Chris Miller flat out shredding Pipeline after it closed.
When I got the job at Unreel Productions, Vision's video company, in late 1987, I spent most of my time in a little room with a bunch of machines making copies of different videos. I also got the job of organizing the tape library, which was boxes of hundreds of tapes which were not labeled well. Most of those tapes were betacam camera originals. In those days, big, 35 pound, betacam cameras were the "broadcast quality" standard. The cameras cost about $50,000, and the video quality was high enough to be shown on broadcast TV. So when a cameraman went out to shoot something, they came back with a bunch of these tapes. Each tape was in a plastic case, and ten of those fit into a cardboard tape box.
So while I was making copies of one thing or another, I would pull out a box of these betacam tapes, figure out what contest or video shoot it was, and label all the tapes and boxes by hand, so we could find that footage easily later. In the course of doing this, I saw all the footage that was being shot, and I looked at all the old camera tapes and master tapes of videos already made. So I became real familiar with each skater, biker, or snowboarder's style and abilities.
At the same time, I would get off work and go ride my BMX freestyle bike for two or three hours every night. Often I would ride to work, and then hit a whole bunch of street spots around Huntington Beach on my way home. So watching all the footage definitely stoked me to ride, and gave me ideas for tricks sometimes.
It didn't take long for me to be blown away by the skating of Chris Miller. He had this effortless looking flow around the pools that was absolutely oozing with style. I decided that I wanted to learn to ride my bike the way Chris Miller skated. That never happened. But it was definitely a good goal to work towards.
In this clip, we see Chris first in the 15 bowl, the biggest vert bowl at Pipeline, and then he's skating the back bowls, which rarely get seen in videos. Those were the beginner bowls, and were 4 feet, 6 feet, 8 feet, and 10 feet deep. When the park was open, there were fences between the bowls, which prevented transfers. But after the park closed, and the fences were torn down, all kinds of new lines were possible, which is what Chris is taking advantage of.
Then he moves to the Combi Pool, the gnarliest skatepark pool in its day, and Chris tears it up. That was the pool the skaters spent the most time in over the years. Then he moves on to the Pipe Bowl, the pool best known to BMXers, because that's the one the riders blasted huge airs out of. Those tuck kneed carves Chris does in the pipe are some of the coolest things in skateboarding.
The video is old, down a couple of generations, and kind of sketchy. But Chris Miller's skating is epic. In a bike comparison, I'd have to pick Brian Foster as the guy who best blends speed, style, and big airs like Miller does on his skate. Both of those guys are just beautiful to watch ride. It's no surprise that Chris Miller has ruled the Master's Class at the new combi pool in the Pro-Tec Pool Party contests for nearly a decade.
The story of Pipeline and Baldy Pipe will be told in the Badlands Movie. You can help it get made by support the Kickstarter campaign in that link. $6,578 and counting...
I do most of my writing on Substack these days, a platform designed specifically for writers. Check it out:
