They guys name is Steve Emig, some of you might know him or possibly read some of his blogs, the most recent can be read here

http://freestylebmxtales.blogspot.com/



he did many zines which got him recognized by the original Freestylin magazine crew and wrote more than one AFA contest article over the years, and for those of us who lived and died on that coverage in the 80's some of his writing has held a place in our minds for quite a while, and went to work for the AFA making videos and eventually was THE man at Vision producing skate and freestyle videos of contests and special events. In the 90's he lived on Chris Moeller's couch I think and was the editor on the first two, 3? S&M videos.

Fun reading, cool guy. great stories!!!

POST SOME STUFF IF YOU KNOW HIM OR GOT GOOD STORIES ABOUT STEVE



POST AND SAY HI ON STEVES BLOG, IT WOULD MEAN ALOT TO HIM!

I thought he was giving up the blog. I enjoyed his stories and was disappointed when he posted that he was giving up the blog. It is good to see he is writing again and it looks like he will be getting a bike soon. Good luck to him.

. It is good to see he is writing again and it looks like he will be getting a bike soon. Good luck to him.
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YES. Me and Sean M ( and my donators, to many to mention) are hooking him up with a complete Ride, and some gear!!!

i think thats super kick a55 of you and sean to do that for him....god knows the man can use an escape from reality from time to time.

good on you.

THANKS,

Read his stories from time to time. He has alot of cool things to say about BMX history!!

oh believe me, i check his blog daily for new posts.

I feel honored to be mentioned in the blogs..

If anyone has any XXXL company BMX shirts, send them to me, and when i send him the care package and the bike, he will faint!! lol

Our local Oreillys donated some wrenches and allen wrenchs today also so he has tools to work on the bike!!

The behind the scenes stories of those freestyle days are great.. Everybody wishes they could have been at Wizard at that time...

Wish I was around that era, Looked like a freakin blast!!

The bike parts keep flying in. Boy will steve be stoked!!!

I have known the White Bear for 20 years! My first pair of PITCHFORKS were purchased from Steve ( he was sitting on the couch in Moellers house that was his bedroom) in HB @ 1991. I saw him at SHEEP HILLS last year and his health was in bad condition. I hope he is doing good- its grwat to read his stories again!


sd

Chris told me that steve lived with him. Funny stories!!!

Thats why we are building him a bike, to get out, get healthy and enjoy life!!!

Thanks

nick

if anyone has some old vision stickers, afa, freestyle, s&m exc.. send them to me, and ill send them with the bike to steve. He would probaly get a kick out of seeing old stuff he was around for , for many years..

thanks

nick

His bike is very close.. Just waiting on the wheels. and need a black or chrome 30.0MM seat post clamp!!

Only thing not shown is the REDLINE FLIGHTS i am donation, stuff from PORKCHOPBMX and the wheels coming from JOHNSONBMX









THIS IS THE FIRST BIKE OF THE 2010 YEAR TO BE GIVEN AWAY.

SO EVERYONE GET READY FOR THE 2010 YEAR, AND BLOW OFF THE DUST OFF THOSE OLD PARTS, WE ARE READY TO TAKE DONATIONS!!





Steves first package that is in the above pics is ready to ship out tommorrow. once i get the wheels and other stuff, ill send them out also. This way he has some teaser parts to play with!!!!

FRAME-SEAT POST, CHAIN, FREEWHEEL, PADS, TIRES, TUBES DONATED BY PORKCHOPBMX
FORK, FSA HEADSET DONATED BY INDYLODOWN
REDLINE FLIGHTS, PROFILE BB DONATED BY ME
FLY BARS, SINZ V-BRAKE KIT, SEAT CLAMP - BOUGHT BY THE MIDWEST BMX PROGRAM
ODYSSEY MAG SEALED PEDALS, GRIPS, POLISHED STEM, SEAT, EXC DONATED BY ODYSSEY
TOOLS DONATED BY LOCAL OREILLEYS
WHEELS DONATED BY JOHNSONBMX.COM
DECALS BY CALLIE GRAPHICS
SHIPPING FROM MY WORK.

AND MUCH MORE...

Anyone reading and following his blogs?

HE HASNT EVEN RECIEVED HIS WHEELS OR OTHER GOODIES YET!!!!


