Ep. #17 - The Trail Less Traveled
Veteran BMX rider, owner of clothing brand SuperBMX and builder of legendary, Keyko Trails; John 'Supes' Skvarla, joins us to discuss: confidence, letting go, and momentum.
Now 47, John ‘Superfly’ Skvarla has been riding bikes as long as he can remember. Here’s Supes after his first national tournament with his late father, Jack “The Turtleman” Skvarla:
Here’s the first edit Supes ever put together:
I made this edit about 1992 with 2 VCRs and a stereo and a cassette of Digital Underground's Humpty Dance, It is awful, the jumps in the beginning were called West Harbor in Bayville NY, at High Tide they were underwater, Mullets & Skidz, Enjoy!
By the mid-90s Supes and friends had paved a way in BMX racing and began dedicated more time to riding trails.
Here is Supes at Mullaly Park in the Bronx, captured by photographer Martha Cooper.
As traveling to ride other trails became less fun, Supes and friends began building what would become Keyko Trails, an evolving playground of jumps and turns, now 23 years in the making.
That hasn’t stopped Superfly from continuing to explore the world on his bike. Over the last decade he has spent most of his winters riding and enjoying the beaches of Puerto Rico. Here he is flying through a South African valley.
In 2020 at 45, John “Superfly” Skvarla, was nominated by Our BMX for TRAIL RIDER OF THE YEAR:
I got the call on Monday from @bmx that I was voted for/made the top 5 Nominees for NORA Cup Trail Rider of the Year, my first thought was ‘HOLY F#¢K!’ I Couldn’t believe it, I was so stoked just to be nominated & be in the same group as such awesome Trails Legends! Any one of these guys deserve this! Then on the call they said they’d quickly need some footage of me for an edit, something recent, I realized I really had nothing usable on hand, filming had been an after-thought lately, I had just been digging and riding and had no idea that this would happen and that I would possibly need footage. It was Monday afternoon, They said I had till Wednesday Night, but I couldn’t ride the next day Tuesday, so that left Wednesday afternoon to film/edit this. Luckily the weather forecast looked good and the Trails were dialed. I don’t often get Anxiety but was full of it from Monday to Wednesday really sweating if and how I could get this done. Thankfully @k_terra came through big time with his camera, told me to relax, set up all these awesome shots and got me through it! I rushed the memory card out of the trails, like the rebel alliance trying to deliver the Death Star plans, got to the studio, picked a song, sorted through shots, and uploaded them to Google Drive and sent the link over to @jonlynnjonlynn From there Jon worked his magic, took Terra’s ingredients and whipped up this edit with classic Jon Lynn style! So thankful to Terra and Jon for helping me out with this last minute and getting this done start to finish in just a few hours! Lifesavers!
When he’s not running Super BMX, his one man screen printing business, John is riding. We talked on the boardwalk one night when I proposed we sit down and chat. He was nice enough to welcome me into his jungle to look around and get some shots.