Push It A Stop

On February 8th of last year Tony Malouf and I got up around dawn, and we headed across town to meet up with Bobby Kanode in hopes of filming one of the last clips for Tony’s  BSD Beverage frame promo. Fortunately, the spot was completely deserted that morning. Unfortunately, we discovered a sizable puddle right at the edge of the roof. I figured that was the end of that, but Tony was optimistic that he could sweep the water off and still get it done.

While Tony was prepping the roof, I got busy setting up the photo. For those interested in the technical side of things, I shot with a Canon 7D at 1/400th at F7.1 with three flashes. I didn’t take notes that day, but as I remember, the main light, an Einstein 640 at 1/2 power, was in the grass several feet to the left of the concrete pad which was about 10 feet to the left of the frame. A second Einstein 640 at 1/2 power was placed directly in line with Tony’s trajectory, roughly twice as far away from the action, at the end of the concrete pad way to the left of the way of the frame. The third flash was a Vivitar 285 on a low power setting (1/4, but maybe 1/16) near the building to my right aimed up at Tony to serve as a bit of fill light.

Once the photo was all set up, and the roof looked about as good as it was going to get, Tony let Bobby and I know he was ready to give it a shot. Tony wanted to throw the bars on the very first go but ended up straight hopping it with ease instead. The second try was nearly flawless; Tony popped, threw and caught the barspin perfectly, but one of his feet slipped off the pedal when he landed. The next try (as seen in the TGF Merry VXmas edit) was not so lucky. One of Tony’s hands failed to get a solid grasp back on the bars, and he crumpled to the ground on impact. Now dealing with a severely sprained ankle it seemed like our day was over. Tony is a tough kid though and was determined to leave the spot successful. The last try was accompanied with a pair of slipped pedals and an ankle that couldn’t take anymore.

Regardless of whether Tony was able to ride away from the trick cleanly I was truly impressed by the commitment he showed that day. A lot of riders would have given up when they realized an early morning mission was their only chance at filming the barspin. Others would have stopped when they found a puddle on the roof. And even more would have called it quits after they rolled their ankle over. Now I am just hoping that one of these days Tony texts me to let me know that he “got dar barspin.”