« Reply #37 on: August 28, 2009, 10:59:21 PM »
Things that go boing?
There is an article in today's WSJ about those kinda things:
By KRIS MAHER
PITTSBURGH -- Some consider 20-year-old Fred Grzybowski the best pogo-stick rider in the world, able to leap over a minivan, among other feats. But his days on top may be numbered.
This past weekend, at Pogopalooza 6, the world championship of the fledgling sport of extreme pogo, a pair of "xpogo" athletes who are 15 and 16 years old beat him in key competitions and set high-jump records.
"They're progressing the sport," said Mr. Grzybowski, who has bounced in the background of several movies, including "Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium." Mr. Grzybowski, from Los Angeles, did tie for first in one of the most difficult competitions here -- essentially slow-motion pogo sticking or fewest jumps per minute. The key is to jump so high that both stick and jumper linger in the air. He managed to keep his bounce count to 41 per minute, stretching each boing to last longer than a second.
Eight years ago, a burst of innovation helped transform pogo sticks from just another driveway diversion to a daredevil's ride -- much in the way that skateboards and snowboards vaulted to competitive prominence. Pogo riders today, mostly teenage risk-takers who might otherwise favor skateboarding, can bounce more than six feet in the air and perform spins and flips.
This weekend's competition attracted about 60 riders, between the ages of 13 and 24, drawn from 23 states as well as Canada and England. A few hundred spectators gathered in the hot sun to see jumpers compete for honors including Most Bounces in a Minute: 221, or nearly four per second.
At about 5 feet 8 inches tall and 140 pounds, Mr. Grzybowski is believed to be the first to mix forward and backward flips, and he is working on landing a double back flip. He started riding a traditional pogo when he was eight years old. Several years later, he asked for an extreme pogo and a unicycle for Christmas.
"I thought he was nuts," Mr. Grzybowski's father, Ed, says. Today, the young Mr. Grzybowski says he earns about $20,000 a year from appearances at fairs and trade shows as well as for stumping for one company's jumping stick.
The design of pogo sticks had barely changed between the time they were first patented and sold in the U.S. in 1919 to about 2000. Inventor George Hansburg promoted the toy by teaching dancers for the famous showman Florenz Ziegfeld how to pogo. He once staged a wedding where the bride and groom bounced into wedded bliss on pogo sticks.
In 2000, Irwin Arginsky, who bought out Mr. Hansburg in 1967, was approached by Bruce Middleton, a physicist who had gotten an idea while watching his daughter on her pogo stick. The physicist suggested a design using heavy-duty rubber bands (rather than old-fashioned steel springs) for propulsion. Soon after, Mr. Arginsky's company, SBI Enterprises, of Ellenville, N.Y., sold its first "Flybar," which could send a rider weighing up to 250 pounds five feet off the ground. The Flybar is Mr. Grzybowski 's stick of choice.
Mr. Arginsky says his company still sells nearly half a million traditional pogos each year, and he estimates that 40 million sticks have been sold since 1919. "Kids must have genes in them that make them want to jump," he says.
Other producers have also popped up: Mission Viejo, Calif., based Vurtego Inc., makes a stick that relies on compressed air instead of a spring and has developed a prototype with a booster that it claims can launch a rider 16 feet in the air.
A third extreme pogo model, called the BowGo, uses a strip of fiberglass that bends and recoils to provide lift. The stick is under development at Carnegie Mellon University and was born out of technology to enable robots to run.
"The highest I ever jumped was 42 inches, which I thought was pretty scary," says Ben Brown, the project scientist who developed the BowGo.
Such feats raise the obvious question: Even if it is possible to jump six feet in the air on a pogo stick, why would anyone risk it?
[pogo stick]
Mr. Brown says he has been found unconscious several times after taking spills on his experimental pogo. There were no major accidents at Pogopalooza, but Jake Fagliarone, 16, of Estero, Fla., fell as he tried to land a back flip. His face hit the street, giving him a bloody abrasion near his right eye and a black eye.
"It's an extreme sport so it's characterized by its risk," says Nick Ryan, a 20-year-old Carnegie Mellon junior who organized Pogopalooza. The first Pogopalooza was held in Lincoln, Neb., in a church parking lot with only six competitors. It is widely acknowledged in pogo circles as the first public gathering of extreme pogo enthusiasts. "The breed of human that does this is the type that falls down and gets up," says Mr. Ryan. "It's all about pushing the limits."
Mr. Grzybowski has several scars, including a long one along an elbow and another on his stomach that looks like a bullet hole. He has had more than 30 stitches to reattach a lip. The night before the competition, his roommate fell off a pogo and broke his cheekbone.
Mr. Grzybowski was narrowly upset in an event called the Big Air, a string of tricks in 90 seconds, by Biff Hutchison, a blond 15-year-old from Burley, Idaho, who was mobbed by friends and hoisted into the air after he was handed a trophy, a gold spring mounted on a piece of wood.
In the high jump, Dan Mahoney, a 16-year-old from Truro, Nova Scotia, cleared 8 feet 6 inches, which Mr. Grzybowski failed to match. "This is cool. That's my personal record and the world record," said Mr. Mahoney.
Thus far, none of the serious competitors in Pittsburgh have earned a major endorsement deal, though some, like Mr. Grzybowski, make money performing. Chadd "Wacky Chad" Dietz, 24, who performs with Mr. Grzybowski and Nick McClintock, 22, in a troupe called the Pogo Dudes, said each member earned about $10,000 since May, displaying their antics at places such as the Kingston Busker Festival.
The extreme pogo community is still low-profile enough that Mr. McClintock hopes to film a documentary in which he tracks down every person in the country who competes in the fledgling sport. He considers them a loose-knit family, and Pogopalooza, a reunion of sorts. "These are all my best friends in one place at once," he said.
Write to Kris Maher at kris.maher@wsj.com
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Boosey & Co. Imperial Euphonium, built in 1941
Edwards B454 bass trombone, built 2012
Bach Stradivarius 42OG tenor trombone, built 1992
Kanstul 33-T BBb tuba, built 2011
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