Throwback: Justy Bumpstead Promo Video
What were you doing in 2007? I was 17 years old and had just finished high school, taking a gap year to focus on BMX racing. It would soon come to pass that my interests lied in freestyle. It was around this time that I started taking notice of a BMX website called Diversity, a Brisbane based blog created and run by LUXBMXs own Mitch Wood. The site was unique in that it fostered an online BMX community where dudes were able to easily share and discuss BMX videos. This was a time when the internet was only just starting to take off, and video cameras were starting to become accessible and functional to a civilian user. It was new, exciting and very cool to be able to jump online and watch videos of bikers in your local area.
One such rider who was at the epicentre of this era was Justy Bumpstead, LUXBMX family, photographer, great looking man and ebullient comrade.
Justy with his hero, Colin Mackay - another Brisbane BMX legend
At that time, Justy had an awe about him, he was the dude. Ahead of the trends, friends with all the right people and pulling off super progressive tricks with the glassiest of styles. He was also ahead of the game in terms of putting together web videos which were of sufficient quality to turn heads. From my perspective, every time I saw a Justy video, I was hyped and thought he was the coolest biker in Brisbane, which he probably was.
16 years on from 2007, we launch back into this world and enjoy one of Justy's all time classic videos - a promo for Tempered (which Justy was part of right from the start). The video is grainy, filmed to a mediocre standard and soundtracked by a now long forgotten alternative (with emo tendencies) Australian rock band (Something With Numbers). But you know what, it bangs. It is symbolic of all that I've described above and a nostalgic artefact of Brisbane BMX and more broadly, the rise in popularity of web videos.
Justy in more recent times at Browns Plains skatepark, huge groundchuck for the lens of Wayne Cant
The video features Justy riding (primarily) Springfield and Browns Plains skateparks in tight shirts and jeans with cute green accessories to match his bike setup. The bloke does a tonne of cool lip tricks, most notably a series of really progressive foot jam variations, manual 180 links and tailwhip combinations. You might scoff at the description of 'progressive' given where biking trickery is at in 2023, but let me tell you, it was in 2007. The low to the ground fish shots are incredibly emblematic of the trend of early web video filming. Alternatively, the zoom long shots at 0.44 and 2.00 are however impressive.
Take a look, for nothing more than respect for your elders.
Nowadays, Justy is a West Oz based photographer, smiles for days and no doubt, still a gun on the bike. His website is worth a look, as is his instagram page, a gallery of beautiful landscape and nature images.
Lastly, for more Diversity era videos, take a look at Mitch Wood's vimeo page.
