This is an editorial I wrote in late 1991, and much to my surprise was published in the February 1992 issue of Go Magazine. I was originally just going to run this little story in my ‘zine, SToKe, but I was feeling the vibe of the story and thought I’d send it over to the guys at Go Magazine and see what happens. About 6 months before I’d sent the magazine editor a photo I shot from a contest I went to in New York City. They ran that photo in the news section of the magazine (you can see that below) and that kinda blew me away. I figured if they didn’t run my story, I’d just use it in my ‘zine, so I really had nothing to lose. I was pretty shocked a few months later when the magazine hit the newsstands – and there was my piece in the coveted magazine editorial intro space. Holy shit! This completely blew my mind.
I posted this story on the Chase BMX Magazine website back on Jan. 11, 2001 – it seems so, so long ago. And to put that into perspective, two days before I put that on the website, we broke the news that Ruben Alcantara had just signed with MacNeil Bikes. Wow! Here’s the post of what I actually put up – this time I was digging through digital archives when I came across this and thought I should probably archive it on my site. We’re packing up the house, moving into a townhome we just bought, so looks like I’m moving those several boxes of old BMX magazines one more time.
I was digging through one of several boxes of old BMX magazines (ranging from the present back to 1982) at home the other night the other night when I came across this old editorial I did for Go Magazine waaay back in the day. I totally forgot about it. I mean, I wrote it more than 9 years ago, so I sat down and read it. It got me thinking… as cliché as it is – the more things change, the more they stay the same. BMX has gone through some pretty crazy changes over the last decade, but it all comes back to that first rush you got when you pulled that first trick, cleared that set of doubles, or finally got above the coping on a vert ramp. Another thing that hasn’t changed – I’m still a horrible writer…
At least I’ve worked on the writing a bit now…
This is the photo I sent in from the Mullaly Park contest in New York City (South Bronx actually, right by Yankee Stadium). I have to admit I was pretty stoked at the time to get this photo of Jeff Harris’ barrel roll attempt published. Today that photo would never run because a magazine would never run a photo of an un-pulled trick. At the time this trick was completely unfathomable, and now 22 years later I think you could count on two hands how many times it’s been landed. Looking back at the rest of the photos that ran for the coverage of that contest, I should have sent more of mine in. This was just supposed to be a smaller contest, and the magazine probably didn’t have to budget to have one of their pro photographers there to cover it. But the quality of riders there made this a pretty large contest. I would have to say that this was probably Taj Mihelich’s breakout contest. His style still stands out in my mind, hitting that super small jumpbox (most certainly by today’s standards), his Grizz airs over that thing were legendary.
