The Craziest Moutnain Biker you never heard of... Josh Bender

For progress in anything to happen, someone, one person, some freak, geek, dork, or weirdo, has to have a new idea.  They usually get laughed at.  A lot of people have new ideas, but someone has to actually go for it, whatever it is, and try it.  Whether it's Evel Knievel jumping motorcycles with no suspension in 1968, or Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak making homemade computers in 1975, or Bob Haro inventing BMX tricks in 1977, or Mat Hoffman building a 21 foot high quarterpipe in 1992, someone has to go first.  And there's always a price to be paid.  Sometimes it's physical pain, sometimes it's years of social ridicule and living cheap.  But some ideas work out, and other people begin to take notice, and something new, some new idea or direction begins.

 I discovered Josh Bender a couple years ago, while doing a blog from a friend's online bike website.  I was looking up all different kinds of bike riding every day, and had all these great clips popping up on my YouTube feed day after day.  One day there was this Josh Bender clip, and it blew my mind.  Then I found the longer clip above. 

Mountain biking started with single speed cruisers bombing down hills in Marin county, California in the 1970's.  In the 80's, MTB was trying to figure out what it was, with cross country, downhill, even dual slalom happening.  Then, in about 1989, the bike industry decided BMX was over, and mountain biking was the cool "new' thing, and started putting money into the sport, and the bikes and riding began to evolve faster.  

Out in Utah, by himself, Josh Bender started pushing the limits, and started trying drops on natural terrain, and pushing his own limits, and of the equipment of the time.  As word and video of him seeped out of the Utah desert, he began blowing minds in the MTB free ride world.  As the Red Bull guy says in the short clip above, Josh Bender is basically the inspiration for the Red Bull Rampage, the craziest mountain bike event for the last 19 years.  Somebody has to go first, somebody has to be the pioneer.  For big drops on mountain bikes, Josh Bender was that guy.