A Day, A Week, Hemant, A Year

“Myself. I ride for myself”. Some of you may remember the BMX themed movie from 1986 called Rad. It was one of my favourite movies as a child, and was one of the main reasons why I got into BMX at the time. For those of you who have never seen this movie (or heard of it, for that matter), I’ve provided a brief synopsis that appeared on the back cover of the VHS release.

Cru Jones is the best BMX biker in Cochrane. He’s got the talent to become the best BMX daredevil in the world. As the local paperboy, he jumps, spins, twists, and flips his bike with amazing ability. Bart Conner is the best BMX biker in the world, and he’s in town to race for the $100,000 HELLTRACK competition, the most grueling BMX race in history. Cru wants a hot at winning the title, but his mom, Talia Shire, insists he take his college entrance exams which fall on the same day. For the first time in his life, Cru has to make his own decisions. He decides to go for Helltrack, but Jack Weston the race promoter, has a dirty scheme for keeping the local whiz kid out of the race and away from his prized champion. Only the gorgeous Lori Loughlin, a member of the opposite team, can get Allen on track for Helltrack! And teach him a few other things while she’s at it!

I used to have a copy of this movie (actually a copy of a copy of a copy) on VHS that I probably watched well over a hundred times. Many of the hot BMX pros of the time were in the movie as stunt doubles, and many also had bit parts. I spent many hours trying to mimic the tricks that they performed in the movie. Over the past five years or so I have been trying to buy this movie on DVD (or even VHS) just so I could experience its magic again. It seems you can’t even find it to rent anywhere.

As it turns out, the movie has been out of print for sometime, and is no longer available from Embassy Home Entertainment. With such news there wasn’t much I could do – I had hit a wall. Then out of nowhere, my buddy Kipp instant messages me with a trivia question asking me what movie this quote was from.

“Myself. I ride for myself”

Since I was able to recite this movie line-by-line at one point in my life, it was an easy question for me to answer. I replied, “Rad”. Then after complaining that he too can not find the movie anywhere, Kipp informed me that there was an online petition to get the movie released on DVD. I immediately signed it even though I’m pretty sure it isn’t going to have any real effect.

But just in case, I urge you all to sign the petition here. You never know. And if the petition does actually work, all I can say is, “Hulk Hogan, eat your heart out!”