Nick, I just told Sean I would have been stoked if you sent me a 20 year old mountain bike. THIS BIKE IS OFF THE HOOK!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH. When you first said you were sending me a bike, I thought you and a few guys would dig through the garage and put something together, and that would have been cool as hell. I'm just stoked anyone even reads the blog, and never in a million years expected someone to send me a bike. For what it's worth, you're on my zine mailing list for life now.
Obviously I'm going to write more about your program in the near future. Do you want me to put your email in a post so people can contact you, and if so , which email? Or I can have people email me and forward them to you?
I really hope I'm on the other side of the equation before too long, and can send you stuff to help out. But for now, I'm on the recieving side and accept this with much gratitude. Thanks again, and let me know what I can do to help your program out that's within my abilities.
Steve Emig aka The White Bear

It's Christmas at my house

First of all, I want to thank the following people for giving me a chance to ride again:

Nick Ziegler
Porkchop BMX
Indy Lodown
Good Times Super Store (Rick Moliterno)
The O'Reilleys
Johnson BMX
Jim Bauer and Michael Tang
All of these people pitched in to hook me up with a bike I couldn't possibly afford right now.
I know I ***** and moan in this blog more than I should. I'm really not doing it to mooch stuff off of any of you, I just do it because I'm really frustrated. For over a year now, I've been sitting down to write about my experiences in the early years of BMX freestyle, never really sure how many people actually read this. Since I put the ads on the blog, I get a daily rundown. Much to my surprise, 50 to 100 people check this blog out every day. That's not a lot compared to the really big blogs, but it's damn good for the little, old school BMX freestyle niche.
As you well know, I'm unemployed and pretty broke. It's just a really weird situation. Many of you have shown me moral support through emails or comments, which I really appreciate. One guy sent me a copy of an old video I produced, another sent me a T-shirt, both of which surprised me. Then, about three weeks ago, I got a couple of emails asking for my address. One was from Sean Murphy, who's been the biggest promoter of my blogs. The other email came from a guy named Nick Ziegler from Illinois. He said he wanted to send me a bike, and that he didn't want me to act too proud and say "No." Now I've helped people out in the bike world, I think we all have, and on several occasions, those people later helped me out. What comes around goes around and what goes around come around.
I learned Nick has his own program where he builds BMX bikes to give to people, mostly kids, he thinks deserve them and will appreciate them. He's given away something like 30 bikes in the last couple years.
So I figured Nick would dig through his garage, and maybe the back room of a bike shop or two, and put something together to help get riding again. But that's not Nick's style... He asks several companies to donate parts, and buys some with his own money.
The first box got here today, most of the bike. Since I'm a big guy these days, hovering around 300 pounds, he decided on a cruiser. So in this massive box today there was a Schwinn Prostock 3 frame and fork, Redline Flight cranks, Fly bars, Odyssey Jim Cielenki pedals, and a bunch more stuff. I'll give you all a full rundown when I get it all together. The wheels are coming in a few days. And it's all new. It totally blew me away, and I told Nick I didn't know if my meager blog could live up to all this generosity. He emailed back and said, "just keep doing what you're doing," meaning the blog.
WOW.

I've almost quit this blog, and the earlier FREESTYLIN' one so many times, and every time I'd just happen to get an email from someone saying they really dig it and to keep it up. The first of these was from China (aka Krys Dauchy) a couple weeks after I started the FREESTYLIN' blog. I love doing the writing, but the financial situation here is just ridiculous. I've been turned down for several restaurant jobs, and the one magazine job I found nearby. I'm squeaking by on odd jobs and learning to make money online as quickly as I can, that seems my best bet at the moment. As long as I can squeak by, I'll keep writing about freestyle.
If any of you would like to help Nick put together his next bike for some lucky soul, email me and I'll pass your info on to him. BMX changed my life, it changed Nick's, and hopefully it will change a lot more in the future. Thanks you all for continuing to read my stuff, and let me know in the comments what you think, a lot of good post ideas have come from the comments. Thanks again to Nick and everyone who pitched in on this. You guys are awesome.

More stuff sent to Steve.

Keep checking his blog and please sign up so he knows people watch it!!!



