Evel Redux

Last Saturday Fixer posted the most viewed bad landing in history, with a little blurb on how Evel Knievel inspired him to do foolish things which, thankfully, Fixer survived. Newsweek expands on that a little, including a video of a jump that actually succeeded, like most of them did.

If you're a man of a certain age, then you spent a lot of Sunday afternoons building ramps and wearing capes and trying to be the first on the block to jump over your labrador retriever. Or maybe you spent some time in an emergency room because your banana seat bike--the one with the sparkly flag seat--almost made it from the roof of the garage to the cow pond. When it was all over and the stitches were in place and the arms set, your mom had one man to blame: Robert Craig Knievel, Jr., aka, "Evel Knievel," every 12-year-old boy's man crush, circa 1974.

I'm a little older than that, so I wasn't tempted to do crazy shit like that, but I sure enjoyed the shit out of Evel Knievel.

Evel is now considered the 'father' of extreme sports. One of the big deals these days is the mid-air loop-the-loop on a motorcycle. It takes a pair to do that, sure, but I'd love to see the kids try it on a 650 Triumph or a Harley-Davidson XR750 like Evel jumped. Heh...

Go watch a few minutes of the movie and the poor quality will inspire you to go rent it.