Colin Winklemann Day

I wrote this a few years ago..

A few summers ago, my good friend, and star daredevil, Colin Winkelmann, took his own life. I think it was august 11th, jut after the X games…

In 1995 I was living with Colin, in Indiana, in a shitty house, in a bad neighborhood, with a yard full of ramps, and a bunch of good friends sharing time and space. He had gotten a call and had been invited to an event that would be known as the X games, to compete on the ramps. I later got a call, inviting me to judge the Dirt event. Free room and board if we showed up, and cash up for grabs for the athletes…. We made a plan, and the two of us drove from our modest empire in the midwest, on a wild trip, ending in Newport Rhode Island, and it was nuts…

It seemed like almost Immediately after getting the invite, Colin was at the trails doing crazy shit, 720s, with no pads on, flips, all kinds of tricks that might be common place now, but in 95, it was an exclusive club of badasses, and there was no such thing as training at woodward like many do nowadays. He saw what he wanted in that opportunity, and his determination was unmatched.

We loaded up his car,a burgundy Honda Accord sedan, and headed east eventually, at the same time several other friends of ours were traveling a similar course, so we met up from time to time, skipping across to the east coast, wearing only flip flops when we weren’t riding, it was a pact we made when we left, I think we got them at a gas station…

One of the standout memories of that trip, for me, aside from an adventure into an unknown world, with a good friend, was how we communicated with people we would meet up with along the way. We were broke as shit, and the only people with cell phones back then were drug dealers in movies. I don’t remember how we discovered the trick, but we found a way to call our long distance friends along the way with free calls on pay phones. What we did, was call a 1 800 number, get the operator to hang up on us, and wait for a dial tone, and whammo, free calls. In that day and age, for us, we might as well have discovered perpetual motion. It was awesome. You just had to find the right victim, one worked really well in particular…

Along the way, we passed out our secret, and by the time we made it to Rhode Island, it seemed like dozens of us were calling friends and loved ones abroad… and were all on the road for weeks, so there were plenty of calls to be made, details to be arranged, floors to find for a nights rest, and spots to ride while out and about.

By the time the contest rolled around Colin had broken his hand and couldn’t compete, and I had gotten yelled at for peeing in a bottle at the judging booth during the dirt comp. It didn’t matter, the trip outshined the event, we learned plenty, and our friends at 1 800 mattres (leave the last S off for savings), will never forget the summer dozens of kids called asking for handjobs, just to get hung up on….

” 1 800 mattres- how can help you?….”

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