Australian FMX and Nitro Circus rider Josh Sheehan has managed to land the world’s first ever motorcycle triple backflip.
Even if you’re not a fan of freestyle MX, you have to admit that it’s pretty impressive. The 29-year-old was riding at Pastranaland, the action sports park owned by Travis Pastrana. He got up to 60mph before hitting a 37 foot takeoff ramp at an 81 degree angle to launch him 80 feet into the air.
There’s quite a history to motorcycle backflips. The first person to be recognised achieving a motorcycle backflip was Jose Yanez in 1991, followed by Bob Kohl in 1993, but both were using an 80cc MC motorcycle, rather than a full sized bike.
2002 saw Caleb Wyatt achieve a successful backflip on a full-sized motorcycle. In 2006, Travis Pastrana landed a double backflip, and after performing it in competition at the X Gaes that year, vowed never to do it again.
2008 saw Jim Dechamp achieve a front flip.
And now 2015 has seen Josh Sheehan complete a triple motorcycle backflip. You have to wonder what on earth can be attempted next. Pushing the boundaries has obvious risks – the first two riders to complete backflips experienced injuries with Jose Yanez forced from motorcycles for two years due to an injured knee, and Bob Kohl seriously injuring himself. The full size attempts saw injury for Travis Pastrana who broke his foot, and Jim Dechamp broke his back attempting a front flip just 3 months before he completed it. Freestyle MX rider Jeremy Lusk died in 2009 whilst attempting a Hart Attack Indian Air Backflip.
Coincidentally, there’s a Nitro Circus tour of Europe and the U.S, with tickets going on sale now. But you’ll have to wait a while for UK tickets for the MEN Arena in Manchester (Feb 2, 2016), Hydro Arena Glasgow (Feb 4 , 2016), and London O2 Arena (Feb 6 & 7, 2016).
Jose Yanez was also the first person to land a bicycle backflip back in the mid 80’s. He got used as stuntman in the atrocious bmx movie “RAD” from ’86.
This was pretty big, and yeah, I think they actually understated the land on two or ride away in four. and even though he landed it, it was very close to being a crash into the landscape on landing from drift. Wonder if anyone will be crazy enough to try to do it in a comp.
Cheers, JP and thanks for mentioning RAD. I grew up on films like that, BMW Bandits and Gleaming the Cube, which doesn’t explain how I’m still hopeless on a skateboard, and not much better on a BMX….
I doubt it’ll be long before someone tries it in a competition setting – it didn’t take long for singles and doubles to become relatively common…
Heck, they have to do variations now to get attention on the singles, and even doubles. I think here though, you start running into laws of physics. It’ll need to be a large arena for the attempt. Takes a long time to get that much weight rotated. But, it’s been proven possible …
I remember waiting for Rad to come out and knowing it would likely suck, but still went to see it and even bought the VHS tape (remember those?). I remember assuring someone at the movie that Mike Dominguez actually lands backwards and doesn’t crash doing 540s on the Quarter Pipe because they didn’t show him landing it (just thinking, 86, maybe 87 was the last time I rode a pipe).