Take a bike ride on the road to mental wellness...

Apologies for not updating my blog as frequently as I used to. The COVID-19 pandemic took its toll on my mental, and physical health. Only now am I starting to turn things around. A lot of that has to do with getting back into art. The previous post in October 2020 was a starting off point. Doing style studies of Steve Nazar's art for T&C Surf Designs made me feel better. So through November I looked up other things that inspired me as a kid. Around Thanksgiving I caught a BMX race on YouTube. That's when I remembered I loved all things BMX while growing up. It was like waking up a part of my brain that had amnesia. 

Of all the bike types the ones I really loved were called Formula-1 bikes. It was a short-lived trend, circa 1987-1989. They were road racing versions of BMX bikes. The massive Japanese company Shimano tried to get a new street racing league started, and had convinced a dozen manufacturers to make the bikes as well.  US companies like DiamondBack, and Haro jumped on board. 

The thing was that even though Shimano was pushing a standard for racing bikes, the company Hutch was already working on fast street bikes. The Ferrari of which was one that I idolized was called the HPV, or Human Powered Vehicle. It hit over 40 miles per hour and got the world record for fastest 20-inch bike. 

I started drawing all of my favorite bikes, and then went further. Using the BMX Museum website as a reference I started drawing every known Formula 1 bike that existed. While doing research I ended up adding a dozen that the site had never heard of.

Doing research gave my mind focus. Creating renderings of these bikes gave me purpose. It was as if I was wrestling my life, my focus, back from the pandemic. The more I researched and drew, the more I felt like I was getting back into my old self. I felt like I was reconnecting with a part of me that had died.

When I wasn't doing my normal job (which I also did from home thanks to the pandemic) I spent every waking hour working on bikes. Days turned into weeks. Before I knew it I had drawn over 50 F1 bikes. I uploaded all of my drawings to the BMX Museum. I had finished my passion project at the end of 2020. I wasn't out of the woods yet. 

The politics, work, home, family, and stress of 2020 could not be undone in a couple of months. As drawing bikes gave me back control, I started working on other types. Formula 1 bikes would always be my most favorite. They were not however the only favorite style of bikes that I enjoyed.

I began drawing freestyle, and traditional racing bikes in even greater detail than before. I even gave these new drawings themed backgrounds. It was a creative challenge that gave me a new sense of purpose. So I kept on drawing. 

I drew old school ('80s), mid school ('90s), and modern bikes. I researched my favorite bikes growing up, and essentially drew all of the bikes I wish I had as a kid. It gave me a sense of accomplishment as they started to come together.

As I shared my illustrations on the BMX Museum fellow members started reaching out to me, several to commission me to create drawings for them as well. It was humbling that long-time collectors enjoyed my art, and were willing to commission me for an original drawing. Some of the best art I had ever produced came out thanks to the pandemic. It gave me a sense of control that had been lacking. It gave me back my focus, my drive, and desire. This leads me all the way back to this blog.

I've started getting back into podcasting. Which means I will get back to recording content for this blog. I will also get back to doing some fighting game research, and reviews. I want to thank all of the visitors that have been checking in on the site. Whether you left a comment on an old post. Or checked for new content, I appreciate it. I really do. I'm never going to abandon this blog. I may be getting slower with the updates, but I'm never going to stop posting. If there's anything you'd like me to look at, or write about, please let me know. If you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

American Daredevils, the monster trucks that changed the world, part 1...

 

Where were you on Memorial Day, Monday May 27, 2019? If you were like me you were counting down the minutes until a monster truck jumped over a flying airplane. It was simply too outrageous to be true. There was a social media push months before the event which was hard to miss. I didn’t let on to my coworkers, who were focused on the NBA, and various boxing championships happening around then. Monster trucks were for kids, but it was constantly on my mind. I had always been a fan of monster trucks, I mean going back almost 40 years! But that love had been dormant for a long while.

 

My prized collection of off road, and monster truck magazines was destroyed in a freak Southern California rainstorm more than a decade ago. Since that time I couldn’t bring myself to look at anything monster truck related. It just hurt to think about what I lost. When I heard that some crazy person was planning on jumping an airplane that passion came roaring back. Every moment spent in the playground with my Matchbox Super Chargers was recalled in vivid detail. Powering over Hot Wheels on miniature sand dunes at the park, crushing makeshift cardboard race tracks on rainy days. The tiny button that I had made reading I (heart symbol) Monster Trucks was pinned inside my wallet, like a secret message that only true fans knew about. Every video game, every toy featuring a monster truck was forever a part of my identity. My friends and family all knew it. That bit of me had been in a coma, it was now waking up.

