It's Bob's world.

What's the trick to doing the Hot Wheels track loop?

It's all in the hips. The trick to doing it is always looking down. I guess you end up looking up, but you're always looking at the track; you got to look at where you're going. Then you just go. Really what helped me the most was putting the stickers right on the track where I needed to go. If you don't have that, you end up going too much right or too much left, and that's what people do when they slam hard. They veer off to the side too much.

Who's taken the wickedest slam on the loop, in your opinion?

Tony Hawk, hands down.

Which one?

Tony Hawk on the ...

Oh, in the monkey suit.

In the monkey suit.

You're asking for trouble if, "I got a monkey suit, I'll go through the loop."

Hey, I had the monkey suit on too, and I slammed a couple times before him. That probably would have been me. It was either him or me.

And this was for some commercial?

It was for the Wildboyz episode on MTV. They haven't aired that one yet. Tony actually wanted me to throw the tape away, but I have it on tape and it's in the movie.

Do you ever stop people from trying it because you know they're going to get aced?

Yeah. I mean, the loop back here is red flagged now so I don't let anyone try. All you can do is just tell them, "Hey, you've seen it. You can go down pretty hard." Most of them are scared anyway, so it's pretty easy to talk somebody out of it.

Besides, the nearest hospital's how far? A long way away.

Yeah, exactly.

You ever done it barefoot?

No I haven't; I haven't gone that route. I guess as the loop was progressing all these other things were happening. Tony slammed, then obviously Schaeffer slammed, and that was kind of the beginning.

They took him and Peter in the same ambulance. That's the best story ever.

Yeah, they were like, "Wait, wait, wait!"

"We got another one!" I love that. Did Sturt really make it?

Sturt made it. The thing about Sturt is he was at my house at like 8:00, 9:00am, and I'd wake up to hearing someone down there--the loop's right by my bedroom so I can totally hear what's going on. So I go down there and it's just Sturt with a mattress or whatever, one of those mats that you do little backflips into, and I was like, "Wow, you're really thinking about doing it." And he's like, "Yeah, I'm just testing it out." I was at surgery the day he did it so I can't say for sure, but I'm pretty positive he's done it. From what I saw of his approach, he was training for it.

Do you think you could do it on a bike?

You know I thought about it, and I think it was good that I talked myself out of it because it could have been over really quickly. And skateboarding is my thing; I didn't want to get hurt on a bike.

The only question I've got to ask now is about Lance. What about Lance? Did he stand down on it?

Lance didn't do it and I told him he could do it. Both he and Salba were right there. I mean, people come out here and they look at it--they tell me, "Oh, I'm going come out and do your loop," and I'm like, "Alright, cool." Lance was here and he did the mat thing, where he was trying to get into the mat, throw himself on the mattress. The reality is, you've got to want it. If you don't want it you're not going to do it. And if you don't feel like you're going to do it, you're going to slam.

You half-step any of that shit and you're done, right?

Exactly. But I feel like anyone who skates vert and can carve tranny can do the loop; it's not that super technical of a trick. You've just got to go. The consequences are there, but it's not like a kickflip backside tailslide shove-it.

What about the inspiration for the new obstacle at your house?

The corkscrew is just all these different things from all the loops, and from trying to make sure that I've got all that out of the way. Going out to Baldy and getting served was one of the--I wanted to get the whole loop and natural loop thing out of the way to be able to even think of anything else. But the time I got hurt at Baldy, I remember my body, and the reason I got hurt was because I didn't go straight. I got the speed and I didn't cut the corner, I kind of went diagonal and it threw me in this corky kind of motion. It was the one time that I didn't know where I was and it really scared me, because I could have ended up on my head. I just didn't know what was going on but I was in this sideways-type of spin. After that I got hurt, and I kept thinking about the take off.

How'd you get out of Baldy after you broke your leg?

