Why should the cherrypicker get all the glory, how about those who liked to kick it on the front wheel as well? I'd love to see some photos and hear any stories you might have about these tricks. I'd much rather see personal photos of you or people you know, rather than magazine shots we've seen before...unless of course YOU'RE the one in the magazine, then it's cool.

Bar Endo - I don't know who invented it, but, one of the first riders to get in the magazine doing this trick was Dave Vanderspek. I absolutely love(d) doing this trick, it's one of those that you can bust out and leave people wondering what just happened.


Dave Voelker



Miami Hopper - When I first saw this trick in a How-To by RL Osborn ('85 BMXA), I couldn't believe how simple it was and that I hadn't thought of it before. Here's what RL said about the origin of the Miami Hopper.

When I was doing some freestyle shows in Miami, Florida, this winter, saw one at the locals do the trick. His name was Paul Hopper, and he's a really nice guy. After I got this trick wired, I came up with a few variations of my own, and since Paul had no real name for it, I'm calling it The Miami Hopper after him. - Taken from 23mag.com


KoP

lookback nac-nac style....

where,s guav??????????he has the pics!!!!!

Never could do a Miami Hopper -- I had a Hutch Trick Star with the long pegs, and just putting the bike in that position was difficult. I could do bar endos, though. Just really quick -- never quite so tweaked. Just one of those tricks I wasn't able to figure out!

I will say it was one of the more requested tricks when I went out riding. People would always ask, "Can you do a miami hopper?" I suspect most of them thought it was some kind of hopping trick, like the cherry picker. A friend of mine could do them, and most people always seemed disappointed when they saw what the famed Miami hopper was.

Heh, that's what I'm talkin' about. I never thought about doing them like that, or even really taking my foot off. I think I was just lazy though.


Me

Anyone remember the Miami Drop-In Overture? Martin Aparijo was known for doing these, he probably invented it!



The toughest thing for when I tried doing a Miami Hopper was getting my hand to leave the handlebars, once I got that down i was able to do several variations...


I found doing a cherrypicker was much much harder to do and dial in..didn't help I was 13-14...


Gotta love watching rad on the vcr and putting it in slow mo several times over to learn these...

Still Have them after all these years!

I always loved the cowboy as well. Front brakes pwn you!

jd

I could never stand the people that rode into them with their hand already on the seat... such a cop-out.

Miami hoppers were my go to.

Rode in and out of them 100% of the time. Just as smooth and graceful as I wanted. Just drop it down gently on the grip. Get my balance and sit up. Take a drink of soda or shake a hand.
Some times I even went into them one handed.
Some times.
Never pulled out of the one handed though. That would have been something...

Bar endos I wasnt 100% on because they usually ended up being hoppers

I need to figure out how to scan these pictures...

the backwards one was on the way down. i can get it higher.

You're thinking of Scura......he invented/did those.

Always liked the backwards one Bob.

Cherrypicker31 - I had forgotten about the Overture, wasn't that when you'd flip the bike onto it's bars/seat from a hopper?



jes - I love the intensity! My buddy Tom could do Cowboys until the cows came home.


Here's a bar endo shot of me from, 2005 I think and contrary to how bad my style looks, I did ride out of it.




K-Dog - For scanning pics you could actually take a pic of them with a digital camera, then upload OR take them into Wal-Mart or something...I think they scan them in as well.



BoB-O - I gotta tell ya, the backwards Hop-Hop's scared the B-Jezez out of me. All I could do was picture slapping the back of my head on the ground lol.



Dopple err...Bedlam - Yeah, I think you're right, Scura certainly rings a bell.

I found this interesting tidbit on 23mag.com about the Miami Hopper or "Bar Stall" -
Danny Barrado, august 2007 : My name is Bong Air and my trick is the Miami Hopper which was named after my riding partner Hopper Paul by R L Osborn when he visited us in Miami in 1984. The event was the World of Wheels auto show at the Hollywood Sportatorium. There was a contest for BMX TRICKS run by MCS bicycles and NFA.This is where the BAR STALL (Miami Hopper) was first used in a contest.The announcer said here is Bong Air, I roll out on my Haro Freestyler, open up a tallboy can of budweiser and pound it. Then I went out and did all the latest tricks flawlessly including the bar stall on the top of the wedge ramp, I gave it my all and from the crowd response I knew that I had won without a doubt. They gave me third place, team MCS got first and second. I confronted the judges and they said they didn't like the way I drank a beer. I told them to go to hell.The fool they gave second to had a cast on his broken arm and the other guy was lame. R L was there and knows the story, we showed him the barstall and he showed us how to do front wheel squeekers on the wedge ramp. I have pictures of the barstall when I first did it in dec 1983. Hopper picked it up soon after, and together we came up with all the variations including the Elephant Stall where we put our bikes together, I hold the bikes and he does a handstand on the seatposts. I still have my Haro Master with number plate signed by R L 84. I still can do my trick Barstall.



