Meeting Joe Johnson

I stumbled across this clip several months ago, and later found the whole video, A Wicked Ride.  This video more about any other, reminds me of what it was like to be a freestyler in the 1980's, far away from Southern California, when freestyle was taking off.  Joe Johnson really pushed vert riding in the mid and late 80's.

For me, it started with an unexpected phone call in the spring of 1986.   I was in my upstairs bedroom of my family's house, in San Jose, California.  The phone rang downstairs, and a moment later, my mom yelled up, "Steve, there's a call for you."  Remember those days when a house had two, maybe three phones, and we didn't know who was calling?  I picked up the upstairs phone, and a male voice said something like, "Steve, this is Andy Jenkins from FREESTYLIN' magazine."  My jaw dropped.  I muttered some kind of response.

I met FREESTYLIN' magazine's editorial staff, Andy and Mark "Lew" Lewman, at the AFA Masters Velodrome contest a few weeks earlier.  I'd been sending them copies of my zine, San Jose Stylin',  for 6 months or so, where I covered the NorCal freestyle zine, interviewing the Curb Dogs, the Skyway team, and other locals.  Much to my surprise, Andy and Lew both said they really dug my zine, which blew my mind.

Anyhow, Andy asked if I was planning to go to the AFA Masters contest coming up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, 2 or 3 weeks later, and I said I was.  He asked, "Do you want to cover that contest for FREESTYLIN'?"  Jaw on the floor again.  I was some goofy kid who got into freestyle in Idaho, then living in San Jose for seven months, and I started my zine six months earlier, just as an excuse to meet the NorCal riders.  I liked shooting photos, and didn't mind writing and actually making the zine.  But I never expected anything to actually come of it.  Suddenly, I'd been hired to do a freelance article for FREESTYLIN', the coolest of the three BMX freestyle magazines, by far.

A couple weeks later, I packed up my bike in a non-descript box, and called it "camping equipment" at the airport check-in, so I wouldn't have to pay the $25 bike fee.  I learned that trick from Skyway pro, Robert Peterson.  I flew alone to Dallas/FortWorth where I had a layover.  It was the first time I'd ever flown by myself, and a was a nervous guy to start with, and pretty much scared shitless about the whole trip.  I was 20-years-old, couldn't rent a car, and didn't know where the contest was actually being held in Tulsa.  I mean, it was freaking Oklahoma, how big could Tulsa be?  My plan was to land in Tulsa, talk to some of the other riders flying in at the airport, bum a ride to a hotel, crash on somebody's floor, bum another ride to the contest site, and talk to everyone, write good notes down, record thoughts on my cassette recorder, then go home and write a cool article, all the while maintaining my Pizza Hut job.  Oh, and actually compete in 17 & Over intermediate flatland, too.

Waiting for my plane in the DFW airport, I saw two guys I recognized from the magazines, GT pros Eddie Fiola and Martin Aparijo, and some blond kid was with them.  I was totally shy then, and super nervous, but it was fucking Eddie and Martin!  So I walked over and introduced myself.  They were cool, and introduced me to the blond kid, named Josh White.  They said he was the new GT ramp rider.  We were all on the same plane into Tulsa.  I saw them at baggage claim, and asked if they could give me a ride to the hotel.  They said their rental car was packed with three guys and bike boxes.  So I hung out by baggage claim, waiting for all the riders from around the country to fly in, so I could find a ride to the hotel.  And then find out where the contest site was, and bum a ride there.  Organization while traveling wasn't my strong suit then, I didn't know what the fuck I was doing.

I waited.  And waited.  People came and went, but not one young guy with a bike box.  I started to get nervous.  Maybe I really should have called around and actually found out where the contest was.  Finally, about an hour later, some really normal looking kid with brown hair pulled a bike box off the baggage claim carousel.  I went over and asked if he was going to the contest.  He said he was.  I said I needed to find a ride to the hotel, and then find a room to crash in.  The kid said his name was Joe, he was from Masachussetts, and he rode for Haro.  I nodded and said that was cool, but inside I was thinking, "Yeah, some co-sponsored wannabe from the East Coast."  Haro didn't have any factory riders from the East, everyone knew that.  I told Joe my name was Steve, and I was writing contest article for FREESTYLIN'.  Joe said that was cool, and was probably thinking, "Yeah, sure, this kid's some guy who does a zine or something.  Only Andy and Lew write for FREESTYLIN'."

But Joe was cool, and he said his friends were picking him up in a van, and would probably be able to give me a ride to the hotel, and then to the contest.  Hey, it was a ride, and I wouldn't have to spend my weekend's food money on a taxi.  So Joe and I put our boxes and suitcases on airport luggage carts, rolled them out to the pick up curb, and waited.  Both of us were pretty quiet by nature, so one of us would say something, the other would answer, and then we'd kind of go silent for a few minutes.  Then one of us would say something else.  We got bored waiting, and started goofing around, doing tricks on the luggage carts.

We had luggage cart backwards infinity rolls pretty well down, half an hour later, when a van rolled towards us.  Joe said, "Hey, there they are," or something like that.  The van rolled up, and it was the freakin' Haro tour van.  I couldn't believe it.  I'd never met any of the Haro riders before.  I'd just met the top GT pros, and that new kid Josh, in the DFW airport, and suddenly I'm looking at the Haro van.  Haro and GT were the two top teams in freestyle then, with Hutch a close third.  The driver's side door opened, pro rider Ron Wilkerson jumped out, and looked across the front of the van at us, "Hey Joe!  What's up!"  I looked at Joe, dumbfounded.  Ron Wilkerson, Haro pro, and one of my heroes, knew who Joe from Massachusetts was.  What the fuck?  Joe said, "This is Steve, he's writing the contest article for FREESTYLIN', can we give him a ride?  Ron said, "Yeah, hop in."

Next thing I know, I was in the back of the Haro tour van, jam packed with bikes and riders.  I wound up sitting on the top tubes of several bikes jammed together.  Ron, team manager Billy Hop, Brian Blyther, Dave Nourie, and assistant team manager, Jon Peterson were all there, and a couple other people, too, as I recall.  Jon Peterson started talking to me, and I wound up hanging with the Haro team, and sleeping on the floor of one of their rooms, with Tony Murray, Jon, Joe, and a couple others, packed in it.  It turned into the craziest weekend of my life, up until then, and my baptism into the BMX freestyle industry.

The two amazing young bucks on vert, amateurs Josh White and Joe Johnson, were the talk of the weekend.  They were both blasting on the Haro quarterpipe, giving the veteran vert pros, Eddie Fiola, Brian Blyther, Mike Dominguez, and Ron Wikerson some serious competition in practice.  There was also some weird kid no one knew riding in amateur vert that weekend.  At a time when most riders wore open face helmets, t-shirts, and Levi's in practice, this unknown kid had a Bell Moto full face helmet, shoulder pads, knee pads, and elbow pads on.  We called him The Stormtrooper, because he had so many pads on.  But The Stormtrooper turned out to be really good, too, getting high airs, and a couple of original variations, though he landed hard sometimes.  He ended up getting a photo in the magazine article, and Andy Jenkins asked me to find out his name.  I called around the AFA, and other places.  The Patterson brothers, who put on the AFA local contests in Texas knew the kid.  "Oh, that's Mathew Hoffman, he's 14, that kid's amazing on ramps."  And that's how I met Joe Johnson (and Josh White, and Mat Hoffman).

Here's my footage of the day Joe Johnson pulled his first ever double tailwhip, at 11:34 in this clip, from Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, in the spring of 1989.  Mat does this pretty cool trick at the end of this video, as well.