The Ride of My Life (8 page)
A lot of guys had traveled to Ohio on their own, unsupervised by parents, for what seemed like the first time. The host hotel was a Holiday Inn. It was inundated with riders who found power in the pack mentality—sometimes it was five or eight guys, plus bikes, to a room. Mayhem ensued. The telltale signs were all around—skid marks on the carpet, tire scuffs in the elevators, stickers on lampshades. And there was noise, constantly. High-speed, ride-by pillow jousts left the hallways littered with shredded feathers and giggling idiots. Room service trays were sent flying out of hotel room windows, clattering onto the sidewalk below. Patio furniture found its way into the swimming pool, Coke machines toppled over, trashcans were sent tumbling down stairwells, and fire alarms rang at least once a night throughout the weekend. The hotel managers were beyond irate and called in the cavalry. The flicker of red and blue police lights sent riders scattering like roaches—seeking cover in their rooms or taking off for the streets. This was repeated a couple times over the course of the weekend.
Most people had arrived at the contest Friday night, and by Sunday morning, rumors were flying about bikers-versus-helicopter street chases with twenty or fifty guys trying to elude the searchlights. Many had been threatened by the hotel management with eviction from their rooms or had been forced out by the chaos. Legend was born when Large Ray, a
freestyle cult figure, hatched a fist-sized turd on a napkin, then placed it in the continental breakfast kitchen microwave, set to “high.” Ten minutes later, the odor swept through the hotel ventilation system and penetrated the entire building with a suffocating, sulfuric stench.
I was fourteen and got a license to drive a scooter. I’d lay my bike across the seat and sit on top of it to get to the riding spots. Sometimes I’d just ride freestyle on my scooter, though. (Photograph courtesy of Steve Giberson)
Everybody needs to rebel against something, but that contest was an all-time low. I was satisfied just being annoying with my Oh-Hi-Oh joke.
The other major contest series of the era were the King of Vert (KOV) events. The KOV was a rider-conceived and rider-run vert series put together by Haro team pro Ron Wilkerson and his all-volunteer crew. Ron’s comps went down on halfpipes and were the first contests of their kind. (He later pioneered the sport’s first street contest series, called Meet the Street.] Often the KOV ramps would be assembled on-site the night before the contest, with harrowing tales of trailer trouble and a thirty-hour drive just to get there. Sometimes the halfpipes were incredibly solid and fast; other times
the ramps flat out sucked. (One comp was held on a floating barge, which bobbed and caused the ramp to absorb your entire pump.] But one thing that was a given at any KOV was a great vibe—the atmosphere was loose, fun, and the whole thing operated from a rider’s perspective. Ron would casually ask everyone on deck, “Hey, urn … should we start yet?” before the event officially began. A mix tape of the latest hip-hop, hardcore, or vintage new wave would be jacked into the tape deck, and Ron’s right-hand man, Kevin Martin, would hop on the mic and start barking at the crowd to get loud. The contests felt more like a demo or a backyard session, but with the top guys and the most innovative riding. The pros who followed Ron Wilkerson on his KOV series—Mike Dominguez, Josh White, Brian Blyther, Dennis McCoy, and handful of others—were the effortless rulers of their domain. The contests operated in a jam format, so riders had as much time as needed to finish their runs in the finals. Most people could go for about two minutes, tops, but at a KOV in Colorado Springs, Bob Kohl (inventor of the superman air] took a lung-busting, eight-minute run.
A guy named Craig Grasso took the casual atmosphere of the KOV to new heights. He introduced a different kind of riding—the naked kind. Desperate for cash to get his broken-down car running again, Grasso dropped in at the KOV finals and did a run wearing nothing but shoes, a helmet, and a wild grin. It was pretty funny; however, my dad and mom had flown out with my aunt, uncle, and cousins to watch me compete. My father was furious that Grasso had tarnished the sport and scarred the innocent children (myself included] for life by subjecting the crowd to blazing no-footed airs and scrotum-dangling can-cans. Grasso’s performance got him $250 in deviant spectator donations to revive his ailing Honda Civic. His sponsor dropped him like a hot potato the following day. Craig never rode another KOV again but went on to help pioneer street riding.
Despite the fun and folly, sometimes even the KOV series turned into a pressure cooker situation for me. A big difference between KOV and AFA events were the classifications: at Ron’s comps, there were no age-based classes. You were either an am or a pro. This meant on halfpipes I rode against Joe Johnson, an older am with a Bostonian accent and a devastating array of tricks. Johnson was from Stoughton, Massachusetts, and sponsored by Haro. He was so rad it was ridiculous—he stretched his aerial variations, had smooth style, and seemed to soak up new moves without trying. Joe could spin 540s five feet out or pull equally high fakies while twisting off a totally sideways lookback in the middle of the trick, and these were contest-winning moves at the time. The two of us typically traded off wins at KOV events, and sometimes my team manager, Rhino, would get a betting pool going with Bill Hawkins, the Haro team manager. Rhino and Big Bill were old friends, and the two of them instigated a friendly, make-believe rivalry between Joe and me. I don’t know about Joe, but that was a little nerve-racking for me.