Here's another shot from BitD -

L to R - Me, humidity saC, Pat Wirz (The 'Zine)

Ok I know some / alot of you have seen these pics before but this is the perfect thread to post them again. These pics just make me wish 2 things. #1 I wish I still had my pink trickstar and #2 I wish I was still 185 lbs.... HA HA HA

Mark

Nah' I mean my 20 year old pictures I have sitting infront of me. I have a friend coming over this weekend who is much gooder at computers than I am.
He will help me out.

I had a friend back around 91 that would do Miami Hoppers all the time. In fact he could do all kinds of stuff. Was waaaay better than I ever was. I wish I had pictures or video. His big trick was spastic no handed stick b*tches. He could ride into them and back out. Was crazy! Anyway he rode a Haro FSX frame and fork that had a really nasty crack workin around the seat tube gusset. He always did Miami Hoppers while holding the seat post and one day when he did one the top of the seat tube snapped off and the whole seat and post came flying out of the frame and flew up into the air. He looked like the statue of liberty.

That's what I thought, I meant you could take pictures (with a digital camera) of those pictures and then load them onto the computer. If you know how to do that sort of thing.

This is what I think may be the earliest known picture of a bar endo. It's from a video of Vander in GG Park. Probably early 1983. Before the Curb Dogs were formed or Freestylin' came up to shoot. To Vander it was just a different kind of one-handed endo. We couldn't figure how you could hold onto the bars with it turned the other way. I called it the "Vander One-Hander". One day he was there and just decided to hop one and broke the spoke on his Tuff; a superhuman feat at the time. Then he proceeded to break every spoke. Vander was a nut. I'm not sure how he got home that day.

I loved bar endos and cowboys! Miami Hoppers.....I could ride into them.....balance in them, but I could never ride out of them except by doing it the lame way which was to lay the bike over to the side....which usually meant it crashing down hard. And then hoping I didn't touch the ground and then pull the bike up and ride away. I thought that was really lame so I rarely did the trick.

I remember snaping a few tuffs and periguns(sp) with hopping bar endos,I would hop and rotate 360 then pull out.. my Z rims never broke but my ft tire would roll off sometimes.
I broke,weld and rebroke a couple Hutch trickstar forks from this abuse.ah what fun..

I think I have a pic of me doing a Maimi Hopper Itson invert(legs up)

I could never do them, so you're a step ahead of me, but I would think riding out of them would be the easier part. A little scary at first, but easier than getting into the trick.

lol don't get me started on snapping tuffs.

Strike,

That's hilarious! I would be so proud of that letter if it were mine. If it isn't already, you should have that framed and on display.

By the way, I'll take this opportunity to applaud you on some great posts / pics over the years on here. It's long overdue in my saying, but you're posts and stories are ALWAYS top notch.

Obviously you were no "poser" back then!

Mike

PS - The funny thing is, you can almost imagine the discussion in the office back then before that letter was penned. 1 person taking the wheel to another and explaining that it's the "Nth" one, and so on. Then finally the "manager" assigning the minion the task of composing and sending it to you. Very freakin' funny when you think about it.

Thanks for all the props Mike, I try to do what I can. You're right, I wasn't a poser back then, but I sure am now lol.

I had posted that letter a couple of years ago and Bart Weems (from Skyway) actually showed it to Beverly Burnett. I guess she didn't recall writing it, but got a kick out of reading it so many years later.

funniest thing so far......lol

here's one of me back in 85 on my old haro freestyler doing a miami hopper on a gravel driveway.

Excellent thread!! Here's my contribution.

I myself would prefer to grab the seat before going into the hopper. Cop-out??? To each his own. I thought the trick looked and flowed a little better that way.










The inspiration for all this radness.

HAHAAHAHAHHAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

That's some funny stuff. The funniest thing about it is that they got to know your name well enough through the various repairs they did that they finally had to tell you enough is enough. Congratulations on getting the first eight wheels past them! If I knew they were so good about repairing them, I would have sent in the back wheel I cracked doing a lawnmower.

Skyway was VERY lenient with me and I appreciate everything they've done for me in the past. They were more than fair and I did take advantage of the situation, although I do plead ignorance...for the most part.

I would say that 50% of the wheels I had sent in were the Tuff breaking (snapping a spoke) and the other half were the bearing race (or whatever it's called) in the hub actually breaking (inward). Some of these broken wheels were the replacements that I had just gotten back! For instance, I had received a replacement blue rear coaster Tuff from UPS the day before one of our shows. Of course I had to put it on and it snapped when I pulled up into a cherrypicker (before the days of hydrants into them). That one never got sent back.

These were all legitimate issues but how they could say that the wheels didn't look maintained is beyond me. I mean how can you not maintain a Tuff Wheel? Beverly was; however, correct in that I never sent in a proof of purchase, I guess I didn't realize I needed to and once they replace one without it, I just kept right on.

