Bill Batchelor's book: Concrete and Smog- Everybody looks so young...

Curb Dogs leader and all around innovative guy, Dave Vanderspek, showing the roots of street riding, a flatland trick in a really precarious spot.  1985, I believe, this photo was in Bill Batchelor's print zine Shreddin', and has been one of my faovrite photos of his for 35 years.  Photo by Bill Batchelor

Order Bill Batchelor's epic book of early BMX photos: Concrete and Smog*

The man who invented BMX freestyle, Bob Haro.  Close-up mug shot at Pipleline Skatepark.  Photo by Bill Batchelor.  

A year and a half ago, a middle aged guy walked out into the garage and pulled out a box that had been buried behind other stuff for decades.  He says his life was far from stellar at the time, and he's not sure why he decided to pull the box out that day.  In the intro to Concrete and Smog, Bill Batchelor says opening that box "transported him to the before times, 1984..." when he was 13 and carried a camera everywhere.  Lots of kids, even in the 1980's, shot a lot of photos.  But Bill Batchelor was an really skilled photographer at 13, and he grew up near the legendary Pipeline Skatepark.  His box of photos was a time capsule, to the early days of BMX skatepark and freestyle competitions, the first wave of BMX freestyle.  Bill's BMX history was all of our BMX history.  That box was a treasure trove of great photos of the guys who formed BMX freestyle into a sport in the mid 1980's, the guys created this thing that drew the rest of us in.  

English invader who came across the pond to give the California riders a run for their money, Craig Campbell.  Footplant on the face wall of the Pipe Bowl.  Just a reminder, there's 8 feet of hard concrete transition below him, and four feet of vert.  This was no small task in 1985.  Photo by Bill Batchelor

As a diehard blogger, BMX and otherwise, now, who's online a lot, I commented on the first few photos Bill tentatively dropped on Facebook over a year ago.  We messaged a bit, and I shared the good and bad side of sharing your own photos online.  I also told him, as did pretty much everyone else, how epic these photos of his were.  I remember saying something like, "Yeah, people will steal and share your photos, but if you ever do anything like an art show or maybe a book, that sharing is also promotion."  Bill wasn't sure what to do with all these photos then, and I was one of many people who just kept seeing his photos and commenting, "These are fucking AWESOME!" or something close to that.  

Obviously, Bill decided to compile the photographic treasure from that old box into a book.  But not just any book.  This is the guy who self-published an amazing print zine, Shreddin', when he was only 13.  He spent the last year and a half making one hell of an amazing coffee table book, with this amazing collection of photos,as well as writing his own personal story of getting into BMX, and becoming that kid with the camera hanging around Pipeline, and other contests, snapping magazine quality shots, but ones we DIDN'T have on our walls 35 years ago.   

Two very influential people in the early days of BMX freestyle, seen here at the AFA Masters comp in Huntington Beach, in 1984, I believe.  In the front, BMX freestyler/entrepreneur Bob Morales, the guy who turned BMX freestyle into a sport, with the ASPA and then the AFA.  He also founded Dyno, Auburn, and created many more projects.  In the back, Don Hoffman, skateboarder turned video guy.  Don's parents, Stan and Jean, owned Pipeline Skatepark, and Don was the first guy to produce multiple BMX videos, Wayne's World-style, by "borrowing" PBS TV equipment.  Before Eddie Roman, Mark Eaton, and myself even thought about making a BMX video, Don had produced 7 or 8, all of which aired on local cable TV, and some became home videos, and then he headed Unreel Productions at Vision.  I wound up working for both of these guys later on, and I'm proud to say that I did.  Photo by Bill Batchelor.

Over the last few days, I've had a copy of Concrete and Smog to check out, thanks to Bill.  I've been reading part of the text every day.  Then flipping through the seemingly endless pages of new old photos.  Everyone looks so young, that's what strikes me the most.  I was also a zine publisher, a few years older than Bill, back in the mid-80's.  But his zine blew mine away, and I honestly thought maybe I could work for him someday, back in 1985.  I never dreamed I'd work at the magazines, but contributing to future issues of Shreddin' seemed possible.  Maybe.  Much to my, and everyone else's surpirse, I landed a job at Wizard Publications.  Somehow, I never met Bill back in the day, though I had several issues of Shreddin', and I think we traded letters and zines.  So I wound up hanging out, riding with, and shooting a few photos of the pros, as well.  But my memories are strongest from a few years later, 1987-90.  

In Conrete and Smog, Bill catches all the big names, Bob Haro, Bob Morales, Eddie Fiola, Brian Blyther, Mike Dominguez, Jeff Carroll, Woody and Martin, and many more, in 1984 and 1985.  the whole sport was a bunch of teenagers and a few kids in their early 20's then.  Kids having fun on bikes, not one of them thinking middle aged guys would be drooling over these photos more than 35 years later.  Concrete and Smog is one of, maybe THE coolest Old School BMX freestyle product I've seen in the last few years.  If you rode in the 1980's, at any serious level, you NEED this book.  It's as simple as that.  They're not sold out yet, but it's getting there.  If you don't have your own copy enroute, hit that link above and order one.  

This is just a hunch, but I wouldn't be surprised if there's a call for another run of these books, once the first copies hit Europe, the U.K., Scandinavia, Australia, and other foreign lands.  I know there's a HUGE Old School BMX freestyle community across the ponds, from my own blogging and art, and once a couple guys get this book in hand, A LOT more Old School riders will want one.  So order yours now, if you haven't yet.  

Waaaaaay up in the Pipeline's 20 foot diameter full pipe, Pipeline local Jeff Carroll clocking in at about 10:30, pushing 11:00.  Although inspired by nearby Balldy Pipe, that was 16 feet diameter.  Pipeline's full pipe was four feet larger in diameter, and scary as can be to ride.  Photo by Bill Batchelor.

With Bill's permission, I pulled four photos from the book that haven't made the rounds on social media, for this blog post, and in these captions, I tell you why I picked these few (plus the Dave Vanderspek shot from Shreddin' at the top).  These aren't the absolute best, close-up photos, of which there are plenty in the book.  These photos show the scene back then, in 1984-85, the small group of people making BMX freestyle happen as the first wave of popularity was just taking off.  

Just to be clear, I mentioned above messaging Bill, and talking about ideas of what to do with all these photos when he first started sharing them.  I didn't give him the idea for the book, he'd already thought of that.  We were just talking about how photos get shared, "stolen" as some people see it, and the issues of creative work spreading around the web, whether you want it to or not.  I just shared what I'd learned over years of BMX blogging, mostly that there was a big and really hardcore Old School BMX/freestyle community out there, online and off.  I knew his photos would be a hit, whatever he decided to do with them.  Having lived away from social media, he didn't realize then just how big the Old School community was, and that's what I told him about, just how stoked people would be seeing this incredible collection of photos none of us had seen before.  Bill looked at his options, and did the publishing equivalent of blasting a ten foot air in the Pipe Bowl.  Great job on Concrete and Smog, all the way around.  

I can't write about Bill Batchelor's photos of the early days of Pipeline without a photo of the original King of the Skateparks, Eddie Fiola.  The Pipe Bowl's face wall had 8 feet of transition, four feet of vert, and Eddie's about three feet above a five foot high fence above the lip.  8' 2" officially, this is from the high air contest.  Bill Batchelor's photo captures the scene at Pipeline in the era that inspired so many of us other kids around the country to get into BMX freestyle.  If you rode in the 1980's, just buy the book.  You need it.  

 

*Not a paid link