Hey Woody
Great stuff here!! I have your old 1/2 looptail VDC Voris made with the Campy drop outs. Its in good hands! I managed to get the matching VDC bars from Billy Griggs who said he got them from you. Someday I need to get your autograph on it. Anyways, I was wondering if you could offer any info on it or when you rode for Voris. Anything would be great.

Obviuosly we all love it when you come around.
Thanks,
Ray

Wow, Voris is still looking the same to me. Very cool pic of him. I rode for Voris when I was part of the Vans Trick Team. I went from Bassett racing to VDC and then landed on Hutch. Not sure of the dates to be honest. I would need to check through old magazines to figure that out what the true time frame was. Early 80's for sure. As for those bars, that had to be one of the earliest samples ever made. Notice how high the cross bar is. I think there were only around 20 to 25 pairs of those made with the bar that high. I had the cross bar lowered right away on the next run. A lot of the local OC racers ran those bars on there racing bikes. One of those was Billy G. Not much else I can add. It's pretty hard to ID my old personal frames to be honest, unless there was something really special about it. Anyhow, Voris was really cool about the whole Hutch thing and riding for Hutch was a great experience for sure. Woody.

Woody ,

Please enlighten us on your own personal experience of being in the movie Quicksilver....and ANY OTHER COOL STUFF !!!.....like having your morning "I Hops" for breakfast everyday too !!!


Tony
Bicycle Junkie

This thread rules! Woody, thanks for all of the cool pics and info!

Once and for all - does ANYONE know the current whereabouts of this frameset?? Did anyone on here own it at one time?

Hi Woody. These pictures were taken Aug 4, 1983 while our family was visiting Peddlepower. Rob asked you to put on a mini show and you complied.




Pretty Cool !!!

[ June 26, 2007, 11:04 PM: Message edited by: DarrenOz ]

FlanelCamel (Ray) - is that VDC set up as a racing bike or a freestyler - to me it could be either - VERY cool except you meed some B&W B1Bs - lol

Woody - this is a cool thread and I'm not even a freestyle guy - lol

Can I ask you, if it hasn't been asked already, how you did as a racer, before you hit the freestyle thing full time?

Hey Woody I have posted a website in memory of Jeff Larson (Rambo)

Here is a link http://www.perfectiononwheels.com/jefflarson/


So . . . I know if Jeff wanted to pass anything on to me to tell everyone, it would be

" To you my friends I give a Million Dollars! For the help when I needed it most of all thank you for helping me live a good life. I did my best to cram it all in. Its a shorter time than I expected" If you have a challenge in your life remember ! No Games !!"

As a racer I did ok, but only on a local level. I went to a few nationals. I trophied at a couple of them, but never won one. I did get to race at the last ever Corona Downhill event. That track was crazy to say the least. My district was CA-3. A couple of the guys in it were Pete Loncarivich and Billy Griggs. I raced expert for a while and I ended up #3 for the year in my district. Towards the end of my racing career I turned pro and we use to get some crazy pro races at the orange Y. Sometimes 3 gates full of pros. Guys like Stu Thompson, Mike Miranda, Pistol Pete, Toby Henderson, Shawn Texas, Eddie King, Dave Marietti, Greg Hill, Harry Leary, Dennis Kishiyama, and Tinker Juarez would show up and race. I was fortunate to win the main event there a couple of times and the payday was pretty good for a local race for sure. Home track advantage as they say, but at the Nats I got smoked. Anyhow, those were some good times for sure. When I started racing on a Friday night at the Orange Y, we would average 75 to 80 motos a night. I think for a while I raced 4 to 5 times a week. There were so many tracks back then it was easy to do.

Hey Dennis very cool. Man I can't believe it's been that long. For those of you who are not sure who Dennis is, his full name is Dennis Langlais. Dennis and I were team mates on Diamond for a little while after Mike D left. We have remained friends ever since. We use to compete to see who could string the most whiplashes together, now we compete on the golf course

Langlais was a rad mofo!!
Massachusetts native, right?

Awesome post Woody. Thanks for sharing!!

woody you rocked then and you rock now brother.and i remember you and dennis on that db team...such cool history....wow!!!ride on forever, never too old!!!!!44 is 14 4th time around with out the puiberty thing...lol.....we love ya woody!!!

Yep, Dennis was born and raised in MA. Along with the likes of Chirs Lashua, Darren Pelio, and Jeff Larsen. Dennis once did a 900 on an old AFA 8' tall, 7'wide 1/4 pipe. He almost pulled it off. I think is was the Portland AFA masters back in the 80's. He also use to go 10' out on those old ramps. I give him a lot of grief these days about the old times, but he could ride vert with the best of them back in the day. He was also a really good ground rider towards the end there. He still rides til this day.

