You have a new baby, a new quarter-pipe, Mat Hoffman Pro BMX is out, there's a new HB video coming out soon, you're on the Tony Hawk Tour right now, what else is going on with you?
I think that about covers it.... Gianna (our baby girl) is doing great. She went on the Hawk tour with me. I brought the family wagon on the road and followed the tour bus. My new 1/4 pipe rules, but I found out from experience that it's pretty gnarly to crash on that thing. Dropping from 50+ feet in the air and landing on your head isn't much fun. My video game is doing great. I had no idea that the best way to promote the sport would be to come out with a good video game, there are so many kids who are into it. Right now I'm flying home to finish filming for the new HB video
Testimony. It was supposed to be out by now, but I don't think we are going to have it finished until the end of July, so keep looking out for it, it will be out soon.
HOFFMAN BIKES
What's new coming out of HB? Tell me about the Video.
This month we're releasing the new 2002 bike line, and it's awesome. It has been ten years since I started Hoffman Bikes and this is definitely our best line of bikes yet, so I'm pretty stoked. The new HB video is called
Testimony. I called it
Testimony because I looked back on all the videos we've made over the last 13 years and each one is such a testimony of the times. I've been trying to come out with a new HB video for about 5 years, so it's long awaited, but it's going to rule. It will have my new 24' ramp session in it with my new world record air. My angle of the loop I did with Jackass earlier this year. It will have Kagy, Thorne, Day, Seth Kimbrough, Robinson, Leif and Tunney. It's going to be a good one.
How is the CFB and BS series going?
This month I have the finals for both the CFB series and the BS series.
Man, time flies. I started the BS contest series ten years ago as well. Now people know it as the X trials or B3 more since I started
working with ESPN in '96. That's the way riders get into the X Games now.
The CFB series just keeps getting better. We started that last year to have
a more roots style contest environment like the early BS days where pros and
ams can all session together. I also wanted to produce the TV from start to
finish and have riders run, film, edit and host it so it is completely our
interpretation of the sport to everyone. It's the one bike series on TV
that we have complete creative control over, so it's exactly what I wanted.
You can get updates on both the CFB series and BS series at HSACENTRAL.COM.
I rode all the comps last year, but I haven't competed much this year in
either of the series because I'm just focused on being a dad right now.
So who are all of your sponsors?
I ride for Duffs shoes now. I'm going to be doing my own shoe with them
next year. I'm riding the Moses shoe right now, and it feels great. I ride
for Jones Soda too. I have for a long time, five or so years. They have
this energy drink called Whoop Ass that's really good. Tony (Hawk) and I did
a tour together in '99 called the Whoop Ass tour and just traveled around to
different parks in Jones's RV. Let's see, who else do I ride for? I ride
Simpson Helmets and they let me design my own helmet and they make me custom helmets. I've been thinking about actually coming out with my helmet I
designed with Simpson, but I don't know if anyone would want it. It's
super cool, but it would probably be pretty expensive. Maybe I'll just do a
limited run or something. I guess my main sponsor is myself, Hoffman
Bikes. :)
What does a kid have to do if he/she wants a Hoffman Bike and their local shop doesn't have one?
Make them carry it! Just kidding...kind of. You can go to our web site
at HOFFMANBIKES.COM and we have a dealer locator, so you can find the
closest place to you that carries my bikes.
Did you ever think that when you were starting out that your life would turn into such a corporation?
I don't really see it as a corporation, It's just my life. I ride bikes,
make bikes, put contests and other bike events on and make some TV shows
because those are the things I am into. I've been riding since I was 10
years old, almost 20 years, designing bikes and making videos for close
to 15 years. We were just an underground sport back then. I just wanted to
have control over my own destiny and do things the way I envisioned them
without having to compromise or conform to anything. It was never a
business venture for me.
What do you think about the idea that a rider can become a corporation like a NBA player or something?
Can they? I should probably pay more attention.
Can you explain the origin behind your nickname "The Condor"?
