tim "Fuzzy" Hall was there, and boosted a killer archibald over the table top jump.  Mike "Crazy Red" Carlson did a decade over the same jump, which was a pretty new variation at the time.  Mike Kranaich (I never could spell his last name) was coming close to landing double tailwhips on that same jump, the first time any of us had seen that trick tried.  Then the contest moved up to the double jump.  Vic Murphy was doing textbook caliber tabletops.  Chris Moeller is seen in the clip above trying 360's over that jump.  But the real mind blowing came when Mat Hoffman tried a backflip over the jump, the first time anyone had seen that tried on dirt.  He under-rotated and crashed.  But hell, he's Mat Hoffman, so he tried it again, and didn't make it that time either.  But Mat let the genie out of the bottle, he came close enough to show everyone that backflips on double jumps were possible, and several people learned them in the next couple of years.  Mat was a vert rider in all our minds, nobody really expected him to try something unheard of on dirt. 

Then came the part of the contest that excited and scared everyone: Death Jump.  Secretly we were all hoping it wouldn't live up to its name that day.  Now keep in mind, this was just a big group of hardcore riders out in the desert.  There were no TV cameras or crew people.  There were no paramedics.  It was as core as could be.  Just a bunch of the world's best riders trying the biggest jump anyone had ever seen up to that point.  In the clip above you see Bill Nitschke endo on death jump.  It was a gnarly crash, but amazing because Bill was best known as a flatlander.  Keith Treanor ejected off his bike and did a painful one hand, two feet slide down the landing.  One of the locals jumped it shirtless, kicking into a half tabletop.  Dave Clymer is the guy in the clip who does the eject to back slide, saved by his mailman short shorts.  Chris Moeller was definitely one of the favorites of the day, he'd earned a big reputation as one of the world's craziest jumpers.  He easily cleared the big jump a few times, then managed a big no hander.  You can hear Ron Wilkerson on the mike going,"Yeeeaaah!" after that one.  Mat was still riding, despite his hard backflip crashes, and hucked a no footer to no footed can-can to no footer over Death Jump.  Dang!  Also in the mix was all-around riding legend Dennis McCoy.  He hucked a backflip  attempt, and then a 720 attempt, crashing hard both times. 

But the crashes of the day belonged to the relatively unknown Mike "Crazy Red" Carlson.  He had several huge bails that day, but the climax was his 360 attempt into the crowd where he hits another bike which flips up and hits him in the head.  Somehow, everyone walked away from that contest... well a few were limping.  There was plenty of road rash from the hard, sandpaper-like landings.  Eddie Roman and I got video footage, and we both used it in videos later that year. 

The biggest thing about the 2-Hip King of Dirt contest at Mission Trails was that it completely changed everyone's perspective about what was possible on dirt jumps.  This was four years before the first X-Games.  BMX was "dead."  But a handful of guys changed the way we all looked at our bikes forever.  Suddenly backflips were on the table.  Twenty five foot jumps were on the table.  Double tailwhips were on the table.  In one crazy, thristy afternoon, BMX riding changed forever.  In my typical way, I was wondering about the future.  Death Jump reminded me of the freestyle skiing jumps where people did triple backflips.  Watching Death Jump that day, I predicted someone would eventually do a double backflip on a bike, as crazy as it seemed at the time.  It took several years, but it eventually did happen.  Now as I write this 24 years later, both a BMXer and a MX rider have done triple backflips.  How far will it progress?   That's up to today's young huckers.