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EARLY YEARS
My mom was driving me home from the store and I looked out the window of the car and there he was... Some guy was riding down the street on his bike sitting BACKWARDS on the handlebars. I decided that I had to learn how to do it, so for the next two months I hobbled my Huffy backwards along until finally I had figured out the secret to the trick... That wasn't the beginning, but that was the spark... About two years later I saw a freestyle show... Not GT, not Haro, or Skyway but the Rockville BMX trick team performing at the county fair... My best friend looked over at me and said "See that- You will NEVER be able to do that... You wouldn't ever be good enough to perform at the fair." I heard what he said but all I could think was "No way! That is so cool... I can do that." A week later I saw the movie "Rad". That was the beginning of my life as a rider... as a freestyle rider... Two weeks later I had my first 'freestyle bike' - Okay, it was a Mongoose BMX bike- the Expert. But over the next three months I switched out the stem for the new stem by GT (the mallet head), I put pegs (about 2 inches long) on every axle, and put a brand new thingy on my bike to let the handlebars spin around- the Gyro (no Rotor for me). Track stands, rock walks, endos, front and rear wheel hops, and tailwhips were all I could think of to practice for the first few months. About 8 months after I had bought my bike it was stolen... someone cut through the lock and stole it. It was one of the worst days of my life. But my Dad was sympathetic and he had a good job so a couple weeks later Christmas came and I found myself on board my first 'real' freestyle bike. The Haro Sport. Gyro, freestyle handlebars, pegs, and a really cool set of white mags made this the coolest bike on the face of the earth for me. A few weeks later my life changed forever- I found myself relocated from the East Coast to the West Coast- San Francisco, CA was to be my home for the next 3 years. |