It was a nickname I was given in '88 on the Swatch Impact Tour. Shortly after that I pulled the first 900 in Canada and ESPN happened to be covering the contest. I never talked to any of the TV guys, but they were asking other riders what my name was and Brian Blyther said "the pterodactyl". One of our sport's legendary vert pioneers was on the Swatch tour with me and told the TV guys my name was the "condor", so that was what they referred to me as. It caught on and I'll never live it down. That's the power of TV I guess.
How's your health right now? (knees, other injuries, etc.)
I've always been told that when I reached 30 I was going to be an achy mess,
but I never really believed them until now. It's like the magic number
that brings back all your old injuries. I'll wake up and be like, "man,
what did I do to my elbow" because it will be aching. Then I'll remember that I got it operated on in '91 and it's just resurfacing. It's
crazy, I've been pretty abusive to my body and it's pretty wrecked, and it
will always be. That's just how my health is. I've had a lot of fun though, so
I'm cool with that. I always say if you want to experience all the
pleasures and successes in life you have to be willing and able to take all
the failures and pain too, and I am.
VIDEO GAME
Let's talk about the video game. First off, it's super sick. How much involvement into the game's development did you have?
We've been working on it for over a year and a half. Activision wanted to
make the best game and they had me make sure the animation and physics of the
game felt real when you play it, and that it is a true representation of the
sport. The first level was my actual real park. I've built a new one now
and it will be in the 2nd game, which we are already working on. It will
be on PlayStation 2 and the new Xbox. We are coming up with all the levels
and gaming aspect of it right now. It rules, this game has immortalized
the sport for me.
Give us a rundown of what you'd have to do with the gamer guys. What was a typical session of development like?
I would go out to Santa Monica and we would go to a park to ride and they'd
bring cameras and I'd do all the tricks I wanted in the game as they filmed
it and then they'd take that footage and drop it into a computer and start
to hand animate it, and they could then make the animation in the game so
real that it would even have style.
Can you give us any secret codes or anything you've found?
There is all kinds of stuff you find by just playing the game. I saw Simon
Tabron get over 200,000 points on the first level doing one grind line. You
can go to ACTIVISION.COM too, and get some other trick and scoring tips. I
don't think I should give away my secrets to unlock the levels and stuff
now, but if you do unlock all the levels by getting all the covers there are
a couple hidden characters you'll be able to ride with. If you have ever
wondered what Tony Hawk looked like riding a bike then wonder no more.
Soon I'll have my new site up at MATHOFFMAN.COM and I'll post some secrets
and talk with some of the gamers, but for now you can get the strategy guide
and it has a bunch of tips in it.
Is that your grunt when you bail in the game?
No, but that's my blood.
TONY HAWK TOUR
What's it like to be one of the only BMX guys on the Tony Tour?
Thorne and Rooftop come on some of the legs, but this last leg I was the
solo biker. It's pretty cool just because riding with skaters everyday you
start looking at ramps through a different perspective. Plus I get to watch
Tony skate, that boy is good.
I hear you and Tony took out a sweet ride on the autobahn, what was that like?
Very, very cool. We rented a new Ferrari and took it for a drive, we had
that thing pegged. The fastest we could get it to go was 300 km/hr
(180mph). It was a rush, I never knew I'd be that into it, but it was
really fun and intense. It was gnarly, but it had brakes if you got
scared. Not like base jumping or throwing a 540 or something. It was
like an easy adrenalin high. I know what I'm getting into when I go through my
mid-life crisis.
How was it being on the Jackass show? Are Bam and Johnny Knoxville pretty cool guys?
Yeah, but I thought that loop was going to be a lot easier then it was.
I thought I was just going to have to go fast and hang on, but there was a
little more to it that I had to learn by slamming into the flat bottom about
12 times. I first wanted to do it with the bunny suit lit on fire, and then go
into the water, but it's probably good they didn't have any pyrotechnics
there. All those guys are total classics. They are just who they are,
they'd be doing the stuff you see on TV whether they had cameras following
them or not. You should see the stuff that happens when the cameras aren't
around. Last year I was staying at the Mondrian Hotel and PJ (Johnny
Knoxville) and Jeff Tramane (executive producer and old school biker)
brought the Jackass pilot show by so I could check it out. It was pretty
gnarly. They definitely had to edit the pilot down before it aired on MTV.
