For the kids of Generation X, kids from the 1970's, Evel Knievel was a huge influence. In a world of white collar "company men" and blue collar factory workers, came this loud guy in white leathers. He jumped a huge Harley-Davidson over cars and buses, and strutted around like a white pimp, with a cane and cape at times. This documentary of Evel is a classic, from the late 1980's. Ramp to ramp jumping was Evel's thing, and in 1983, that became my BMX crew's thing, on BMX bikes, for a while.
In the last post, I wrote about how I got into BMX riding, mostly hitting little jumps, as a high school kid, outside Boise, Idaho, in 1982. Our posse from Blue Valley mobile home park got more and more into BMX, pushing each other daily, through the summer of 1982. Act the end of October, we discovered the Fort Boise BMX track, and started racing. We all won trophies, and were psyched on BMX. Just in time for the Idaho winter to set in. Our track, our little area of jumps, at the edge of the desert, turned first to super muddy, and then froze and got covered with snow. It wasn't rideable all winter. In the last post, I told of the snow jump I made, and our frozen pond sliding that winter.
Back then, Boise seemed to have this weird weather event in late January or early February, every year. For some reason, we'd get about a week or ten days of warm, shirt sleeve temperature weather, like high 50's or low 60's, right at the end of January. Snow started melting, and our little jumps turned to 6 inch deep mud, again. They were totally not rideable. But after jonesin' to ride all winter, and with a warm week, we were determined to find some way to jump our bikes. It was Scott and Rocky, who both lived on the other side of the Blue Valley pond, who got an idea. Going back to those days of watching Evel Knievel on the Wide World of Sports in the 70's, they scrounged up to sheets of 1/2" plywood, and a bunch of cinder blocks, and they built a ramp to ramp jump, in front of Scott's mom's trailer.
The first version had a launch ramp that was two cinder blocks high at the high end (laying on their sides), with single blocks under the middle of the plywood sheet for stability. Tthe landing, about six feet away at first, was one cinder block high. Word got around the park, and we all congregated to try the ramp to ramp jump. We were all riding off brand, Kmart special frames then, with Z-rims or a few better quality parts. Only Andy, the youngest kid, had a four year old Mongoose, with Motomags. None of us could afford a decent quality bike. James had a Huffy Pro Thunder, all of our bikes had mild steel frames, none were chromoly. So we were not riding quality equipment. But we just HAD to get outside and jump.
We spent the afternoon jumping ramp to ramp, Evel Knievel style, stopping only to move the plywood back, when it started to slide off the cinder blocks. By the second day of ramp to ramp jumping, after we all got used to the set-up, we went to a two cinder block high landing ramp, and maybe a 7 or 8 foot gap. By the end of the week, our launch ramp was three cinder blocks high, and the landing was two cinder blocks high. Though the plywood was just sitting on the blocks, they were pretty stable, and it was good to get a little air again. None of us were very good jumpers yet, we could barely bunnyhop, and our bikes were all pieces of shit. But we were having fun for that weird, warm week, in January in 1983.
When spring actually did hit Boise, six weeks later, or so, our dirt jumps were still all muddy for 2-3 weeks. We went right back to jumping ramp to ramp for a while. In a couple of weeks, the game was stepped up, and the front of Scott's mom's Ford Pinto was moved between the ramps. I think 3 or 4 of the guys cleared the Pinto's hood with our ramp to ramp jump. I chickened out, I couldn't do the bunnyhop necessary off the launch, to clear the Pinto, though I cleared the distance without the car there. The car jump died when Brian ate shit, and wound up breaking his arm.
By that time, the jumps were drying out, and we moved back out into the dirt to ride, rebuilding our little jumps. Soon the BMX races began again, and we started racing whenever we could afford the $3 entry fee. Hey, we were trailer park kids, money was tight. Our Evel Knievel inspired period ended, and we started looking to guys like Stu Thompsen, Harry Leary, Billy Griggs, Andy Patterson, and a BMX Plus test jumper named Martin Aparijo, for jumping inspiration.
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