I was probably about eleven when I really started trying to ride BMX. I turned pro when I was seventeen.
Mike is pulling tailwhip air to fakie on mini ramps.
People thought Mike EscamiIIa got the nickname "Rooftop" from jumping roofs but that's not the case. On a road trip to a B.S. contest in '94, Keith Treanor told Mike that if he didn't stop talking he was going make him ride on the roof for the rest of the trip. And just like every other bad nickname in BMX, it stuck.
In november, Mike is riding for 2HIP.
Mike called up skate-shoe company Etnies and became the first BMX rider to get flow. After getting tons of coverage, etnies became stoked on Mike Escamilla and BMX, so he started a team for them in 1995 and became the first Etnies BMX Team Manager.
I turned pro in 1995.
Contest : BS 1995 round 4 and final. Third place pro street.
Cover : Ride US december 1995 january 1996.
1995 BS round 4
Poster in Ride US august september 1996
Mike Escamilla is a new Hoffman Bikes factory rider.
Mike has been doing stunt work on the cable TV series Pacific Blue. Mike did some jumps on his freestyle bike, but he is also supposedly doing some mountain bike stunts as well.
6th place pro street @ X Games, San Diego, CA, june 1997.
Interview dans Multiprise #7 hiver 1997 1998.
Mike Escamilla (K2) is a stuntman. He jumped a helicopter (yes, the blades were running). Even though the take-off ramp was almost as tall at the chopper itself, we still consider this a big stunt. Just imagine slipping a pedal right before take-off and you have fresh meat splattering all over the camera's and the blood hungry crowd. If this doesn't sound spectacular enough for you, Rooftop flipped the helicopter as well and his Etnies stuck to the pedals in case you were wondering.
13th place pro street @ Gravity Games, Providence, RI, july 2000.
Mike is riding for the new Brian Casillo's company Demolition.
Posters : Ride US april 2001, Transworld BMX #60 october 2001.
March 2001, after months of just riding a Volume frame, Mike Escamilla is now officially on the team.
I guess I always rode for Volume. It didn't really matter, and it didn't change anything. I was riding their bikes anyway so I didn't see the rush, and it was kind of nice not having a sponsor. The K2 thing never even happened. A lot of people think I rode for them, but they never gave me anything. They said they were going to do something, and then that was it.
Interview : www.ridebmx.com march 2001
Etnies pro model shoe.
I'm psyched on it, but it's weird because I've been wearing the shoes for almost a year and they just came out. In fact, we're about to get the samples for our second shoe. The shoes are awesome; all the shoes are different to suit everyone's tastes.
Mike got married in september.
My life changed a lot. My fiance, Jodi, has a five-year-old daughter, so I'm a full-on dad now and my life revolves around that.
Volume Mexican pro model frame.
It's basically the bike I designed when I was going to do Citizen, but I've changed a few things. It's just the bike that I want to ride
Cover and interview in Ride US august 2002.
Video Etnies "Forward".
Trying to do a full pipe, to fire fufanu's, to grinding a rail down a set of stairs on a snowy mountain, ...
Demolition video.
Mike Escamilla part in the Demolition video.
Mike, www.ridebmx.com, february 2005 : I asked Redline if they would be into redoing the whole freestyle program... They asked me what I would need and what I would change, so I e-mailed them a list of stuff that I thought they would say was not possible, but they basically said "sure, here's our budget, and here's what we can do..."
I guess my role is kind of Team Manager, and I'm going to pretty much reconstruct the entire Redline freestyle program. It's going to take a little bit, but over the course of the year, there's going to be a new ad concept, new bikes, and new web site. They didn't really have any thought of a team. I told them that the only way that I could really do it was if we picked a whole new team and started from scratch. I wanted to pick guys who I thought deserved more and hadn't really had a chance to get out there yet. Dustin Guenther is a Canadian rider from Vancouver and I knew he hadn't been given the opportunity to go to a lot of stuff. Rich Hirsch is a super-awesome rider. He's a real street guy, plus he's helping out with a lot of other stuff. I just wanted a well-rounded team. We all signed a two-year deal, and hopefully, by the end of the summer, everyone will be able to see some drastic changes and get a feel for the new Redline, because that's what it is. The way big companies work, I guess, is that making bikes takes 14 months. The new bikes have already been ordered, and we're going to begin work on the bikes that will come out as soon as possible. A lot of these bikes are all made at the same factories as a lot of the other companies, so they'll be bikes that are good quality and good design, and cheaper than most. I think it will be rad for kids who want to get into it and want to have a cool bike.
This is the first time I've ridden for a non-rider-owned company; for a stint there I was going to ride for K2, and it was in the magazines, but nothing ever happened. I've always ridden for small companies or companies that had just a few people in the office, so it's a little scary for me...
