Archive photo Kevin Robinson, a BMX badass, recently broke the world record with a height jump of 27 feet. He joins fellow extreme athletes for Tony Hawk’s Boom Boom HuckJam — and we’re still not positive what it means.

Forget the usual choreographed ballet. Hook into Tony Hawk’s Boom Boom HuckJam: a choreographed ballet of skateboarders, BMX riders and freestyle Moto-X riders, tricking off ramps and generally looking like badasses. The tour kicks off at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater on Friday, July 18. And 210SA caught up with key athletes — 36-year-old BMX rider Kevin Robinson and 29-year-old skateboarder Jesse Fritsch — before the show.

Kevin Robinson

You’re a veteran with this tour, so you should be able to tell us what the hell “Boom Boom HuckJam” means.

(Laughs) It’s kind of a fun name. Boom Boom is kind of like the fireworks, the breathtaking part of it. It’s really just kind of an explosive show. ..... The HuckJam part of it is, basically, all of us hucking ourselves and hopefully landing safely in just one big jam. It’s just a great tour; we’re all like a family.

We hear you just nabbed a world record in June by clearing serious height. What exactly did you pull off?

In Central Park, New York, we did the Red Bull Experiment, and I went 27 feet over the top of a 27-foot ramp, so 54 feet in the air.

That’s a half-foot higher than the previous record. How was the view?

Pretty awesome.

What gave you that idea?

Mat Hoffman held the record originally, and he’s the one who came up with the big-ramp concept. ..... And I just never thought he’d got the proper justice for coming up with that idea. So it was kind of in tribute to him.

You’re also the first and only person to do a double flair on your bike. Why is it so hard?

It’s on a half-pipe. You go up the transition, and it’s basically 2/61/2 flips. The first flip is straight, and the second flip is a flip with a half-twist so you can come down facing forward. ..... It’s so much going on in a quick, short period of time. There’s a lot of risk of injury. ..... And the impact, when you land, the force of the landing is pretty extensive. So you’ve got to be able to hold on and be strong. To make a 25-pound bike with a person on it rotate two and a half times in that couple of seconds is pretty tough. It took me three years to pull it off, a lot of hours and some bulging discs in my back because of it. I tore my glute doing it.

Was it worth it?

It was worth every second of it.

Sounds like you’ve taken a beating. What’s the worst injury you’ve ever had?

I shattered my pelvis. ..... I just had my 28th surgery, and I’ve had a lot of injuries. But the shattered pelvis, by far, is the worst because it pretty much immobilizes you.

Why do you keep doing it?

Just a passion for my sport ..... just to challenge myself, to push myself beyond my own limits. ..... There are no coaches. There’s nobody screaming at you what to do. ..... It’s all up to you to figure out how to get through the adversity that you face.

To spark such passion, your first ride must have been pretty awesome. Do you remember it?

I think I was like 3 or 4 years old, and ..... I had training wheels, I think, for a day. (My older brothers) were like, ‘You need to learn how to ride without training wheels.’ I had a little BMX bike ..... and they pushed me off, and off I went. ..... I remember that feeling I had on the bicycle, just that feeling of freedom and the freedom to manipulate the bike like I wanted to do.

BMX will be included in the Olympics for the first time this summer. Is that a big deal to you guys?

No, it’s not a major thing for us at all. The sport of BMX has been around since the late ’70s. Of course, it would be a great step and a great partnership. But our whole thing is we’re not going to sacrifice the integrity of our sport to put it in the Olympics. Our sport is open and free. ..... It has to be under the right circumstances ..... really involving the way it’s run. It has to be run under the way we’ve been doing it. We can’t be treated like gymnastics.”

Jesse Fritsch

So at the HuckJam, how many athletes perform at the same time?

That’s what’s interesting about this tour is that it’s four skateboarders, two BMX and two or three Moto-X ..... choreographed over and under routines. Part of it is choreographed, and the center part of the show is freestyle.

Do you ever run into each other?

It doesn’t always work, but it’s a lot of practice and just getting to know where each other is at.

What’s the best trick you’ve done?

A lot of the stuff that I do really depends on the spot or the ramp. It’s not just one trick; it’s working with someone else trying to do a hard trick.

Who do you look up to most in the world of skateboarding?

My all-time favorites are Tony Hawk, who is on tour with us, a guy named Mike Frazier ..... Mark Gonzales ..... Tony has become one of my best friends, and I do a weekly radio show with him on Sirius Satellite Radio.

How long have you been skateboarding?

I’m 29, and I started when I was 8. I found a board in a neighbor’s trashcan, two doors down, and then my neighbor next door, he was actually the bus driver for Metallica, and he told me to grab my dad’s gardening gloves, and he taught me how to ride it. Back then, a lot of people did tricks where you put your hands down.

You must’ve had some injuries. What was your worst?

(In 2006) I had to have back surgery. I’ve had a lot of injuries. But that year I had ruptured two discs in my back ... There were points where my brother was putting my socks on for me every day, where I never thought I’d compete again. ..... You’re not bummed about how you got hurt. You’re waiting to (skateboard) again.

Now that BMX is in the Olympics, do you think skateboarding should be included, too?

There have been some people trying to get it into the Olympics. ..... In some of the other (extreme) sports, the best people in the sports didn’t compete. ..... Even if it went into the Olympics, and you had these so-called gold medals, there’s a very good chance that you would not be the best in the world. ..... There are people that are some of the best who don’t compete at all. ..... The Olympics is to prove that you’re the best in the world, and if a lot of people don’t compete, then there’s no way to prove that.

Jennifer Lloyd | 210SA