The Dan-Up Team (left to right, top to bottom): Eddie Fiola Dennis McCoy, me, and Rick Moliterno.
One aspect of my life that seemed to clash with that fantasy world of bike stardom was school. And after the magic of riding all summer, reality came crashing down around me. Like any public educational environment, my high school offered a limited number of social categories. There were jocks, there were stoners, and there was the clique that I fell into: other. The outcast minority consisted of the brains, the dorks, the punkers, and the bikers. Including myself, there were three kids in my whole school who knew the difference between Woody Itson (flatland pro) and Woody Woodpecker (cartoon bird). Being naturally shy compounded the fact that I didn’t fit in with 99.8 percent of the student body. I spent my institutional time lying low, and academic excellence never came easy. I brought home the best grades in my mathematics and art classes and found most of the other subjects pretty dull. Once, I was able to get a little use out of my French 101 class—I brought in a copy of Bicross magazine, a bike publication from France, and had an interview they’d done with me translated so I could read it. However, the more time I spent in the confines of school, the less comfortable I was with the rigid learning and social structure. It didn’t help that I got picked on a lot for my choice in recreation.
Being a bike rider back in the mideighties made me a natural target for ridicule. Basically, the jocks loved to torment me, and a couple times these taunts boiled over into fights. Once it was in phys ed—the teacher’s pet was a powerful jock who bullied everybody in class, but he seemed to gravitate toward me more than anybody. The instructor really liked the guy, and during our “introduction to wrestling” segment of the class, the teacher told his star pupil he could demonstrate the brutal art of gymnasium wrestling by challenging any student to a match. The bully called me out, the coach blew the whistle, and it was on. I had a much smaller build than my opponent, but I had a secret weapon—years of YMCA wrestling meets when I was younger, not to mention constant “training” with my bro Travis. The jock and I grappled for ten seconds and my reflexes kicked in—I pinned the guy to the floor on his back and had him bound in a knot. It sent a little ripple of respect through the class—but best of all, the bully cut me a wide berth after that day, which was a relief.
I was fifteen years old doing airs with Eddie Fiola, “The King of the Skateparks,” on the deck measuring my height. He was a superhero to me. It was very surreal. (Photograph courtesy of Steve Giberson)
I had another gym class incident at the start of ninth grade that would change my life. Another bully—bigger and meaner, and with a backup posse of football team friends—challenged me to a fight that I couldn’t avoid. It was more like a psychotic scuffle, but before it was broken up I’d made a mortal enemy. A few weeks later, he stole money out of my wallet in the locker room. When I called him on it, his reaction was to accuse me of accusing him—
Them’s fightin
’ words, bike boy. Later that day I got a note passed to me in class that said the battle would take place after school. The clock ticked off the minutes toward three in the afternoon, and I worried my way through every class. A one-on-one fight would be fair, but this guy was bringing an ass-pounding team to grind me into the dirt. The odds were definitely stacked against me. Then, around fifth period, the clouds opened up and it started pouring rain. I received another note written in shaky, devious handwriting: “
Fight postponed until tomorrow, by the bike racks after school. You’re dead meat
.”
I left school that day with a heavy heart and a head full of anxiety. When I got home, I bolted over to my dad’s medical supply distribution warehouse to work on another project I had going—an indoor halfpipe. The ramp already had a name—The Secret Ninja Ramp—and it was getting close to completion. This was going to be my new training facility. I was tired of having to dust snow off our backyard halfpipe and blast frigid airs in the winter months. With cold days right around the corner, I couldn’t wait to complete the construction so I could ride my gourmet indoor halfpipe every day after school. My dad donated the space, and my Skyway salary bought the wood.
Construction was coming along nicely, thanks to the help of Steve, Travis, and a few of his skater friends. These guys were older than me but had endured through similar tough times at school—being part of the outcasts was a right of passage, and it was never easy. They quickly noticed I was acting tense and glum and asked me what was wrong. I told them about the unfair odds of tomorrow’s fight, and they began to get riled up. Even though my brother and his friends liked to pick on me, they were not down with some group of jocks trying to rough me up. They also knew it was the second time I’d had trouble with the same jackass. A few phone calls were made, and word quickly spread through the tight-knit punk rock community of Oklahoma City.
The next day—doomsday—was also the day I’d be leaving town for a long weekend. I was scheduled to ride in the AFA Masters finals in Los Angeles, California. As the afternoon crawled by in slow motion, school rumors swirled. The word in the halls was that the fight was going to be fast and hard. I was favored to lose, big time. My mind was split between trying to concentrate on my studies, worrying about what my vert routine was going to consist of, what crazy music I’d ride to, and of course, the fight. I hoped I wouldn’t have to go to California with a black eye.