Friday, November 30, 2007

Evel Knievel takes his last jump.

The inspiration for countless harebrained BMX bike stunts in the '70s and '80s has passed away at the age of 69.

Bummer.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Reminder: Cancel appointment with Kanye West

Rustmeister said...

Farewell, Bobby. I'm sure you're riding wherever you are now.

Ambulance Driver said...

Sad day, indeed.

As the country song goes, I've got a couple of Evel Knievel scars on my right arm...

...and various other places.

Les Jones said...

My hero as a kid.

comatus said...

I had a hard time forgiving him for existing when, in the early 70's, any place you'd show up on a motorcycle (including the opera) some trog who'd never seen one would yell "Evel Knievel"!

Then along came the Fonz, and we learned how good we'd had it.

Anonymous said...

Takes me back to the 60's and 70's when jumping the Stingray was the thing to do.
They hadn't hatched the BMX yet.
Even crashing was cool, cuz EK did it too.

Rustmeister said...

Right on, dion!

Stingray, with banana seat and sissy bar.

Anonymous said...

I cannot tell you how many scars my chin supports because of my exploits emulating Evel.

I separated the head tube of several bikes from the rest of the frame because gravity really does suck and the higher you are the harder you land, even if it looks smooth.

Not to mention the one time I yanked the front end up to wheelie down a driveway hill, upon realizing that the front wheel was bouncing down ahead of me as to how long could I maintain it... The road drainage at the bottom ruined a pair of forks and gave me new appreciation to remembering to tighten things up after disassembly.