It's a good thing I called Salba and I had him there. There was a possibility of getting broken, and that's what happened, but he was right there and he had this back line to it--a gate in the back or something--he had the key for it or knew how to get to it. They just helped me across that gap with the plank; I sat on the board and they pushed me across. On the other side of the fence was this road. Luckily it wasn't completely rough; it wasn't like trails. I could sit on the board and they pushed me all the way over to the car. It would have been a little harder of a situation if Salba wasn't there and I had to hike back. I sprained the left one and broke the right one, so there was nothing I could do, really. I don't mind. I could care less.

It's funny, because I've been there since and I've seen all the stickers in the pipe and I've seen your tracks on there, and that pretty much parks all the stickers. So I think you win already. You're tracks will be there forever.

That's the way to do it.

What's the estimated cost of all the ramps at your house?

The ramp to that whole lower side, adding the corkscrew, probably about $170,000. For one-time costs it's pretty hefty, but starting out with the little projects and then going up with the loop and over to the corkscrew--I mean, it's priceless, really.

What are your future plans to train? What's coming up next?

We were talking about the corkscrew and how I came up with the whole idea of it, but basically that whole Baldy thing. Then eventually I came across and watched one of those James Bond films, and they had that car stunt, the bridge stunt, and I remember that kind of sticking in my head. If they could do it in the car ... Basically the bridge was a gap and it made the car roll across the gap.

It's Man with the Golden Gun.

They built the bridge for a car. The car didn't do anything; it just goes.

Just with the inertia.

The bridge has to be perfectly done, but in skateboarding I remember seeing that and thinking you can take off and make your body adjust. You have to build it a certain way so that it throws you there, but you can adjust, it doesn't have to be perfect. So from there that's how I was able to get the point across to Tim Payne, the idea of what I was trying to built instead of the loop, 'cause you can grab a piece of paper and stretch out a loop thinking you're making a corkscrew, but it's just tightening up the radius of a pipe. It's just really hard to build. I built it off the paper.

Did you ever do CAD drawings and map it out?

I don't know how to mess with those. The corkscrew, I had to resort to paper, actually doing a model with cardboard, but it was all progressive.

When you're trying scary new shit like this, would you rather skate with a bunch of dudes or just by yourself?

I want at least one other person there. I wouldn't do it alone, and you obviously want to get it on tape so people won't think you're lying.

When I was with Danny Way in China, you could hear me screaming in the background. I'm screaming at the top of my lungs and nobody else was screaming. He was like, "I could hear you, Phelps. Thanks."

Yeah, like how do you psyche yourself up for that? The craziest thing about it is that you're just so excited all the way up until the point. You can't wait for it to be built and for it to happen so you can just get it done, but once it's there and it's built, you can't wait for it to be over. You're just like, "Get this over with." Let's say if no one was there or if it was just a couple guys and no one filmed it, who would believe? You definitely want people around, and the main thing is depending on the situation, even though I can skate the Mega, if Danny would have called me to go jump this thing, I probably would have declined. I know where he's at, but I can't just call someone to come session the corkscrew. You want people there for support, and Danny was here. I called as many people as I could. Lance was here; Danny was here, all the people that built it, and my family and community.

It was a group effort, as Salba would say.

Yeah, a group effort.

Why do you always have so much media around you, Bob? You film everything you do. What's up with that?

Well, I was working on a movie. It was a conscious effort; I wanted to do it. The main thing that I want to film are tricks. I want to keep learning tricks and keep filming. The whole other aspect of it, which comes with skateboarding and getting to a certain level, is people wanting to know what you're into, what's around you. I could have kept that closed; I just felt like I could open it up for a year or so. That was the main reason why I had so much media around me the past year and a half, because we were working on this one documentary. In the future, I don't know. My thing is not to become a TV star. I'm not into that. I just want to show people what skateboarding is. If you can surround yourself with media to put out a positive message, that's a great thing. A positive message should be--the corkscrew is just believing in something you can do. Whatever. It takes so much to come to an event like the corkscrew, or any other thing that you're going to do, you take for granted that people really don't know what it takes to get to that level, and then once that's done, it's "OK, what's the next thing? Where's your video part in the next few months?" There's a pace to skateboarding and progressive skateboarding--and the people outside of it don't understand.

