Dave Vanderspek

Vander, the Flying Dutchman, 1964–1988

A Legend Bike Co. rider page · built from Freestylin' II: The Book (Wizard Publications, 1987), the Curb Dogs History archive (mauricemeyer.net), and period BMX press

At a glance

Level Pro — the first rider to compete pro in BMX racing and freestyle at the same time
Scene Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, and San Leandro, California, 1983–1988
Team Curb Dogs (the bike/skate team he drove into being) · Skyway (factory sponsor)
Known for Leading the Curb Dogs and the Golden Gate Park freestyle scene, inventing the Vanderoll, and setting up BMX freestyle's first pro halfpipe and street contests

Dave Vanderspek — known around Golden Gate Park as Vander, and as "The Flying Dutchman" for his Dutch heritage — was born May 30, 1964, and grew up in San Leandro, California. He rode into Golden Gate Park on a Sunday in 1983 and, within a year, had turned a loose crew of riders and skaters into one of the most influential teams freestyle BMX ever produced. He died four years later, at 24, and the sport is still telling stories about him.

Golden Gate Park, and a team with "a less factory look"

By the early 1980s, magazine coverage of the BMX Action Trick Team had freestyle riders around the country starting their own trick teams and shows. Vanderspek wanted something different — a bike-and-skate team without the factory look. He had no budget and no parents building ramps for him. He built the Curb Dogs anyway. The team's first show ran February 18, 1984, a few blocks from Vanderspek's house at Pizza Marina in San Leandro — a jump ramp, a small crowd, riders in jeans and Curb Dogs shirts, paid about $25 each plus pizza. The original lineup included Maurice "Drob" Meyer (a founding member who later built the team's tribute archive), Ray Meyer, Tony Guerrero, Marc Babus, Richard Anderson, Ben Rose, and skateboarder Tommy Guerrero of the Bones Brigade. Within months Vanderspek had built and hauled a half-pipe to team shows at Dublin Cyclery — he was nineteen.

Vanderspek's team quickly became inseparable from the Golden Gate Park scene itself. Freestylin' II: The Book (Wizard Publications, 1987) names him, alongside Robert Peterson, Maurice Meyer, Rick Allison, Chris and Karl Rothe, and Oleg Konigs, among the riders who "got their start" in Golden Gate Park.

Firsts: halfpipe contests, street contests, riding two sports at once

Vanderspek set up BMX freestyle's first pro halfpipe contest and its first pro street contest, at a time when street riding barely rated a mention in the magazines. He was also the first rider to compete pro in BMX racing and freestyle simultaneously, and he stayed sponsored for skateboarding and BMX at the same time — a dual-discipline approach almost nobody else in the sport was attempting. Freestylin' II: The Book shows him demonstrating the Boneless Foot Plant, captioned "showin' you how it's done."

Tricks, covers, and a Time magazine mention

Vanderspek is credited with inventing the Vanderoll, the Bar Endo, and the Tail Tap, and could even pull off a Table Top Bunny Hop. The Vanderoll was voted best trick in ABMX (UK) in 1985, and Vanderspek placed 5th in that same magazine's most-popular-rider poll. He rode for Skyway, toured Europe with the team in 1984, and covered BMX Action in November 1985 and Freestylin' in May 1986, the latter with a full interview. The Curb Dogs were voted 5th most popular team in Freestylin's NORA Cup poll — the highest placing any non-factory team achieved — and the team's own retrospective site states Vanderspek was the only BMX freestyle rider to appear in Time magazine.

Remembering Dave Vanderspek

Dave Vanderspek died in October 1988, at 24 years old, at a warehouse in San Leandro he had been caretaking. His death certificate listed the cause as accidental. The news hit the BMX freestyle world hard — his funeral at Broadmoor Community Church was standing room only, more people than the building could hold. Freestylin' ran a tribute in issue #46 (March 1989) and covered a Vander Memorial Jam in issue #47 the following month.

The Curb Dogs later placed a memorial in a spot that would outlast any of them: an inscribed brick in the commemorative path built for the Golden Gate Bridge's 50th anniversary, on the San Francisco side. When that path was torn up during a 2012 renovation, Curb Dogs alumni tracked down the demolition crew and got Vanderspek's brick pulled from the pile before it went into the recycler.

Where the public record runs thin

Vanderspek's exact role in founding the Curb Dogs is described slightly differently even by the people who were there — Maurice Meyer's own site credits Vanderspek with getting the team off the ground while identifying Meyer himself as a "founding member," and this page treats Vanderspek as the team's driving force and leader rather than assigning sole-founder credit either way. The claim that he was the only BMX freestyle rider ever featured in Time magazine comes solely from the Curb Dogs' own retrospective site and was not independently verified against a Time archive for this page. The fuller circumstances of his death are documented in first-person detail on the Curb Dogs memorial site itself; this page states only what the death certificate and contemporary reporting confirmed — an accidental death — rather than repeating unverified speculation.

Where Dave Vanderspek fits in the bigger story

Brand: Skyway. Publications: BMX Action, Freestylin'. The bigger arc is in our History of BMX series.

Sources

mauricemeyer.net/curb_dogs — the Curb Dogs History archive, built and written by founding member Maurice "Drob" Meyer: Introduction, Starting the Curb Dogs, Vander R.I.P., and Accomplishments/Contributions pages. Steve Emig, "'No one got hurt, no one got arrested' — How early NorCal freestylers changed EVERYTHING," freestylebmxtales43.blogspot.com (May 2017) — contemporary account naming Vanderspek the charismatic leader of the Curb Dogs and the Golden Gate Park scene. Freestylin' II: The Book (Wizard Publications, 1987) — the Boneless Foot Plant demonstration and the Golden Gate Park originals photo caption. bmxmuseum.com forum threads referencing Vanderspek were checked via search snippet only, not a full page load, and are disclosed accordingly.