With Farm Jam 2012 coming up next weekend, we thought it about time we shared the amazing story of The Airbag NZs involvement with Jed Mildon’s Guinness World Record Triple Backflip on a BMX from May 2011. It was at Farm Jam in Feb 2011 that Jed first came across The Airbag, then a couple of months later…
In the words of The Airbag NZ’s Jake McCleary:
We first heard rumour of a triple backflip attempt months before, at the Farm Jam 2011 in Southland. A friend of Jed’s was using TheAirbag in the lead-up practice to the jam and had mentioned his buddy’s seemingly unrealistic goal.
Fast forward to May and Jed rang to let us know his attempt would be serious.
Holy s**t, Triple Flip? Really?
‘Yup, I’ve done it into the (foam) pit already’
He wanted our help. He needed our help, and the plan was quickly forged to head north to Taupo for a week of trial and error with TheAirbag in the hope to develop the right setup for a tripleflip thru trial and error, well hopefully more trial. He was screaming to beat the Nitro Circus Hooligan Show’s deadline they had set for early May; where in Las Vegas one of their own was planning the same ridonculous feat for the public and the title of Guinness World First. Jed had found a spot in a local park where he could build a scaffold in-run and create a natural step-up jump; firstly into the airbag to practice, then to a landing to be built once the bag was moved away.
Jed had a brilliant plan, to build his huge custom take-off ramp prior to our arrival then test and tweak it using the airbag as a landing to allow him to fine-tune for the perfect trajectory on the exact same setup he would use for the public show, giving a huge confidence boost to the outcome of the project. Bravo for this forethought, as until he was confident he could get enough air-time to complete three backflips comfortably, the whole goal would be sketchy at best and a less than ideal result on the day would see sponsors out of pocket and the public witness a potential gory crash and burn. So, in theory, once the jump was set all he had to do was a trick no one in the world had considered seriously before! The necessity for the development of the setup would become even more apparent once we witnessed the previous foampit achievements on film, and the couple of lone hurricane tripleflips that had been rotated well yet far from perfected.
Alot was riding on having the setup perfect, and with such little margin for error the potentials were stacking up in my head as I packed the truck for the trip north……….’what if?’ wow!!…….. ‘what if not?’……ooh. Needless to say my nerves were all-time rolling out of Wanaka for the two-day drive, with only the truck’s shitty headlights and my Hitch-hiker buddies Honky-tonk guitar to keep me away from constantly revising first-aid in my mind.
Arriving at Jed’s late; the ‘catapult’ stood in the driveway, double-overhead, and stuck out like the last girl at the party come one-eye time. In the small hours it looked great and seemed like a goer, but come morning I felt the twangs of uncertainty at the decision that had been made. Post first practice session and sure enough Mk1 ramp design aka ‘the catapult’ was at the tip. ‘Too tight in the guts of it to control the 65km/h compression from the 20m high roll-in’. What?? 20m?? Yup, this thing was serious, and my gut instinct was right. I was in for a week of rollercoaster emotions that started promptly with an Ambulance summons and my First-Aid revision coming in handy thanks to a wayward projectile finding some dirt to nap on. ‘Don’t turn left guys’.
Post first day trial brain storming round the small fire in Jed’s room gave some solutions to the take-off ramp problem. 1. Start the two-day ramp build again but with a bigger transition or 2. Drive the 45min to get Nick Franklins FMX SuperKicker and screw ply to the top, making it suitable for tiny BMX wheels. Option 2 blew the most favour and come mid afternoon on day 2, practice was back on.
Jed: ‘Righto, should I head up the top for a practice hit on this new ramp?’
Me: ’Ah, I reckon we move the airbag back first, I think you might get some more air off this take-off’
First hit and Jed lands safely in the middle of the airbag…….that’s been moved back 6m and where before it was dirt.
Me: ‘Surely that’s enough airtime now!?!’
Jed ‘S**t , not big enough, we need more airtime to even get close to three flips’
Turns out my hitch-hiker Jake Prebble was pretty handy on a BMX too, and had been invited to join what would turn to be a two-man show for the public a few days later. I think he was tired of tricks he could already do too because he spent most of that afternoon throwing single and double frontflips into the big cushion, either being the first time for him on a bike.
The next day and most of the one after was spent firstly propping up the ramp for a steeper take-off, testing, needing more air, building a two foot extension to give more ‘up’, testing, needing more air, tweaking the take-off angle steeper not once, but three times with testing between to finally get enough time in the air to get the trick done. With a take-off of over 70 degrees and a gap you could literally fit a two story house in; the scene was finally set to make the most of the soft landings before d-day with public present to witness the promised Guinness World Record Attempt. Now to get the tripleflip around into the bag.