I've heard you're going to do a jump ramp off a cliff and then into a skydive. What's this one all about?

Well, that's just Bob. I used to skydive and I've done some base jumps. That's just me into flying and trying to do something different.

I like it. I still think out of one airplane without a parachute, then into another airplane ...

That's been done, believe it or not. I don't think they've done it without a parachute, though, but they've jumped off with a parachute--jumped off the plane and then fallen, skydived while the plane's diving, and then the plane comes back up from underneath and the jumper gets back inside. My whole fun with skydiving is going out there and having a good time. It's hard enough that I've got to land.

Now that the movie's done, do you just skate with the regular gang back at the homestead?

Yeah. The majority of my sessions are, because of the ramp here at the house, a blessing. The reason I built it is to be able to skate with no cameras on. The past two weeks I've been skating pretty much with no filming or shooting photos. It's just Bruno and me and my buddy Mancha, and then Bucky's come over and Pierre's come over and it's been mellow sessions. Miller comes by.

No Rune?

No Rune yet. Rune, when he was filming for Flip, he would come by a little more.

He's the guy who can push you to the next level. You know that.

He can, man, and skating with Pierre and Bucky the last few weeks has been cool.

Are you ever going to go back to do Baldy?

Yeah. It's like the fails and the slams and the consequences--all these things are all part of the decision-making process. Even when I went to Baldy in the first place, I'd picked the right time. I picked the time when it was safe if I did get hurt, so I had time to recover and get over what I was planning on doing. So there are several things I want to do before I want to get hurt again, but I do want to go back and I do want to do it. I mean, the main reasons why Baldy didn't work was speed and the roughness.

What size wheels were you riding?

I got there with my Rictas, with the 60mm's, and it just was not going to happen at Baldy. It's just too hard, because you go through that one section a quarter of the way up and it's really rough fight there on both sides. But for the most part you go through that ba-bum, ba-bum, and I couldn't even get the speed to where I almost couldn't even try. I was like, "I can't do it with these wheels. I don't have the right equipment--I can't believe it." But Salba was there and his kid had his board with some softies. I don't know which ones they were, but I put those on and I was able to get a little bit more speed. But I would get speed--and then it would stop halfway. you'd have the speed to go all the way through it, but you'd lose it. I couldn't get enough speed to go around it, and that's really the main thing, 'cause when I did it at my metal pipe with the hard wheels I had so much speed it was just a matter of knowing myself, and I made it. It was so much easier. So if I can get back to Baldy and do it, I just have to adjust and make it right. Another thing, too, I had no pads. I had no mat. To get into the right position to make something like that, those two or three first tries without a mat could basically finish it all.

That could basically be the end of the world there, Bob. I hate to tell you.

Yeah, and if you have a mat you get used to it, and you're like, "Oh, alright, I got it now." So then you get the mats out. You're in a more controlled attempt with a little less risk. So maybe next time I go I'll try to bring some mats.

Can you loop the metal pipe at your house consistently?

Yeah, I've looped it twice now. I don't go in there and session it like I want to loop it. It can jump and chirp if you're knee sliding because it's so small, and pipes in general you don't really knee slide. You knee slam. You can't really slide; you just go straight down to flat. It's fun when you do it, but it sucks when you don't.

What about the first time you jumped the big Mega Ramp shit?

I guess MTV was the first--that event up on the top of the Hard Rock. You mean out at Point X or the first time that I jumped the Mega in general?

Well if you're going 18-feet, I guess that would be mega.

That's just the start, because without that I wouldn't have the "pre" kind of notion. I could go there and jump the thing, but you've got a 27-foot quarterpipe in front of you to deal with, so if you've never done an air on it, again, that one attempt could mess you up. I saw Sandro jump Point X and the first time he made the jump, he was like, "Yeah! Whoo! Cool! Stoked!" And then he looked at the quarterpipe and just did a full flip because he expected a small quarterpipe. He threw his body in a weird position and that made him do a front flip.