Nick

It's really weird seeing all this stuff about me. But I'm stoked you guys dig the blogs. I'm beyond stoked at all the stuff Nick has sent to me. Yes I'm broke, and don't have a real job, and the living situation here is really sketchy. It's a really, REALLY long story. I spent four years working 100 hours a week, and became homeless because I worked too much. And I whine about that way to much in the blog. But I never imagined someone would go to so much trouble to hook me up with a bike. Not just a bike, but the best total bike I've ever had. I never had Flight Cranks BITD. As I sit down at this computer night after night, I kind of forget people actually read the crap I write. I'm just guy sitting in the dark pecking away at the keyboard. It's easy to forget that someone out there actually reads my stuff.
So thanks to Nick, Sean, Rick Moliterno, Porkchop BMX and everyone I forgot, for all that stuff in the photos above. And the stuff that isn't in the pics, Standard jeans and cap, several shirts form Nick, and the gearbag and all the tools. The wheels are on the way, and once I get the bike together, I'll put pics on the blog of everything, and a rundown of everything that's been sent. I'll put a pic or two of me riding it, so you can see how fat I got as a taxi driver. Just don't send my any Slim-fast, OK? I'll pedal all these pounds off.
I never expected any of this. Like several things I've done in life,my blogs have blossomed into something far more than I ever expected or even dreamed. Obviously, that doesn't happen without all of you reading them. So thanks again.
Now I'm going to tell you how you can easily help me out, or any other blogger you read, with a click of your mouse. I've put Google Adsense ads on most of my blogs. The way that works is that the blogger gets money for each time someone clicks on one of the ads, or for each 1,000 views of the display ads. So if you want to say thanks to a blogger, you can click on one of the ads that sounds appealing. Now part of the deal with Google is that the bloggers can't encourage people to click the ads in the blog (or website). The advertisers are paying to get people truly interested to click the ads, so that's a fare deal. Now some of the fancy display ads can be sketchy, we all know that. But the written ads are legit businesses as far as I know. Anyhow, if you read a lot of blogs, or visit sites with Google ads, you can think of the ads as a tip jar. If you click an ad as you leave the site, it's a way of saying "thanks" to the blogger, whether that's me or someone else. Each click makes the blogger 15 to 50 cents on average. And dont' click a million times to help someone out, because then Google thinks the blogger is doing it. So that's the best way you can help out any web publisher easily. If you have a site or blog and want t learn more about Google ads, there are some good videos by Joel Comm on You Tube, he's the master of this stuff. Just for the record, I've earned about $7 in a month on the ads, which isn't much, mostly because most people avoid the ads and don't know what I just explained above.
Thanks again for reading everyone. And I'll try to get over here to Vintage more often, I've been away for a while, busy on the blogs. And let me know in the comments what you think of my blogs, anything, good or bad, helps me figure out what's worth writing about.
And who the heck is the Sheep Hills Local up there? Kinda sounds like Barspinner, but I 'm not sure if I knew him that long ago. SHL Represent!