Nek morning Double Backflips, Double Frontflips, Double Backflip Whips, SuperFlips, Indy Frontflips (The Gypsy Bus), Cashrolls, NothingFlips, TurndownFlips all warmed up to the moment Jed laid back a little more and committed to the third rotation. Still pretty uncontrolled, but at last the first hurdle was met. Bar a few more unbelievable tricks thrown in to break the concentration a little, at least 15 more tripleflips got laid down that afternoon and got Jed pretty comfortable and one step closer to his increasingly realistic goal.
Safety was a large priority on this project, as even with the huge safety net a number of things could see an injury. The impact alone taken from such a large jump took its toll, with both Jed and Jake needing attention to sprained thumbs, tweaked muscles and tweaked headspace continuously throughout the practice sessions. Hundreds of hit’s over three days into the airbag and things were looking good for the goal of the project. Jed could now safely control the tripleflip rotation and was happy with the setup so the call was made to shift the bag and get the scaffholders in to construct the landing.
Early evening gave an amazing blood-red sky and set a surreal backdrop as Jed and Jake laboured to the top of the in-run for the first hit to the hard, small landing. I couldn’t help but prepare myself a little for what I was about to witness, a slight headwind and I was looking on from the sidelines at the biggest gap jump I have ever seen, 45ft to the landing and 45ft from the lowest to the highest points of the airtime. This is almost FMX stuff, not BMX. All the practice in the world couldn’t stop the nerves those guys must be feeling right now, 65km/h at the take-off, large gap, no safety padding or net and a compulsory backflip on the first hit. Turns out a triplebackflip jump is no good for straight airs, only flips, so the guys discovered during practice when neither could stay on the bike during numerous attempts at the elusive dead sailor.
Jed drops and I let out a wee bit of weeze. The headwind messes with him, he comes up short, right on the knuckle and he goes down hard, all on film. By the time the camera is stopped, he’s up and heading back up? What? How’s your ankles? Quickfire and Jake drops. Worlds biggest backflip and lands. Perfect. What? Shot. Jed’s back up and drops, extra massive floaty backflip and lands perfect. Woah. A few more death-gap hits and the wind has crept up enough to shut us down for the night. Light the fire for some more yarns, plan the sequence for the next day and off to sleep, no pressure Jed.
You’ve all seen the footage on YouTube. Jed drops, pedals hard down the steep in-run and nails a triple backflip. It pretty much happened just like that, except he bailed about six time trying other tricks before he committed the triple. I can’t believe his ankles stayed in one piece. His bike didn’t, with about the only piece not breaking being his frame, even his face didn’t break after sliding down part of the ramp on it after a hefty bail. No wonder they call this guy Warrior, and the best bit has got to be how Jed built, jumped, then dismantled the whole thing with bugger all help other than some friends. Any other international rockstar would turn up, jump the jump then head off to the hot tub with his energy sponsors promoho girls. Jake Prebble needs a standing ovation for his part in this piece of history too. Little did he know he was being roped in to be Jed’s riding buddy no matter what in this project, and when shit got serious, Jake strapped into his Denim Levi’s ‘stunt jacket’ and brought the ruckus. Awesome variations in his tricks into the airbag and never once looking sketchy or had a wayward dangerous landing. He even coined his new signature trick, the Gypsy Bus aka Indy Frontflip, to the hard small landing for the public (check it out on youtube).
New Zealand has numerous big spotlight time mainstream sport athletes, but it’s moments like these that I see a much harder, work laden and injury certain road that is taken by some of our less funded sportsmen. This whole project was funded for less than the annual All Black hair product budget, yet there is barely a T.V watcher in the western world who hasn’t see Jed’s world beater. 7 million hits in under a week online, a million in 24 hours alone! Primetime T.V in NZ, Australia, U.S.A and the UK and from what I witnessed, Jed is deserving of every single young girl that fell in love with this Kiwi as Maori boy from Taupo. Haha, good luck with the Quadflip Jed!!
A massive thanks goes to UNIT, INTERISLANDER, TAUPO, the Mildon Family and everyone else who contributed to the UNIT T3 MINDTRICKS event
VIDEOS
THE WORLD RECORD TRIPLE BACKFLIP VIDEO – 8,474,60 views and counting!
UNIT’S STORY OF JED’S TRIPLE ATTEMPT
THE GYPSY BUS – Jake Prebble’s Indy Frontflip
