Log onto “Kaptain” Robbie Knievel’s website (robbieknievel.com) and you will be tempted by a curious link to the “Knievel Injury Board.” The page loads, revealing a photo of the son of Evel himself in a black leather jacket with a skeleton painted over it. Point your cursor and click just about any bone on that jacket, and the computer tells you what was broken, when and how.
Of course, a similar Web page featuring the Kaptain’s father might very well crash your system. Robert “Evel” Knievel, the professional daredevil America embraced as an action hero icon throughout the 1970s, has broken 30 to 40 bones at least two times each, by his son’s estimation. And still, Robbie – who, at age 43, claims his own fracture count is only in the low 20s – couldn’t wait to follow in the old man’s footsteps.
Even after learning of his father’s near-fatal motorcycle crash at Caesars Palace on New Year’s Eve 1967, the then “Korporal” Knievel, age 6, decided to pursue his own daredevil dream, learning to ride a motorcycle at age 7 and riding wheelies behind Dad at Madison Square Garden a year later.
By age 9, Robbie jumped his first Harley-Davidson over a car. By age 12, he was on tour with Evel. At 16, he was driving the family truck – a tractor-trailer that hauled bikes, ramps and props – as they toured the country. Soon thereafter, he split, leaving home because Dad wouldn’t let him jump over more than 10 vans at once. And since that time, he has established himself as the world’s foremost motorcycle daredevil, surpassing all of the old man’s jumping records, if not his notoriety.
To date, Robbie Knievel successfully has landed more than 250 professional jumps, including 20 world records, highlighted by the Caesars fountain jump that nearly killed his father, a building-to- building jump in 1999 that included 13 extra stories of scaffolding for the ramp alone, and a 233-foot jump over a section of the Grand Canyon in 2000 that resulted in two broken ribs, a concussion and two sprained ankles – “pretty minor stuff in my business,” he says.
Now with his own reality TV show (“Knievel’s Wild Ride” on A&E), he’s extending the feat with at least two more big air jumps (and a pending contract for 13 next season), including one Saturday at the Ride the Divide Motorcycle Rally in Estes Park, where he will fly over 25 as-yet undetermined automobiles. Rest assured they won’t be Cooper Minis.
“Whenever I go out and jump, I know I’m facing death. That’s my competitor as an athlete,” Knievel said while making his way to Colorado last week. “I’ve been out there so long I feel like I know what I’m doing, but you never know when something is going to happen. I’ve been lucky so many years. Like my dad, I really can’t believe he’s still alive. All those guys who live like he did – the Houdinis and Billy the Kids – they’re all dead by 50. But not him. It’s amazing.”
Of the four Knievel siblings, it was only Robbie who emerged with what he calls the “eye of the tiger.” Pursuing the family legacy into its fourth decade, he has lasted long enough to see a resurgence of the primitive spectacle that is motorcycle stunt riding and expose the folks on “Fear Factor” and “Road Rules” as the poseurs they really are by legitimately risking death in every episode of his life. For the consummate daredevil, fear is not an option.
“Sometimes I get butterflies in my stomach, and sometimes it’s cockroaches,” he said. “But it’s not right before the jump. Sometimes it’s a day before. I go into a different mind-set at least a week or two before a big jump. It’s kind of a trance. By the time you’re looking at the ramp for the jump, you know this is it. If you hesitate, you lose.
“You know four or five seconds from that takeoff ramp that you could be dead in a couple seconds. That gives you a pretty good adrenaline boost.”
Knievel insists he doesn’t have a death wish, although the former gambling addict plans to push his luck another 10 years – right into that 50-year death zone his father managed to escape. He’s a surprisingly spiritual man, an uneasy rider who is more concerned with his afterlife than the one he is currently rolling through like a daredevil gypsy with his freak flag flying high.
“Sometimes I feel like Keith Richards out there smoking cigarettes and jumping motorcycles,” he said. “I’ve been doing it so long I don’t think I’m an adrenaline junkie, but I am. I think it was born into me. It’s those guys who decide at age 25 to go bungee jumping, sky diving, climb a mountain and not get paid – they’re the real adrenaline junkies.
“But if I quit, I don’t know what I’d do. Probably die of boredom.”
Robbie Knievel’s 140-foot jump at the Ride the Divide Motorcycle Rally is scheduled for 6 p.m. Saturday at the Estes Park Fairgrounds. For information and tickets, call 970-586-9025 or log onto ridethedividerally.com.
Scott Willoughby can be reached at 303-820-1993 or swilloughby@denverpost.com.
