This past Monday, Memorial Day, was also the 40th anniversary of the opening of Pipeline Skatepark in Upland, California. It opened with the namesake full pipe attached to a bowl that was amazing for BMX bikes. Pipeline wasn't far from the already legendary Baldy Pipe, which had already been skated for a while. Baldy was a 16 foot diameter pipe, Pipeline's was 20 feet.
Here's Eddie Fiola, the original King of the Skateparks, being interviewed by Don Hoffman. Don's parents, Stan and Jean, owned Pipeline, which took both skating and BMX vert to a whole different level. Eddie is rocking the MF jersey, which stood for Morales (as in Bob) and Fiola.
A Kickstarter campaign for a Pipeline/Badlands documentary is getting going. More on all that later. I'm moving this week, so I'll be adding more posts in 2 or 3 days.
At fifty years old, I'm way overweight after years of taxi driving and bad eating habits. I'm starting to lost the weight. As an old BMXer, I went looking online for a good bike to get me riding again. I kept seeing Todd Lyon's posts on Facebook, he's the SE Bikes brand manager now. I checked out his video for the SE Fat Ripper, and that's when I found this clip by Seth's Bike Hacks YouTube channel. This video is the reason I decided to start saving up for a Fat Ripper. I've become a fan of Seth's YouTube channel.
As most of you reading this know, I've been telling old school BMX stories in my blogs since I moved to North Carolina in November 2008. Moving here, I lost all my bike videos and DVD's, I lost all the master tapes to videos I produced, and I lost dozens of hours of raw footage ranging from 1989 to 2007. I had been planning to make my own documentary of BMX freestyle at some point. Because I couldn't borrow money to get my stuffed shipped from California, I lost one of the best raw footage collections in the freestyle world. All I had left were memories. So I started blogging.
In the last nine years, I've written about 800 posts about the early days of BMX freestyle, and I have lots more to tell. I'd like to thank all of you who've read and enjoyed my bike tales over the years.
When I came to NC, I couldn't find a decent job. It was late 2008 and the bottom was dropping out of the economy, so I wasn't alone. I eventually drove a taxi here for a while, and spent a year struggling to survive while living in my taxi. I've also been selling my Sharpie artwork here and there to make a little money. I'm too old to get hired at entry level jobs here, and my "eclectic"work history seems to keep me from getting a good paying job in some other area. But I spent most of my life in highly entrepreneurial Southern California. When I couldn't find a decent job, I thought, "OK, I'll create my own job."
But the truth is, I wrote most of 800 or so posts on the different versions of Freestyle BMX Tales while I was homeless and looking for work. At the same time, I've been educating myself on how writing and art works in today's world. It's a completely different industry than when my zine landed me a job at Wizard Publications in 1986. In today's world, many magazines have died, websites have taken over, and most make money from ads and links. But something else has happened thanks to the web and today's crazy technology. Millions of people have started websites, blogs, YouTube channels about things they are actually passionate about. This blog is one of those things, and so is Seth's You Tube channel above. Today's tech let's creative people in little niches create all kinds of stuff to share with the world. But there's been one huge problem. Money.
Either creative people need to finance their creative work from their job, and do it as a hobby. Or they need to dumb it down for a mass audience and try to be one of the small number of people who makes a ton of money on YouTube from ads or through affiliate links on blogs and websites.
But there's another option. With a service called Patreon, you can support creative people doing cool stuff in a way that doesn't require us to dumb stuff down or sell our souls just for advertising dollars. You can now support people just because you're stoked on what we do.
I've done a lot of things over the years. Telling stories about the early days of BMX freestyle is not my main focus now. My main focus is writing zines, blogs, and doing artwork to encourage people to build creative scenes. After reading lots of books that would bore most of you, I've learned that "creative scenes," like local bike scenes, skate scenes, art scenes, music scenes, actually play a huge role in creating jobs in today's world. We got into BMX freestyle in the 80's because we liked this weird, new, creative sport-type thing. Along the way, we formed little local scenes. We also discovered the DIY ethic and started shooting photos, putting on shows, making zines, videos, magazines, and bike companies. Because we liked riding, we created an entire industry that created a ton of jobs. The same thing happened in skateboarding, snowboarding, high tech, and dozens of other creative areas.
