The Birth of S&M in the BMX world 30 years ago

This clip is well worth watching for the old school trickery by Drob and and Golden Gate Park crew in 1986.  But at 5:07 in the clip, you can see me chasing my bike.  That was a stupid trick I did in parades in Idaho, but it got me in this TV clip.  In the time between when this clip was shot, and when it aired, my goofy little freestyle zine landed me a job at BMX Action and FREESTYLIN' magazines.  My life changed forever. 

After five months as a magazine gofer/proofreader, I got laid off, mostly because I didn't like the band Skinny Puppy.  They hired some kid named Spike a couple of months later.  Cool kid, wonder what happened to him.  Anyhow,  I rode every day with Craig Grasso for a month (which I highly advise, he's hilarious), called around the industry, then landed a job as the newsletter editor for the American Freestyle Association.  That job moved me from Hermosa Beach a bit south to Huntington Beach, a working class surf town at the time. 

In my stint at FREESTYLIN', I did drove Windy Osborn to a photo shoot at the Huntington Beach Pier once, where she shot pics of freestyle skaters Henry Candioti and Don Brown.  So I knew both skaters and some bike freestylers hung out there on the weekends.  When I moved there, I headed down to the pier every weekend to session.  I met a tall, lanky rider named Mike Sarrail.  He was a master of Miami Hop hops, and invented the Undertaker, among other things.  We hit it off, and rode together every weekend with skaters Pierre Andre, Don Brown, and whoever else wandered by on bikes and boards. 

That summer, I had this cool idea.  Like most "cool ideas," it seemed awesome at the time.  I wanted to blow off the dinky AFA newsletter and do a newsletter/newspaper thing covering bikes, skates, surf, and whatever else seemed cool.  I threw the idea at Mike, and we started planning it out.  In those days before the internet, it could have been cool.  Probably not.  But maybe.

After dreaming about it for a while that summer of 1987, Mike and I decided to make some T-shirts to sell to raise a little money.  I took a photo of a rider doing a lookdown, and we made iron-on transfer T-shirts that said,  "S&M Productions... We're coming" with the pic of the lookdown in the middle.  "S&M" stood for Steve & Mike.  We sold the T-shirts around Huntington Beach, and didn't make much money.  I think if you look real hard at my Facebook pics, you'll find a pic of me doing a Shingle Shuffle under the HB Pier wearing one of those shirts with the sleeves cut off. 

Anyhow... like most of my "cool" ideas back then, it was mostly dream and little action.  We never made the multi-sport newsletter (or videos) and S&M Productions fizzled out.  So that's the story of how S&M started 30 years ago in the BMX freestyle world. 

Oh yeah, one guy who bought one of our shirts said, "Hey, there's some BMX racing guys doing a company called S&M, too."  Turns out he was right.

I've got two new blogs I'm doing now:

Crazy California 43- This blog's about weird, cool, odd, and historic locations in California.

WPOS Kreative Ideas- This blog's about creativity, writing, art, blogging, promoting creative work, and whatever else I feel like blogging about.

Gravity Racer World Record... NOT!

just ran across this, and the first minute or two of this clip is pretty amazing.  Until I got to the part where Guy Martin heard the "World Record" for a gravity racer... 84 mph.  You think we should tell him that when he was in kindergarten, BMXers built pieces of crap out of spare parts called GPV's, gravity powered vehicles.  At the Palm Springs tramway race in 1987, Tommy Brackens passed the camera motorcycle on his GPV, which was doing 85 mph... in a turn.  I've personally watched GPV's hit around 90 mph and skate luges hit 110 mph+.  Here's the next video, where Guy "breaks the record" at 85.612 mph.  Just fast forward til the end.  Then he crashes trying to go faster.  It's a good crash, worth the watch.

Hey Guy, it was a cute little go kart you guys built... but this is how you go fast using gravity:


I went to this event with NorCal friend John Ficarra, who didn't fair so well.  On that day engineer Dan Hannebrink's fairing won the day.  There were a few other events, and Hannebrink crashed hard in one.  He had the technology, but not the balls of pro BMX racers like Tommy Brackens.  Here's the lead up to the video above, starting 5:10 in the clip.  You were 5 years old when this happened Guy Martin.

 I've got two new blogs now:

Crazy California 43

WPOS Kreative Ideas

People who change freestyle that you forgot about: Oleg Konings

Go to 1:03 in this video and you'll see the enigmatic Skyway pro Oleg Konings doing a scuff trick.  I can't remember what he called it.  Why is this a big deal?  Because, to the best of my knowledge, this was the first scuffing trick EVER.  I personally saw Oleg doing this trick in 1985, when I first moved to the Bay Area.  He had been doing it a while at that point.  For those of you who found freestyle in the very late 1980's or later, "scuffing" is the act of pushing a foot on a tire, then dragging that foot to control the speed, which helped you keep your balance. 

Right before I left NorCal for my job at FREESTYLIN', Golden Gate Park local Tim Tracy had invented another scuffing trick, it was a forwards side glide with his leg over the handlebars, scuffing on the front wheel.  It was amazing at the time, but like Oleg's earlier scuff trick, it didn't catch on. 
At an AFA Masters contest in Oregon in the spring of 1987, the NorCal crew unleashed the Backyard, and that was the trick that blew up and got the whole freestyle world learning scuff tricks. 

Here's Dennis MCoy in 1987 bustin' some scuff tricks.  At 1:01 in this clip he does a funky chicken, into a spinning front peg scuff thing.  Then at 1:45, he goes into a locomotive, which is what the backyard soon morphed into, thanks to Kevin Jones.   At 1:56 Dennis does the backyard, the trick that started a whole flurry of scuffing moves.  Within a year, scuffing moves started turning into gliding moves, and that was the foundation for all of today's flatland.  And it all started with a weird kid from NorCal called Oleg Konings.

I've got two new blogs now:

Crazy California 43

Stench: Homeless Super Hero- I'm writing fiction now, about the world's first homeless superhero, Stench.