Ok - Woody so you think you were an average racer and you lined up with Stu, the Businessman, Hollywood, CocaCola Cowboy, Turbo Harry etc - lol - you are humble!

You know, the way I see it is like this. If you race enough times, your bound to win now and then. You pretty much can't loose every time and if you ride was fast people, your bound to go fast every once in a while. Back when Greg Hill started GHP he made a freestyle bike. He wanted to learn some tricks so I taught him some freestyle and he taught me to go faster. It's the law of averages. We also use to go to a place off the Santa Ana river trail and ride the track that was built there. I think it was Centennial Park? Anyhow, when Tim March came over from the UK and lived here in the US for a while, him, Greg, Rob Fehd, me, and Martin would go ride the track with those guys. There were some really good jumps there too. Anyhow, Greg was so smooth back then, he would literally sit on his seat going over the jumps to make fun of Tim. It was really funny to watch because he was going so fast when he did it. I'm not sure how many people knew that side of Greg, but he was always good for a laugh.

Probably my favorite racing story is the time I went to Mike Miranda's home track in Riverside. He and I were kind of putting on a jumping show for the crowd, just having fun cutting over berms, etc. All the things your not suppose to do at a crowded track, but they let us do it because the people there were having fun watching and they liked having Mike around. They had a rule there, if you went up to the starting gate on the wrong side for the main event, they would make you start on the gate backwards, no kidding. I think Mike knew this pretty good, but I had no idea, it was my first time to that track so I was clueless. So sure enough, Mike and I got on the gate backwards that night for the expert main. Anyhow, something happened in the first or second turn with a pile up and Mike and I got by for first and second that night, starting backwards on the gate. Somtimes it's better to be lucky, than good.

I always look back at racing as a really fun time in my life. That's where I got the name that stayed on the back of my pants for most of riding career. "Do A Trick". After a few times to my local track, that's all the kids would yell at me, do a trick over the jumps. Even in the parking lot, he can you do a trick for me. One day a pair of pants showed up from my sponsor with that on the back and the rest is history.

Good stories Woody.

Yeah, Hillage still has the sense of humour.

Hey - the GHP bike was the GHP Trix of course - quite a cool bike but hard to get hold of these days.

One thing about Greg is was a very gnarly jumper.
Funnily enough you have your jumps called 'Learys', 'Judge' etc but nothing called a 'Hill'.

Best thread ever...at least of 2007 so far, thanks for sharing Woody!!

Woody - great to see you dropping by on vintage.

Hearing the history of the sport firsthand makes us all feel young again!

Jeff

Wow,Woody Itson.I`ll have to scan the pics from 85,or maybe 86 ,when you,and Martin came to Brunswick,OH,and did a show while riding for Hutch.Give me a day or two to post up the old pics

Thanks Woody for the early freestyle history. It's cool to hear it from the one who was there from the start.

kick *** thread

Woody,

Thanks for sharing your life stories with us. As mentioned above, by many, this thread is the ultimate culmination of what so many of us long to hear about. History, as told, by the history makers themselves. This thread is what makes this community whole.

We all sincerely appreciate what you gave us as kids by inspiring us back then. Now, we're all inspired to hear you share your memories and, as Jeff said, help us to re-live a little of our past too.

Thank You,

Mike Deno

This has to be pretty strange for alot of you Pros from back in the day Woody. After chatting online with guys like Eddie Fiola and Blyther and talking on the phone with Ron at 2Hip you realize that you guys are all just normal everyday dudes who just loved to ride their bike.

But to many of us, You were equal to if not bigger in our hearts than any rock star of the time. If someone were to ask me if I would want to spend the day hanging out with Voelker or C C Deville, I think everyone on this board would pick Dave in a second.

I know you have heard it before but alot of you guys had a HUGE impact on who alot of us were then and now.

I mean how else could you explain a Grizzly Adams/Biker looking guy like Brian P with all that stuff in his garage. LOL

Anyway, I'm done for now. Thanks for sharing all the great memories.

Jeff

quote:

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I mean how else could you explain a Grizzly Adams/Biker looking guy like Brian P with all that stuff in his garage. LOL

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Could somebody insert the infamouse "What the **** are you looking at" pic of Brian from one of the Jersey rides here?

Woody! Woody! Woody! Woody!

Brings me back to old memories of getting in trouble in school for practicing my gut levers on the backs of school desk chairs.

-Todd