But now we're in a world where tech is taking over human jobs by the millions. One industry after another has lost jobs to new forms of technology. The high paying factory jobs of our childhood are gone, and no one is replacing them. People looking into the future are really worried about jobs for humans in the next few decades. I see one viable solution. Millions of people will have to create their own jobs, in new businesses in dozens of new industries.
I'm taking what I've learned from being a part of many creative scenes, and taking those ideas to a new generation of creative people. Some will be middle-aged geezers like myself, but most will be younger people who create stuff, but haven't experienced how a creative activity, like BMX freestyle, can turn into a whole new industry. This is my work. Writing and drawing IS MY JOB NOW. If you want to support my work, you can do it on my Patreon page. You get goodies, by the way, for different levels of support.
You can also support Seth's YouTube channel on the link at the end of the video above. Welcome to the world where you can directly support and communicate with the creative people who do stuff you're stoked on. You now have the power to support the people doing the things you think are good in the world. Go for it.
The late Dave Vanderspek schools the cops and the news media on the difference between a skate contest, a sticker toss, and a riot. Normal people just didn't get it back then. And we liked it that way.
On Facebook recently there was a promo for an upcoming book about BMX freestyle, and it listed the names of riders that would be featured in the book. There were a lot of great names on the list. But I noticed one glaring omission, there was no one from NorCal. You just can't tell the story of BMX freestyle without the San Francisco Bay Area riders. They didn't invent freestyle, but they left an lasting imprint on the whole freestyle scene. I'm not just saying that because I was part of the scene for a while. I'm saying that because BMX freestyle wouldn't be BMX freestyle without Golden Gate Park, the Curb Dogs, the Skyway team, the Ground Control crew, and the attitude that rose from the crazy streets of San Francisco. Here's a look at the NorCal influence through the videos of NorCal riders.
Blogger's note: I just saw the link to Dom Phipps' book, and on the website and it DOES mention the Curb Dogs and Maurice Meyer. It was the Facebook post that didn't have any NorCal reference that was my spark to create this post, which I've been working on for a few days now.
Many of you have been reading my blogs for nearly a decade. For as little as $1 a month, you can help support my work here.
The Pro Riders Dave Vanderspek was unquestionably the charismatic leader of both the Curb Dogs and the Golden Gate Park Freestyle scene. He was also a good skater, and was the first person to really bring the skateboard and punk rock influence into freestyle. Maurice Meyer, aka "Drob" was a solid, always underrated rider BITD, but not the outgoing promoter that Dave was. I always thought of Drob as the "assistant manager of NorCal freestyle." He was kind of the second in command guy in the Curb Dogs, the Skyway factory team, and Golden Gate Park scene during my time there. His brother was freestyle skater Ray Meyer. Ron Wilkerson was one of the most influential riders of the 80's, and ever since. He started as part of the Golden Gate Park scene and with his 2-Hip Trick Team, and got the very first cover photo on FREESTYLIN' magazine riding there. He soon landed on the Haro Bikes team as a pro rider, and moved to Southern California. He brought lip tricks into the vert world, started the first series of halfpipe and street contests, and went on to own Wilkerson Airlines and now 2-Hip Bikes. Robert Peterson became known as the Mater of Balance for his array of stationary balance tricks. He was also team manager of the Skyway Factory team for quite a while and a mad scientist inventing freestyle tech. Rick Allison added a showman style to early freestyle riding. The thing that sticks out in my mind about Rick is that he could do the fastest surfers I've ever seen anyone do. Oleg Konings (1:01 in this clip) was a freak among the freaks. At a time when nearly every rider had a original tricks, Oleg came up with tricks that were totally unique and weird. He invented the first scuffing trick, too. Really. That's it in the clip. "Oleg, put your helmet on!" Hugo Gonzalez is last, but definitely not least. Hugo was the craziest ramp and skatepark rider in the early days, bar none. Before anyone even used the term "Huck it," that's what Hugo was doing. If there was a crazy jump to be attempted, Hugo was the guy to try it. He constantly was pushing the limits of what was possible with a BMX freestyle bike in the air. And landing was always optional to Hugo.
