61297 390th Avenue

Zumbro Falls, MN 55991

United States

I had a few tricks I wanted to nail before heading to this jam, one in particular the most. There was some hype created by Karl Hinkley, the owner of NoWear Extreme Clothing for a special trick I’d be throwing down, which is a no-footed candybar backflip.

I could stick it most of the time into the foam pit, but my only worry was whether or not I’d be able to clear the box jump at the skatepark while doing a flip. I have a tendency (ok, pretty much every time haha) to blast vertically as opposed to horizontally when I do a flip on bmx. This means I need to go faster off of a jump to make it to the landing than a normal trick, and go higher naturally. Unfortunately, I am currently unable to gather enough speed inside of the Factory to flip and make it to the landing with both wheels. This means super hard landings and a danger of twisting my ankles. I wound up practicing 360 tailwhips, 360 no-footed can-cans and a few flip trick variations into the foam before heading out from the Factory at 12:00pm with Jon Wodziak and Tanner Drews. Naturally we had one of us ride illegally, and that guy was Jon. I had removed the seat from the back of the van and have another one folded down as to allow the most possible room to transport things. About halfway there I really wanted to remove my foot brace for a bit as it was really starting to get uncomfortable. With the vehicle on cruise control (and conveniently with all of my safety gear already on, including a full-face helmet), I climbed out my driver side window (at 69 mph), opened the sliding door and got into the back of the van. While I did this Jon moved from behind me into the driver’s seat and took over. I did capture this on my GoPro and will upload it onto here when I get the chance!

We get there, start riding, and I was purely focused on getting flips over the box jump successfully, without casing. Unfortunately, no one (other than Colton Walker, a local bmx legend at the current age of 17) could flip it successfully. I tried for so long to gather as much speed as possible, but it just couldn’t happen. I would case the landing every time and with a lot of force, as I would blast pretty high off of the box jump. None the less, when the time came, I attempted to land this trick. I probably gave it 7 or so tries and JUST about landed one of them, but I called it quits because no matter what, every time I flip it I’m landing super hard as I can’t get enough speed to make it to the landing, and was risking injuring my ankles on the uneven mellow flat top/roll area of the landing. I had a hilarious crash in which I didn’t feel right in my flip, so I ditched my bike and casually rotated the remainder of the flip without it. When I was landing and sliding down the landing area I looked back for where my bike was and instantly the bike fell onto my head! It had actually fallen from just a foot or less from the ceiling and slammed me. Funniest crash I can think of that I’ve been involved in. Video below! Also the video of me almost landing the no footed candybar backflip. When I have access to a decent jump with a long enough runway (or more speed at least) I’m totally going to be landing this trick!!

Below is my hilarious crash

Below is me nearly landing what possibly would have been the world’s first backflip no footed candybar on a bmx bike.

In the end we all had a terrific time. Ried Bleymeyer did a flip and hit his head on the jump on the way up. He doesn’t go fast enough (he’s just a 9 year old now, small bike, small body, etc.) and does a super quick rotation with little air at all and lands atop the deck, always close to hitting his head on the jump on his way up. This time it got to him and we were all worried. He was perfectly fine after getting up after a minute or so. A lot of people crowded around him to check up on the little stunt man.

 

MORE TO COME! NOT FINISHED WITH HIS POST!