finding solace on bike

finding solace on bike
By Jill Lieber Steeg,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], USA TODAY
Is any action sports athlete more appropriately named than Mike Spinner?
The 19yearold upandcoming BMX star from Coral Springs, Fla., has pulled off three tricks in park competition never done before: the 720 Tailwhip (he spins twice in the air as his bike spins once, back end forward), the 1080 (he spins three times) and the 360 Triple Tailwhip (he spins once as the bike spins three times).
His motto? Spin to win.
Just last summer, Spinner was an amateur rider, scraping by on his earnings as a dishwasher. Then he entered a BMX Park contest at the Orlando stop of the Free Flow Tour (FFT),[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], the amateur series affiliated with the professional Dew Tour. He won, then won a subsequent FFT contest, qualifying for the tour championships. He won the preliminaries, but he fell in the finals, suffered a concussion and finished 12th. But he won two awards for his 720 Tailwhip, pocketing $10,000 for the weekend.
Ten months later, he's a pro rider for legendary BMXer Dave Mirra's team. He's sponsored by Nike (shoes), Bell (helmets), Ballpark (hot dogs) and Monster (energy drink). He's jetting to New Zealand, China, Estonia, France and Canada for contests. And he's living at Woodward (Pa.) Camp, the ShangriLa of action sports.
Shouldn't Spinner's head be, well, spinning?
"I wake up every morning and I ask myself, 'So what do I have to do today?' " Spinner says. "The answer? Ride my bike. It's unreal."
This weekend, Spinner's unreal world keeps right on turning when he begins his rookie season on the AST Dew Tour, today through Sunday at Baltimore's Camden Yards Sports Complex. He's a preseason favorite to win the Dew Cup,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], awarded at season's end to the athlete with the highest number of points in each of the six disciplines skateboarding (vert and park),[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], BMX (vert, park and dirt) and freestyle motocross.
He'll be vying for the crown with 260 athletes from around the world, including skateboarder Ryan Sheckler, BMXer Jamie Bestwick and FMXer Nate Adams. The fivecity Dew Tour also stops in Cleveland, Portland, Ore., Salt Lake City and Orlando.
"I kind of feel like a rookie," Spinner admits, "but by the tricks I'm doing,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], I feel pretty good. I'll be happy if I am able to pull my own tricks."
He owes everything, he says, to the Free Flow Tour.
"Why should you enter pro contests just because you think you're better than the pros?" he says. "You ought to win an amateur contest first. He played baseball, roller hockey and basketball until he shifted his focus to riding when he was 13.
BMX gave him structure.
"I just went to school, rode my bike and worked at Caruso's Pizza as a dishwasher for $7 a hour so I could buy new bike parts," he says. "I'd have $200 in my pocket by the end of the week, and I thought I was rich."
Two weeks before the end of his sophomore year, with a scholarship to Woodward Camp in hand, tragedy struck. He fell on a trick and broke his right ankle. Just as he was getting out of the hospital, his mother was going in,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], diagnosed with emphysema.
In late July 2004, she died at 54.
Spinner turned to his BMX bike and his tricks for solace.
"The way I deal with stuff, I ride my bike," he says. "That's my cure."
Eventually, he says, his bike helped give him new life and a solid foundation.
"My biggest drive is doing tricks no one else has done before," he says. "If I hadn't hooked up with Dave Mirra and all my sponsors, I'd be in college now. Life is funny like that. You just never know the twists and turns it's going to take."
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