THE LAST OF MY KIND
INSIDE HIS HELMET WAS A KALEIDOSCOPE OF DIRT AND SAGEBRUSH.
The heavily armored zealot had just ridden his bicycle off a 55-foot cliff in the sweltering British Columbia desert, violently crashing back to earth. When his frame snapped, he catapulted headfirst into a tree that exploded with the perfume of pine tar and dust. The horizontal beige stripes of the sandy cliff above looked like the static from an old TV. So did the inside of his head. This was not Josh Bender’s first concussion, but it was his worst. As the camera crew drove him to a Kamloops hospital, he couldn’t remember anything. Maybe that’s why he’d go on to try the ‘Jah Drop’ three more times before seemingly vanishing from the nascent freeride scene many say he birthed.
Eighteen years later, I’m in search of the most controversial man in mountain bike history in an impossibly quiet corner of Northern California. He was the sport’s first big hucker, sacrificing himself to the idea of 1990s-extreme-skier-style vertical drops on two wheels. To some, he heralded the future. To others, he was a one-trick pony—a stunt man who could barely ride a trail. Even his name evoked a kind of blunt, invasive force. He had one of the highest-octane attitudes in action sports and starred in films called “New World Disorder” and “Crusty Demons of Dirt.” Back then, being crazy was a virtue, and Bender was certainly that.
As I pass through the portal of Georgetown Hotel’s saloon doors with my fellow time traveler, photographer Reuben Krabbe, we find the turn-of-the-century bar almost empty. A young woman plays with her 1-year-old in the corner, and a familiar face clutches an after-dinner coffee under warm tungsten lights next to them. At 44, Bender barely
