Wednesday, November 10, 2010

History Lesson with Mark Eaton


Here's some history on the Lung Spin:

First off, I never named the trick the "Lung Spin". I think it was named by the Flatland Fugitives because of my nickname "Lungmustard". I've always called it the Lawnmower Spin. In May of 89 I was working on a rolling lawnmower where I would roll it in a large circle (like an angled 1 handed X up peg wheelie) and then get out of it. It was kind of a dead-end trick at the time. In early 90, Kevin & I were revisiting the trick & kevin began figuring out a way to do it in a tighter circle and creating a "pump" to it. Keep in mind that Kevin understood the whole "pumping" concept from doing headspins and using his legs to slow down & speed up the spins. He applied that to the lawnmower spin & that trick had a new life. Kevin was busy with 20 other amazing creations at the time so he kinda left the trick alone, while I kept working on it & perfecting it. I always felt that the trick worked better with a longer bike, so I started doing the spins with the bars regular for a longer reach, and more pump.

How I do the trick is: I windup & swing my right leg like I'm about to do a megaspin, and there's a moment right at the beginning of the spin where the bars can turn & the bike can go into the Lawnmower position. This is also the point where you want to lay the bike out & start the spin wide, with your bike layed out as far as you can, and your balance leg out far too. once you're spinning with everything extended out, when you pull the bike closer & bring your leg in, the spin will go faster, so it's all about finding the sweet spot of maintaining the spin. This is a really fun trick to see how many spins (revolutions) you can do. I think the most spins I've ever done in one was 22.

See how many you can do!

-Mark Eaton

1 comment:

  1. Thank you so much Mark for your time. This is great background information.

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