the newest post...which kicks a$$

Session
In the past fifteen months, I've written about 350 blog posts about my days in BMX freestyle. But this whole time, I've just been an old, fat guy pecking at a computer, writing about "the good old days." This has been partly because because I think somebody needs to write this stuff. But's been mostly because after years of homelessness and other assorted craziness, I wound up sleeping on the floor of my parents tiny apartment in a town where I don't have a chance in Hell of ever getting a good paying job. I had time and a computer, so I started writing.
You've all heard me ***** about this whole situation way too much, even though I try to keep it to a minimum. During this time, a bunch of you have written to encourage me to keep writing, Sean Murphy from Standard has become my unofficial promotions guy, spreading news about this blog and the FREESTYLIN' one. I thank you all for the comments and encouragement along the way.
But a guy I never met named Nick Ziegler took this encouragement to a whole 'nother level. He got a bunch of people to donate parts and sent me a bike that I couldn't possibly afford. I'll show some pics and details in the next couple posts. The wheels showed up yesterday, and I spent the evening getting the bike running. I got out on it last night, but the chain was a little too long, so this morning I got the bike actually running. Then I went out for a ride.
I started really getting into BMX jumping in 1982, followed shortly by racing and then freestyle. Like many of you, I rode two or three hours a day for the next ten years. Even after fading out of the industry in the mid '90's, I was still riding some kind of bike every day until I became a taxi driver in 1999. Taxi driving is a lifestyle, not a job, so I sat in a cab and got fat for several months. Then I lost my license for not paying a fine and got back to riding nearly every day until I started driving a cab again in late 2003. Then the daily sessions ended, and I spent the next four years sitting in a car up to 23 hours a day. I ballooned up to 374 pounds at one point, nearly died from cellulitis, a gnarly bacterial infection, three times. As most of you know, this led to a year on the streets, and finally to my parents' apartment in a state I'd never lived in. A state where BMX and freestyle barely exist. Yes, I know a handful of top contest riders live in NC, and Eastern Bikes is here, but there is no scene at all in this part of the state. Being a BMXer and being here is like going back in time 30 years. It's frustrating for a lot of reasons. For a couple of decades, my bike was my main way to relieve frustration. And I didn't have one here. Until yesterday.
I headed into town this morning, huffing and puffing before I got a hundred yards. "Holy crap I'm out of shape," I wheezed as I headed up the sidewalk. I weigh about 310 right now, but I'd been walking 2 to 6 miles a day for the last year, so I though I was in a little better shape than I actually am. But I just felt like a heavy breathing blob of Jello for that first mile. When I coasted with my pedals level, my legs shook, "sewing machine leg" we called in when I was a rock climber. I had to sit down on a little bench after the first mile and let my breathing get back to normal. After I rested, I headed to a pair of banks I'd been eyeing since I've been here. A driveway drops down into a parking lot, with banks on both sides, making an huge asphalt tabletop jump, about 30 feet wide. When I first saw it I thought, "Man, that's like a Brian Foster on a good day jump." The banks are pretty mellow, and the runway it uphill, so it'd be quite a jump for anyone to actually clear it. I felt so squirrely after not riding for so long, that I just wanted to roll over it a few times. I didn't even think I could get the bike off the ground. And that bummed me out.
I rolled over the thing once, and was so out of breath that I had to stop and let my breathing get back to normal. Then I hit it again, just happy to roll over the thing and not fall over. After a few more tries, I headed to a nearby store and bought a Diet Coke. I was already worn out, and completely felt like Jello, but I didn't want to leave yet. So I sat on my new bike, sipped my Diet Coke, and just looked at the bank, like I've done hundreds of times before in spots all over this country. I thought about the possibilities for that set of banks, just like I'd done hundreds of times before at banks and jumps and skateparks and pools. About six years ago, I would have rolled up, done a 180 off the bank, rolled backwards across it, the a pivot 180 back into the other side. Then I'd think about riding it. But those days are over for now. Just the feeling of being on a bike and in a parking lot again felt so good. Then I started coughing.
For about three or four minutes I coughed up some horrible looking lung mustard, spitting some world class loogies in the process. This was always a normal part of riding for me. I thought it was the SoCal smog most of the time, since I was in California. What was really going on is that my exercise was getting my heart pumping faster, and also making me breathe much heavier than I had in a while. The heavy breathing gets the lymph system moving, the goop between our cells that cleans toxins and waste products out of the body. Once the lymph gets moving, the body wants to get rid of stuff, and coughing up phlegm is one of the ways it does that. I felt like crap for those three or four minutes, but after that last killer loogie, I was breathing much easier. And the asphalt jump was looking a little more friendly.
I pedaled at it a bit faster than before, and rolled over it. The jump after that, I got a tiny bit of air. It was pretty pathetic really, but it felt soooo good to get a bike in the air again, even if it was only an inch or two off the ground. It wasn't all gone. I hadn't completely lost it. My body still remembered how to ride a little. The next jump I got off the ground again and managed to cross up the bars a little bit. I was elated. It didn't last long, but it was a session. And I hadn't had a session in a really long time.
I headed back to the bench, sat down, and finished my drink. Something that had been missing from my life for a really long time had returned... and it felt good. It will be a long time until I can do much of anything on a bike again, but now I have one, thanks to Nick and friends, and the journey back has begun.
Getting old sucks, but riding a bit makes it suck less

Go read and see his blog today!!!!!

TOTALLY COOL. THE BEAR IS BACK!

Well, I just saw the ad above for Windy at the Rockford Old School event in June. Talking about her b@@bs in my blog really launched my FREESTYLIN' blog, much to my surprise. But it also earned me a scathing email from Windy, which is a bummer. We all thought she was hot, while she just wanted to be taken seriously as a photographer I guess. Sorry Windy, I tried to be fair in writing what so many thought, but no one would put in print. Riders everywhere thought Windy was hot, and said so often among themselves... AND they dug her great photos.
Anyhow, I have a new bike thanks to Nick Ziegler and all the people listed in posts above. It's the highest quality bike I've ever had, and I really dig it. Now I just need to lost some weight so I can actually ride it well. I've posted a few pics on my blog, and I'll put them here as well. And maybe I'll ride that new bike to Rockford in June and let Windy slap the crap out of me for writing about her b@@bs. Here's my blog with pics of the bike. I'll link to the photos when I figure out how to do that, despite a lot of blog posts, I'm still pretty retarded when it comes to computers. - Steve Emig

Glad to see your back. Love the pic of you riding backwards.. Totally cool.

Nick

"Getting old sucks, but riding a bit makes it suck less"

^ Cool, I like that.

Cool looking bike too. I'm a little behind on the blog, I'll have to go catch up.

Like the backwards riding. I checked out your blog and left a couple comments. Good stuff you're doing.

Now get to work building some ramps where that pool used to be.

Steve who?