NorCal rider contributions to BMX freestyle
-Golden Gate Park Scene was the most cohesive scene I ever saw in freestyle. There was no other scene like it. It had a totally different vibe than any other.
-The Curb Dogs bike/skate team was the most popular non-factory trick team of the 80's. They routinely placed above most factory teams in magazine polls.
-The terrain of San Francisco, combined with punk rock and skateboard influences promoted by Vander and the Curb Dogs was the main, initial thrust of BMX street riding. The San Diego riders soon followed suit.
-Vander showed us that motocross style uniforms were stupid.
-First scuff trick ever was invented by Oleg Konings (see Oleg clip above).
BMX freestyle balance tricks were made popular by Robert Peterson, who invented most of the early balance tricks.
-First wall ride-type trick was Hugo Gonzalez' fence ride at Pipeline Skatepark.
-First BMX halfpipe contest was put on by Dave Vanderspek
-First BMX street contest was put on by Dave Vanderspek
-First BMX halfpipe series, 2-Hip King of Vert, was put on by Ron Wilkerson.
-Second BMX street contest, and first BMX street contest series, 2-Hip Meet the Street, was put on by Ron Wilkerson.
-The first made-for-TV BMX street contest, the Huntington Beach Street Scene, was put on by Scot Breithaupt and myself (Steve Emig) in 1989, and aired on ESPN, six years before the X-Games.
NorCal freestylers in FREESTYLIN' magazine in the early days...
The Premiere- Issue # 1 of FREESTYLIN', Cover: Ron Wilkerson at Golden Gate Park (in San Francisco)- Summer 1984 FREESTYLIN' #2- Hugo Gonzalez pull out poster- fall '84 FREESTYLIN' #3- Robert Peterson interview- winter '84-'85 FREESTYLIN'#5- The Great NorCal ramp series- May '85 FREESTYLIN' #6- Cover: Hugo Gonzalez (and fellow Skyway rider Scott Freeman)- July 1985 BMX Action- Cover: Dave Vanderspek- November 1985 FREESTYLIN' # 12- Cover: Dave Vanderspek, Maurice & Ray Meyer interview- May 1986 FREESTYLIN' #13- Interview with Dave Vanderspek, Robert Peterson's bar extender- June '86 FREESTYLIN' #15- San Jose Stylin' (my zine) named top freestyle zine in the country- August '86 FREESTYLIN' #16- Photos of Maurice Meyer, Dave Vanderspek, & Oleg Konings- September '86 FREESTYLIN' #19- My mini interview with some skater named Rodney Mullen- December '86 FREESTYLIN' #21- Robert Peterson interview (which had a 43 page transcription)- February '87 FREESTYLIN' #24- Golden Gate Park Flatland- May '87 FREESTYLIN' #26- Marc McKee undergrounder, tricks by Robert Peterson and Karl Rothe FREESTYLIN' #31- Ron Wilkerson interview (lived in SoCal then) FREESTYLIN' #46- Cover: Ron Wilkerson (SoCal guy then), R.I.P. Vander piece- March 1989 FREESTYLIN' #47- Vander Memorial Jam- April '89 Go: The Rider's Manual- Vol.2 #4- Ron Wilkerson- February 1991
Vander would ride it. "Slam, bang, crash 'em up, do it again."
43.
I'm working on a big zine telling my crazy taxi driver stories, which is why this blog is on hold this month. You can read the post about the well known BMXers and other reasonably famous people I gave taxi rides to here:
I'm at a transition point right now, I'm moving out of the apartment I've been living in at the end of May. Not sure where I'm moving to yet, I'll likely be "floating" for a while. I'm also spending the month of May 2017 to tell a bunch of my stories of unusual adventures I've had. This is a lead up to publishing my first big zine of crazy taxi stories and opening an online store to sell my writing and artwork. So I won't be posting in this blog for the rest of May. I'll have a new story nearly every day, some from the BMX world, in this blog:
