Documentary: The Birth Of Big Air
Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2012 9:20 am
Watched this on Netflix streaming last week while holed up in a hotel room.
Mat Hoffman grew up just a few miles away from me, so he was on our local radar before he was on the nation's. Known as "The Condor" in BMX circles, Mat Hoffman is known for two things: flying high and landing hard.
Back before cell phone cameras and the Internet, news got out quickly if you lived near one of the coasts, and slowly if you lived in places like Oklahoma. During the 1980s, everybody knew what the guys on both coasts were doing and nobody knew what Mat Hoffman was doing, which was building big ramps and going big. And when word got out as to what Mat was doing, he moved his ramp inside into a giant warehouse where people couldn't see what was going on.
Inside that warehouse, Mat was inventing new tricks. While other people were doing variations of the same old tricks, Mat invented the "backflip fakie" (riding up a ramp, doing a backflip, and landing and riding back down backwards). Hofman was the first person to pull off a 900 on a bike in a competition. He also pulled off the first flare in a competition (a backflip with a 180 turn) that was so amazing at the time that the announcer jumped up and landed on his knees, causing his only "announcer-related injury".
When ramps were 10' tall, Mat built a 12' tall ramp. When other people decided to build 12' tall ramps, Mat built a 20' tall ramp. It was so tall that he had to get towed by a motorcycle to get enough speed to get enough air. Later, he built a 40-something foot drop in ramp to get enough speed to ride the ramp. When that wasn't enough speed, he took an engine off of a chainsaw and added it to his bike frame. Of all the words people have used to describe Mat Hoffman over the years, "sane" is not one of them.
All of this came to a head when someone else claimed to have obtained the "highest air" at 19', a record that Mat had unofficially held for years at 23'. In an attempt to break the record ... well, let's just say "three day coma" and "a year of not being quite right" came up. And fortunately ABC's Wild World of Sports were there to film it from half a dozen angles. POW. POW. POW. POW. POW. POW.
Let's put it this way: when Evel Knievel is impressed by how many bones you've broken, that's impressive.
Anyway, "The Birth of Big Air" is around an hour long and is available on Netflix streaming. My wife, who couldn't care less about BMX or Mat Hoffman, enjoyed watching the film. There are worse ways to spend an hour.
Mat Hoffman grew up just a few miles away from me, so he was on our local radar before he was on the nation's. Known as "The Condor" in BMX circles, Mat Hoffman is known for two things: flying high and landing hard.
Back before cell phone cameras and the Internet, news got out quickly if you lived near one of the coasts, and slowly if you lived in places like Oklahoma. During the 1980s, everybody knew what the guys on both coasts were doing and nobody knew what Mat Hoffman was doing, which was building big ramps and going big. And when word got out as to what Mat was doing, he moved his ramp inside into a giant warehouse where people couldn't see what was going on.
Inside that warehouse, Mat was inventing new tricks. While other people were doing variations of the same old tricks, Mat invented the "backflip fakie" (riding up a ramp, doing a backflip, and landing and riding back down backwards). Hofman was the first person to pull off a 900 on a bike in a competition. He also pulled off the first flare in a competition (a backflip with a 180 turn) that was so amazing at the time that the announcer jumped up and landed on his knees, causing his only "announcer-related injury".
When ramps were 10' tall, Mat built a 12' tall ramp. When other people decided to build 12' tall ramps, Mat built a 20' tall ramp. It was so tall that he had to get towed by a motorcycle to get enough speed to get enough air. Later, he built a 40-something foot drop in ramp to get enough speed to ride the ramp. When that wasn't enough speed, he took an engine off of a chainsaw and added it to his bike frame. Of all the words people have used to describe Mat Hoffman over the years, "sane" is not one of them.
All of this came to a head when someone else claimed to have obtained the "highest air" at 19', a record that Mat had unofficially held for years at 23'. In an attempt to break the record ... well, let's just say "three day coma" and "a year of not being quite right" came up. And fortunately ABC's Wild World of Sports were there to film it from half a dozen angles. POW. POW. POW. POW. POW. POW.
Let's put it this way: when Evel Knievel is impressed by how many bones you've broken, that's impressive.
Anyway, "The Birth of Big Air" is around an hour long and is available on Netflix streaming. My wife, who couldn't care less about BMX or Mat Hoffman, enjoyed watching the film. There are worse ways to spend an hour.