 

I planted myself in front of the television hours before the event. Turning off my phone and other distractions so I could live in the moment. The stunt came from the mind of a kid like me. Somebody with an overactive imagination. In this case the kid was the burly Dave “Heavy D” Sparks, one half of the “Diesel Brothers.” Sparks along with “Diesel Dave” Kiley run the Diesel Power Gear shop and website. Their adventures are covered on the Discovery channel. They build for customers, but also give away trucks. Their marketing must be working because they are flooded with projects week in and week out. They've created many amazing builds. Many of them are featured on their show, however their star is called the Brodozer. It is the first diesel truck in Monster Jam competition. It is a bright yellow 2018 Ford Super Duty Crew Cab inspired by an offload truck that Sparks had built years earlier. This new monster truck is a real beast. With a Duramax Diesel engine generating 1,100hp, it has enough power to make the 5 ton truck do backflips!

 

Sparks splits his time between running the business and driving the truck on the Monster Jam circuit. He’s just one of three people that pilots the Brodozer. Diesel Dave also gets a chance to run it, and second-generation monster truck driver / builder Colt Stephens as well. Sparks was the one behind the wheel on Memorial Day when he jumped over an 800lb plane piloted by Anthony Oshinuga. Getting the stars to align took a lot of hard work, and months of preparation. Every challenge behind the attempt, from locating a pilot to prepping the truck would be recorded. Legendary monster truck driver Tom Meents would help make sure that Sparks was prepared. It became the narrative behind the fifth season of their show. The Brodozer team was promoting the event on every media outlet they could find. You can imagine that it didn’t take much to get me interested. I was on board and counting down to the big day.

 

The original idea was for the Brodozer to break the monster truck distance world record on Memorial Day. Monster trucks had been setting distance records for more than thirty years. The lead had changed hands a few times in the past decade. Almost exclusively between Dan Runte in Bigfoot and Joe Sylvester in Bad Habit. Runte was possibly the best monster truck driver of his generation, and Sylvester was a young-guns champion and accomplished driver on several popular trucks. The two had gone over 200 feet in their rivalry. Sparks did not feel confident that he would topple their records. So instead of distance he decided on something more spectacular. The Brodozer would jump about 100 feet in distance, but at a height of around 40 feet, leaving enough space to allow an airplane to fly underneath it with room to spare. This was an insane idea to say the least.

 

Discovery made an event out of the jump. It was very much in the style of classic television spectacles. They stretched out the show by featuring other record-breaking attempts, and guest commentators. For those old enough to remember, ABC Wide World of Sports would host specials featuring motorcycle daredevil Evel Knievel. When I was a little kid my family would huddle around the TV hoping to see a man jump his motorcycle over a row of buses or die trying. The Brodozer jump made me feel like I had traveled back in time. It was an electric feeling! As much as I was enjoying this moment I knew there would be a new generation forever be changed by this event. It’s hard to put in words how much a sensational stunt could change a life. It made me think about how I was fortunate enough to live through some revolutionary pop culture periods.

 

The jumps (and horrific crashes) of Evel Knievel became the stuff of legend. I was born after Evel’s greatest stunts, but his name was inescapable growing up. Evel had become so big in his lifetime that a movie was made about him while he was still active. Can you remember a biopic for a singer or actor being made at the height of their career? More often than not they are filmed decades after their death. Such was the influence of Knievel. This daredevil “fad” was not short-lived, but instead lasted decades. New comic book heroes, movies, and tv shows revolved around motorcycles. To be fair Evel was not the first person to shift the pop culture sphere through the ‘70s and even early ‘80s. Everyone wanted to become a martial artist thanks to the films of Bruce Lee. Kung-fu became hot on TV, in comic books and toys around the same time as well. The influence of these icons never faded, and in fact, continue to color pop culture 40-years later.

 

The kids that grew up with Bruce Lee and Evel Knievel are now running companies. They are writers, directors, animators and producers. They get to decide what the entertainment industry focuses on. Look at the character Duke Caboom, introduced in Toy Story 4 in 2019. The entire series is a love-letter to childhood, and the toys that meant the most to us. Kaboom was inspired by the Evel Knievel stunt cycle, rather than the toys of today. You can imagine that if he was covered in stars and stripes then the Disney would have owed the Knievel estate a big paycheck. Instead they painted Caboom in the colors of the Canadian flag, red and white with a maple leaf on his cape to avoid any trademark infringement. Even with those changes audiences could guess who inspired the toy.

 

Kids are going to remember every detail of watching the Brodozer jump over an airplane. They are going to fondly recall the summers spent lining up jumps for their motorcycle and monster truck toys. They are going to draw, write about or become the daredevils in their own life story. Eventually there will be a generation that doesn’t know the names of Knievel, or where monster trucks came from. There are many names that should never to be forgotten. Pioneers of motor-sports and pop culture deserve some recognition. I want to talk a moment about the forefathers that made monster trucks popular. We will look at these people in the next blog. If you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!