Legend Bike Co — BMX History Project · Riders & Builders

Dave Nourie

Dave Nourie signed with Haro Bikes in 1985 and rode the brand's very first summer tour that year, sharing the bill with team captain Ron Wilkerson and Brian "Flyin'" Blyther. Riding flatland, Nourie built a career on invention rather than raw contest wins — the Gumby, the trick that earned him his nickname, came together fifteen minutes before a routine and stuck around in flatland's vocabulary for the next four decades.

The rock-walk that started it (1981)

Nourie has told the story of how he got into freestyle more than once. At sixteen, in 1981, he saw another kid do a rock-walk on a BMX bike. "From that day on all I could think about was how I could play, ride and make up tricks on my 20-inch bike," he said. "I lived to ride — to the beach, around town, in jam circles — and to practice my new-found expression."

1984 — First contest, first magazine photo

Nourie won the 17-and-over novice class in flatland at an AFA contest in Huntington Beach in 1984, riding aggressive ground moves built on originality rather than a standard trick list. The photo that ran from that contest was his first magazine appearance — he bought the issue on his lunch break at a 7-Eleven two months after the event.

1985 — Signing with Haro and inventing the Gumby

Nourie signed with Haro in 1985, riding the brand's Neon Green Master. The Gumby — a handstand that twisted underneath the bike, arm waving to the crowd — came together fifteen minutes before his run at the AFA Masters in San Diego that January. By his own account, he built it off Robert Peterson's no-footer trick, the "Peterson," done while holding the front brake; Nourie had no front brake at the time, so he improvised. His mother was in the crowd taking photos, and she insisted he work the new move into his run. It became the first trick of his set that day.

At AFA Masters Round 2 in Pleasanton that year, Nourie won the pro ground competition without ever touching the ground. That same summer he rode Haro's first-ever summer tour with Ron Wilkerson as team captain and Brian Blyther alongside him, with Jon Peterson announcing. At AFA Masters Round 4 in Huntington Beach, he placed 3rd in pro flatland and 4th in pro ramp, and he appeared in BMX Plus!'s how-to video series entry "Freestyle Raddest Tricks."

1986–1987 — Magazines and the AFA circuit

Nourie placed 8th in pro flatland at AFA Masters Round 4 in New York in September 1986, and that October, Freestylin' ran his trick page on "The Organ Grinder" in issue #17. In March 1987, at AFA Masters Round 2 in Portland, he rode what he later called the hottest routine of his life — including a Miami hopper peg spin — before falling at the very end. Freestylin' ran a full interview with him that July, American Freestyler published his how-tos that September, and Homeboy put him on the cover inset of its first issue that winter.

The long middle and the reunion years

Nourie appeared in Haro's Team Freestyle Video in 1989. He kept riding on and off through the 1990s — at a 1995 BS contest in Moreno Valley he entered pro and placed 12th, working through his 1987-style tricks including barhop nosewheelies and the Gumby, and he was back on the Worlds stage in Cologne, Germany, in 1996, doing all his old moves, Gumby included.

Nourie has stayed active in the old-school BMX reunion circuit since: Woodward West's Old School BMX Reunion in 2011, Worlds in Cologne again in 2012, a stop in Cavaillon, France, in 2013, and Avignon, France, in February 2019, where he entered the pro division of the Master of Creativity contest, placed 14th overall, and won the event's people's-choice title.

Where he is now

Nourie runs Nourie's Bike Academy, teaching flatland fundamentals to newer riders, and continues to post old-school flatland tutorials and history videos.

Sources

23mag.com — Dave Nourie profile, sourced from BMX Plus!, Ride BMX UK, and Nourie's own Facebook posts (2012–2013). SplendidBMX — "About Dave Nourie: Pro BMXer Profile, Biography and History" (2025). Chris Lynch, Ride BMX UK, June 1995 event report. Period AFA Masters and Worlds contest records via 23mag.com event archives.