Brain Vomit #6: Maff Hoffman

I remember a clear before and after I knew bikes were going to play a big role in my life. I watched a special on Matt Hoffman. This was around 1994 or so when “EXTREME SPORTS!” where the coolest thing, the world pre X Games. I was like 6 years old then.

Matt Hoffman was the cutting edge of the sport. Not only was he going bigger than anyone else invented most of the tricks, but he also owned his own bike company and designed his own bikes organized contest and had a traveling Demo Team. In the 80’s everyone rode BMX but in the 90’s anything 80’s was considered lame as hell. He pretty much single handedly made BMX cool again. The main person responsible for making BMX the sport that it is today.

In 1995, Matt would compete in the first X games with a broken foot. (though i might have the year wrong or the event wrong because I can’t find the video on youtube.) A very young Rick Thorne did a brief introduction of him and highlighted that Matt Hoffman has a broken foot and in order to compete he made a metal insole to give his foot more support. The Showed him standing on the deck icing his foot. To 7 year old me that was the closest thing to a real life superhero. Matt drops in, does his run and wins the gold medal. What a badass. Dave Mirra, another one of my childhood Heros, got 2nd place after he wasn’t able to pull a backflip fakie at the end of his run. Since that day I wanted to be like Matt Hoffman, and I still am. Though those are massive shoes to fill and I haven’t seen anyone come close to the influence this guy had in the bike industry.

Having your name on the downtube as your brand is nothing new, but Hoffman Bikes planted the seed in my head. Back then I didn’t know I was going to be a framebuilder, but I knew I wanted to have my own bike company one day.