Dan Hubbard and Team Pro Motion

I'm continuing with my 25th anniversary look back at my 1990 video, The Ultimate Weekend.  Today's clip begins at 12:20 in the video above: Team Pro Motion.

I  met SoCal local rider Dan Hubbard, or Danny as we called him back then, in 1986 when I worked at Wizard Productions.  Dan was a high school kid then, and had a 8 foot high halfpipe at his parents' house in Palos Verdes.  P.V. is a sort of hilly peninsula of upscale houses that juts out into the Pacific between Redondo Beach and Long Beach.  Gork and Lew took me to Dan's house, I think we just went up to ride.  Dan's halfpipe was my favorite ever for one reason.  It's the only ramp I ever got air on.  That's a long story, which goes back to this sketchy quarterpipe I bought from some skaters in Idaho.  My QP was six feet high, had a foot of vert, and had this gap in the plywood between the transition and the vert.  On my driveway, the vert was actually over-vert.  So I couldn't do actual airs, I would do airs a foot below the top of the ramp.  Somehow, that turned into a weird mental block for me, and from then on, I couldn't get out on any ramp.  Except for Dan Hubbard's halfpipe for some reason. 

In any case, I met Dan in '86 at his house, and he was a super clean cut kid and a hardcore rider.  He was at all the AFA SoCal local contests and was known for having a totally dialed, super clean routine.  He could ride flatland and vert, but flat was where he dominated.  He did well in contest after contest, hardly ever touching his foot down.  In fact, I remember one contest where a bunch of us were so sick of Dan's flawless routines, that we joked around about putting Vaseline on his rims so his brakes wouldn't work, just so we could see him screw up for once.  But we never did that, we liked Dan, after all. 

Like so many other riders in the mid-80's, Dan formed a trick team and did shows.  But he was one of the few that turned his trick team into a legit business, and by 1990, when this video was shot, Dan was a professional rider promoting his own shows.  The other two riders in this segment are his teammates, Jeff Cotter, with the long hair, and legendary Camarillo Ramp rider Todd Anderson. 

For this section, Dan set up his ramp in a parking lot on the North side of Redondo Beach, with Palos Verdes in the background.  I shot the three riders from a whole bunch of different angles, so I could show off my editing skills when put this segment together.  Dan and Jeff were local SoCal riders at the time, not very well known on the national scene.  Todd Anderson, on the other hand, was already a legend, and I was really stoked to get them all in my video. 

Years later, Dan told me that this was the only bike video he'd ever been featured in.  And I have him riding to my lame-ass song, "Cottage Cheese Disease."  I'm really sorry about that Dan.  In any case, the three of them busted out that afternoon.  Dan did his signature flawless flatland combos and a cool fakie on the ramp.  Jeff showed off his flatland chops, including the Pop Tart, a jump up to a bar ride, which was a pretty new trick at the time, and still seems insane to me.  Todd Anderson, of course, showed off his classic ramp style.

In the time after this video was shot, Dan continued to run his trick team, and still does today, as far as I know.  He has one or two teams doing shows for kids and promoting freestyle around the U.S.  Jeff Cotter went off and joined the Ringling Brothers Circus after this was shot, and hung out with Jose Yanez, the guy who did the first backflips on a BMX bike.  Jeff was the first freestyler to learn flips, and did them into water at the end of this video.  Todd Anderson rode for a while longer, then went on to shoe horses for a living, which I believe he still does today. 

I addition, Dan Hubbard went on to become a successful Hollywood stuntman, and got past his squeaky clean reputation as a rider, and has done some really crazy stuff over the years for TV shows and movies.  One of the best things about looking back at this video for me is seeing where all these riders have gone since this was made.