The sidehack from hell

I saw this on the Odyssey site yesterday while doing those links for the last post. A sidehack on a mega-ramp is just wrong on so many levels. How do you not do a dead sailor on something so off balance? But then, this is the Nitro Circus crew we're talking about.

Nitro Circus Sidehack

BMX sidehacks came out in the late 70's or early '80's I think, and quickly faded. The only published BMX sidehack freestyle I know of was Dale Perez and Frank Garrido riding the 15 Bowl at Pipline Skatepark on a sidehack. Dale was pedaling, and Frank was the monkey. They'd carve near the top of the huge bowl, sidehack side up, and Frank would jump off the hack and out of the bowl.
When I worked at Wizard Publications in 1986, Gork was trying to bring sidehacks back in BMX racing. He got his 'hack out of the warehouse one day to take it to a race, and Gork, me, Andy, and Lew all rode it around the parking lot a bit. Gork and I started doing some freestyle on it, just goofing around. Brake endos didn't work very well, but we were able to get some decent backwards wheelies, with me as the monkey.
That's it for the history of BMX sidehack freestyle. Once again, the Nitro Circus crew is going to break new ground... and probably some bones as well.

In totally unrelated news, I now have over 800 blog posts up. Thanks for reading, everyone.