The Athlete: ALISTAIR WHITTON
Episode: BMX Rail Slide | Premiere: Jan. 22, 2007

Perry's Thoughts:
When I first heard about the stunt that BMX rider Alistair Whitton wanted to do for the show, I was skeptical. Although Alistair is probably one of the best BMX freestyle riders in the world, the fact that he wanted to back-flip his bicycle between two steel parallel bars, grind approximately 30 feet, front-flip off and ride away did not seem possible. And as the show went on, I began to think that my worse fears were going to come true. But what I have also learned from doing this show is to never underestimate the skill and determination of any of these athletes. After many failed attempts and horrendous crashes, Alistair persevered. And with the sun going down and his body sore and tired, Alistair did it — and did it beautifully. I walked away from this show with a new appreciation for BMX freestyle and the athletes that do it.

Eli's Thoughts:
Watching Alistair Whitton on a BMX bike is extremely cool, but the rail slide stunt he had planned was going to definitely push his skills to the limit. Now, my first thought was if and when he gets on this thing, he'll have to react quit quickly in order to position himself to get out, and throwing a partial backflip onto a rail seemed sketchy, to say the least. Nate Wessel (who is basically Stunt Junkies' ramp-building expert) built the ramp and advised on the stunt. Mike the welder went right to work on putting the pegs on Alistair's bike, as well as welding the cage. When it was all done they put the cage on the foam pit to do some practice runs. Right away it was clear when Alistair got on the cage, he would have to react to the exit very quickly. By the end of the practice day, he was ready to give it a real go, so he peddled up and took a shot at it. The first time around he hit the ramp, pulled the half backflip but flew extremely high in the air and slammed the pegs down on the rail. Wham! The impact was enough to freak anyone out and definitely too much for Alistair to hold on to the bars. He tried it some more and started getting a better approach, but the dismount still had its problems. When we came back for stunt day, Nate had already been hard at work changing the ramp and the angle of the cage; he had come to the conclusion that it was too steep and too hard to allow Alistair to react in time, so they leveled it out a bit and it was show time. Again and again Alistair went for it. He took some good hits getting into the cage, and at one point or another, he had a shoe ripped off, hit his handlebars, broke off a welded peg, and had some horrific crashes. Nate reworked the Velcro on Alistair's feet and Mike re-welded the peg on the bike. Then Alistair went right back to it. Just when the sun was starting to set and it looked like things were not going to happen, he did it right from start to finish. It was a great end to the day, after all the crashes and pain — Alistair never gave up and pulled it out with style.