My love for bikes started really young. I was riding without training wheels at 3 and racing BMX by 4. I was in the 5 and Under category at my local track where an adult helped you push your bike up the starting hill and then held your rear wheel so you could balance against the gate. You got to ride the same track and jumps as the older kids! I thought it was best thing ever and it didn’t take long before I was finding or building jumps in the woods and trying to ride skateboard ramps. I had two concussions before I was 7, but that didn’t stop me from riding all over my neighborhood and beyond. Once my neighbor found me 3 miles from home riding off some curbs. She was so exasperated that she put me and my bike in her car and drove me home!
I wasn’t that interested in traditional sports or being told when and how to do something. BMX was an outcast thing to do, like being punk or vegan, and even at 7 years old you have an idea of this. Then in 1986 the movie RAD came out. BMX on the big screen! Sure, there was BMX Bandits (with Nicole Kidman!) before that, but BMX was an aside, it wasn’t about BMX. RAD is. And it’s as cheesy as it is amazing to a 7 year old BMXer. My friends and I studied that movie. We looked up the stunt doubles in BMX magazines. We learned the names of any of the tricks we didn’t know. We built bigger jumps. We felt like bad-asses tearing around on our bikes doing tricks. Hell yeah I’d skip the SAT’s to ride Hell Track!
So my good friend Lisa Auerbach, who crewed 508 last year and took all of those great photos, organizes Bike Night at the Hammer museum every year. She picks a bike film to show in the theater and has drinks and vegan food beforehand. In 2009 it was Breaking Away and last year it was PeeWee’s Big Adventure with Paul Reuben there to introduce it! So fun. This year she chose the movie RAD. It also happens to be the 25th anniversary! The Hammer searched high and low to find possibly the last remaining 35mm print, the Director will likely be introducing it and the original BMX bikes will be there on display. Seriously, does it get any more rad than that?
Thursday, April 14th at 7pm. Details on the Hammer website. Also check out RAD: The Movie. Please pass this on and help promote this super rad (okay, last time) event. Trailer below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=607eTT2y1ZU
Last I heard, Hollywood Mike Miranda was living in the apt below my friends in Seal Beach. He was not too stoked on being called “Hollywood Mike Miranda.”