After they showed it to me we went to the bar by the hotel pool and hung out
until it closed. As the hotel security was asking us to leave I looked over
and saw PJ looking at all these pots of plants saying "these plants need
water, these plants need water." The next thing I know he's throwing
all the plants into the pool. That made for a long night.
I heard from Brad Lilley that you're rocking the sweet RV. Give us the rundown, features, etc.
That was the family wagon we followed the Hawk Tour in. I know how people
get so into RVs now. The best feature I thought was the Playstation2. It
was a pretty dope RV we rented, but it was nothing compared to Evel's new
RV. He brought it through town and showed me it and it put my ride to
shame. Evel wanted to sell me his old one, he's got the super fly
rides.
X GAMES
You've been hitting the X Games since '96, what do you think has changed over the years (level of competition, seriousness of the event, $$$, exposure)?
I went to the first one in '95 too. I actually got kicked out of that one.
That's a long story. They asked me to run them the next year in '96. The
X Games has evolved big time since '95.
When Ron Semiao came up with the idea to put all these sports together under
the X Games name, at first it was a bunch of people that had no idea what
these sports were or were about. Now these people have been around us for
almost 7 years. I think we've learned a lot and I think they've learned a
lot and there's mutual respect. The state of the sports is pretty crazy
now, the level of competition, seriousness because of the $$$ and exposure. It's amazing just how popular they've become. It's crazy just how many levels
I've seen this sport be on.
Is the event better or worse than '96?
The event's definitely better. Everything is pretty dialed. The X Games,
to me now, is like a huge media circus now with a 1/2 pipe in the middle of
it, and it keeps growing.
How has that one event changed, enhanced or ruined the smaller events around the country?
It seems like there are a ton of contests now. Back in the early days of the
BS series we had like 4 comps a year now we have like 20. You can
definitely tell which contests are put on to appeal to some demographic
and which contests are put on to appeal to the riders.
What are your plans for this summer, are you going to ride at the X Games?
I pre-qualified last year, so I'll probably ride them. I've just totally
been in dad mode this year. I haven't really thought much about competing,
but I've been going on some tours and have been riding a lot. I'll probably
ride the X Games for the fun of it.
WEB SITE
You've been really responsive with the users of the website despite having a busy schedule. Give me your take on your EXPN.com site and the dialog you have with the fans now.
It's just like an open forum I get to drop into and find out what's going on
with the locals in the site and they get to find out what's going on with
me.
Is there anything you'd like to do with the Web stuff (a message to fans, be a mentor, etc.)?
I like to just post things that interest me or give my perspective on certain
things, and hope some people relate or find it interesting.
The ESPN Action Sports & Music Awards
I briefly saw you at the Action Sports Awards. What did you think of that event?
It was wild.
I know you were honored for being one of the innovators of your sport, was there anyone else you thought should have been up there with you (Haro, etc.)?
In the early 70's Bob Haro basically was the guy that decided to jump off his
skateboard and see what it would be like to ride a bike in the pools
instead, and try tricks on his bike. He more or less came up with the idea of
bicycle freestyle. Thanks Bob. Since then the sport has come a long way
and has had many people contribute to what the sport is today. It was great
to be recognized with an award for all I've contributed to the sport's evolution.
What's next for Mat Hoffman in the next 10 years?
I'll probably have a cane, a bed pan and say stuff like, "back when I was a
kid I had to ride a 1/2 pipe up hill both ways..." No, I don't know what
I'll be doing. I want to finish up my pilot license and maybe learn how to
hang glide. The older I get the harder it's going to be to bust big
airs, and my shoulder has dislocated twice skydiving, so I'll probably be
trying to look for other more passive way to fly through the air.
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