Read Online The Ride of My Life by Mat Hoffman, Mark Lewman - Free Book Online Page A

promote a product while retaining amateur status. I always thought the definition of a pro was a rider who kicked ass. I knew there were amateurs who made a lot of cash, just as there were pros who didn’t make any. The rules of the bike industry seemed to clash with the way conventional sports worked, which I thought was pretty cool. Plus, I didn’t question things that were working in my favor. My understanding of money was that my ATM card was a magic thing. I carried it in my wallet. I could stick it into a machine, punch a few numbers, and the machine spat out twenty-dollar bills. It was in
credible
.
    I stimulated the local economy by making regular purchases at record stores [I’d taken a liking to hip-hop and punk rock] and stayed on top of what was playing in movie theaters (although I still considered sneaking in a sport). And of course, I bought a ton of food. With my natural craving for sugar fueled by a river of cash, I went into sweet tooth overdrive. Braum’s, the local ice cream emporium, got so used to seeing me order the same thing that they named the dish after me. A Mat Mix is a scoop of chocolate peanut butter ice cream, a second scoop of chocolate chip cookie dough, with hot fudge and caramel spread over both, then peppered with pecans and topped with a glob of whipped cream and a cherry.

    Blowing out the candles on my sixteenth birthday cake at the AFA contest in Florida. My wish was to ride forever. (Photograph courtesy of Steve Giberson)

Ticket to Ride

    The first AFA contest of 1988 was in Palmetto, Florida. There was more mayhem, Ohio-style, but the new wave of scuffing and rolling flatland trick combinations had many riders focused on keeping up with the Joneses rather than raging in the streets. I blew out the candles on my birthday cake just before my run. My wish was to ride forever. A lot of guys stopped riding after turning sixteen, lured away by the power of operating a car, growing up, adopting a lifestyle that was normal, by society’s standards. I vowed to be different.
    But I still wanted a car.
    A week after I turned sixteen, I converted a majority of my bank account into a shiny, new white Toyota Supra. It was slick and lightning-quick. I found out I had inherited my dad’s speed genes. The second time I got behind the wheel of my new Supra, I got clocked going God knows how fast in a forty-mile-per-hour zone. I was slapped with the maximum allowable fine for a reckless driving ticket, with a side order of extra points—my license was revoked. Suddenly, I had an expensive car I couldn’t use, and I had to endure many more driving classes and promise to be good before the state of Oklahoma trusted me on her streets again.
    I was on the accelerated learning plan. Life was teaching me basic, but important principles, such as, “Don’t drive like a jackass,” and “Riding progress and Nintendo addiction don’t mix.” I could clearly see it was up to me to figure out my direction in life and then make it happen. A massive challenge, but also pure opportunity. The person who best understood what I truly wanted was
me
—not a teacher, guidance counselor, or a predetermined class schedule. I was enrolled in the school of hard knocks, in which the only way to learn was to jump in and figure things out as they came. Every morning I woke up and designed my day. Sometimes I knew the steps I had to take to reach whatever goal I had set for myself, and other instances I didn’t have a clue. I just knew where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do. Being kicked out of the public school system taught me the most valuable lesson I’d ever learned: I didn’t have to subscribe to another system. I could create my own culture, travel down my own path, and define my own meaning of success. I never received a frown or a happy face on my paper, but I knew when I’d done it right, and when I screwed up.

    This was at Bercy Stadium in Paris, France, for the KOV. I had amnesia on this trip,