To be completely honest, the last wheel (the one that prompted this letter) WAS in really rough shape. Very dirty and had a big gouge/scratches from landing and blowing a tire on a pearock road. I think that the landing had caused the hub to blow out (another imploded bearing race) and so I sent it in.

I do love my friends at Skyway!

Strike, that is hilarious! Were you crushed when that letter came in? How old were you? Yeah, Skyway was really mellow about the retrurn policy. Serious pride in workmanship there. Killed them to have to get completes made overseas. You would not believe some of the stuff that made it into boxes from Taiwan. One fork had one leg welded so crooked the wheel would have needed a 10" axle to fit!

All the main people are still there. When I called up there a few years back after losing touch I talked to Beverly. She was telling me how people were trying to buy her old blue Skyway jacket and other stuff. I told her to just sell it to me. Ha.

Hahaha...I snapped a front white Tuff II on my friends blue Hutch Trickstar back in 1986 while doing a miami hopper. He was SO pissed. Dude gave me all kindsa threats, I will never forget that. What's even funnier is that after I snapped out a spoke in the mag, (he wasn't there at the momment when it happened) I then wedged the spoke back into the wheel hoping that he wouldnt notice it for quite a while since he didn't really freestyle on it, he just rode it around town. It didn't work, lol.

I will go out front my house and do a photo of myself doin a miami hopper tomorrow & post it up. i havent done or even tried one in 20 years, but I ain't worried, I race BMX several times a week and always still do other tricks on bmx quite frequently. This will be very fun! Awsome post!

Actually I was more embarassed than anything. I didn't see what I was doing as taking advantage of the rules, hell I never even thought about it really until the letter came. I did feel bad, not only because I got scolded by Skyway of all places, but because I knew that I wouldn't be able to ride Tuff Wheels any longer. I mean, how could I possibly afford to replace those things when I would break one every month? That's when I switched to 48's and discovered the joys of spot on braking (chrome rims).

July of '86, I would have been seventeen when this happened.

I was looking through some old stuff. This was the only photo I could find of me doing a Miami Hopper. It was in the newspaper.

Here's my contribution...more of a bar endo but i just like this pic...a one hander one footer - fully tweaked!!!

strike, when you cracked the mags did you go directly through skyway or your lbs?

Bob, I went directly through Skyway.

That letter is really funny!!!

Here's a couple of my friend. He was bailing out of this one.



and I doubt he rode into this one in his basement, he could do them, but this might just be posed for the camera.



I don't have any pix of myself though. Wish I did.

Well, I guess I lied a bit in my earlier post when I said I wasn't a poser bitd. I can't really claim to never have "posed" a trick or two. How embarassing.

okay
who used the wall to prop them selves up ?

Good thread here......Anyone know where a video of a bar endo beginning to end is? I've been trying to get the nerve up to pull one off. It's kind of like one of my goals this summer. I never attempted BITD and want to try one now - i'm 36. I searched youtube and it's just a bunch of gymnastics videos.

My big question is the timing on when to turn the handlebars to get the wheel sideways. I also need some motivation.

This thread has been certified an official VintageBMX "Topic On Fire," earning STRIKE a limited edition T-Shirt for starting the thread.


Please PM with the following info:

Screen Name (I know, I have it already, but helps me keep track)
Name:
Shipping Address
City, State Zip
Size (note: we are out of Lg, XL, and 2X for the next seven days, but have Med, 3X, 4X, 5X 6X in stock)

Congrats!

Best,

M

This is one of my Fav Pic of My Endo


Keep on Riding!!

dback, there is a short video and a how-to at bmxstunts (just click this link).

They're really pretty simple if you don't overthink them too much. Just do an endo, it doesn't have to be a really high one, but just a medium height endo. Once you near the peak of it, push your bars forward, then turn them to 90 degrees and your free hand will come loose naturally and grab the seat. Just practice a bit and you'll get it! good luck!

lol, this was more of a joke picture than anything; however, I never really tried the "sitting on the back wheel" type of miami hoppers and therefore couldn't do them very well.

Ok, check out the Tuff Wheels in that picture.

Red rear Tuff Wheel on my bike - The front one was broken from a bar endo.
Green front Tuff Wheel on my bike - The back one was broken from a cherrypicker attempt gone wrong.
Blue back Tuff Wheel on Jon's bike - That was mine...the front was broken from me doing a bar endo.
Front Z-Rim on Jon's bike - That's mine too, I wasted the back wheel jumping.

Also check out my MDP chainstay standers, my homemade buff guard and the mountain bike levers. Awesome lol.

Aww thanks man. Actually I'm relieved that I got this because now I can start posting in this thread at will without the "you're just looking for a shirt" stigma.

Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada. 1986. Just before our freestyle show at a BMX race. I'm on my Hutch Judge. Loved that bike.

This Trick is called the Miami Stopper invented by Mike Sarris .
Mike did this trick around 1988...this pic is me doing it in 1999 .

I've never seen that done before! That's pretty sick!!!

From Drob's site - pics of the master of the bar endo....Curb Dog Vander.