What about rolling in switch? That must be a bitch. I saw that switch stalefish you did at Vegas. That was like 10-foot.

Yeah, there was a start and that helped. It turns it into an air to fakie, so if you look at it you look at the way your body is. The scary part is the launch, the take off, because you've got to be controlled. If you're out of control and you hesitate, which you tend to do when you're going switch, it could be very painful.

What do you think about the contests they have on these superjump mega blasts?

The fact that there's a contest, it would have been a much nicer situation if it's just a jam or if you're trying to film a bunch of tricks and you come out with something. But contests, especially at the X Games, we know what it's about: they want a bunch of airtime and people to see it. As far as that goes, it's like, hey, we're there to try and make it, but I'm not there just to necessarily win.

You just want to push yourself, I know.

So if we can try to throw something different and something new and spice it up--that's it. I think they're building--it ain't cheap.

That Danny Way shit in China cost six mil. I was like, "Ha! You better make it."

Yeah, exactly.

You back lipped the rainbow rail, so what, do you just pose it and jump off?

No. The rainbow rail's the funnest obstacle I've ever skated in my whole life.

Can you nollie nosegrind it?

You could, but your nollie is more like a hover nollie. But you can, and the thing about the rainbow rail is that you have to slow down into it, 'cause if you just go regular speed on the roll in, you'll just hover right above it. You'll just miss the trajectory, basically. The scary part about it is getting to hit the rail, so for the first few times you're hovering right across it. You've got to make yourself slow down, 'cause if you make yourself slow down you know you've got to get on it and slide all the way across. I've done some bails where you get to it and you miss your board, and I was running across the rail just hoping to get to the other side and slam. It can be fun, but it's a weird situation.

Do you think Danny can do the 360 backside ollie boardslide?

I don't know. I mean, that's a pretty heavy one. But I think if you put time and effort in there's so much you can do on that thing.

He heelflip lipslid the fucking thing.

Danny opened up the box--and it's a pretty nice box. It's amazing what he's done. He opened it, but he opened and closed it, almost.

If you were to have your own contest, what would it be like?

I would just have a bunch of people together skating and filming. Basically it would be like a video part contest, and see what you could do in three days and what you can film in three days. You can do it at anytime you want to. If you're the early guy, wake up and do it, but at the end of the three-day period they add it up--what kind of tricks, what you got?

They should have an all-vert, no-pads contest.

That would be a good one, too. But that would be carnage.

That's what skateboarding's about, carnage. What teaches you how to skate? The concrete, Bob, you know that. Do you see yourself doing inverted spins like in snowboarding? Do you think that's kind of weak?

I don't think it's weak, as long as it's not called a frontside indy. Aerial awareness on a skateboard is just now coming into play. Like on a mega quarterpipe, I can see--you saw Danny do that huge drill bit frontside five. That's full aerial awareness, but on the Mega Ramp he can do a backside air, if he had the courage. But you can do a backside air and you're looking at your landing, and throw your head down into a front flip, then be into a backside air again.

Oh, that's sick.

You have that time and I've looked at it and I've thought about it, but when you get there it's hard to get yourself to do it. You can work yourself into that position because it's all about comfort in your falling and taking off right. If you have airtime, it's great. But if you have a lot of airtime and you misjudge your take off and you go to hang up, say, it's going to really, really, really suck. There are career-ending slams that could happen. You're going into that realm, so anything that you do has to be calculated. But I think you'll see progression more and more as this thing's up. I mean, I can't wait for mine to be up here at the house, 'cause that's all I've been thinking about.

I think the future of vert is women, believe it or not.

Hey, all power to 'em.

Lotus is going to blast over your head soon.

I told her the other day, "Hey, you could be the best girl skateboarder in the world." She was like, "Maybe."