The modern-day circus arrives at the Pepsi Center on Tuesday with Travis Pastrana and his gang of high-flying athletes redefining what is possible on bikes, skateboards and motorcycles.
The last 100 shows of the Nitro Circus have seen Pastrana’s flipping, spinning competitors risking their lives and doing more than 110 world-first tricks. First-ever triple and quadruple front flips and backflips, with every imaginable variation. It’s an action-sports spectacle beyond any X Games as the world’s top skaters, BMX riders and freestyle motocross athletes attempt to raise the bar on this fall’s 23-stop U.S. tour. This is the first time the 12-year-old action-sports collective has stopped in Denver.
“Denver is going to be a really good show,” said ringleader Pastrana. “We feel like there’s a good action-sports culture there.”
Pastrana and his team perform jumps that hurl throttle-twisting athletes more than 90 feet in the air. That leaves motocross world champions Josh Sheehan and Clinton Moore plenty of opportunities for things like triple backflips.
“This allows us to try stuff we could never try anywhere else,” said Pastrana, a 17-time X Games medalist who just released his directorial debut, “Action Figures,” a movie that features 20 first-time action-sports tricks.
The crew comes up with its tricks in the infamous backyard of Pastrana’s Maryland compound, where air bags, ramps and foam pits have turbo-charged the progression of action sports for more than a decade. But it’s on the Nitro Circus tour that those tricks are refined by a cast of more than 40 athletes.
“These tricks, either you make it or you are rolled out into an ambulance,” said Nitro Circus tour chief executive Mike Porra. “Travis really pushes them. He’s kind of convinced everyone that they got this and they need to give it a shot. That’s sort of become our theme at Nitro Circus: ‘You got this.’ “
Crashes are guaranteed. Usually 10 to 15 per night. Often there are injuries.
Pastrana is a father of two. His wife — Lyn-Z Pastrana — is a professional skateboarder who rides on the tour. Their kids are part of the Nitro Circus family. His older daughter, 2-year-old Addy, loves to ride the tour’s steep “Giganta Ramp.”
“She thinks it is the best slide ever,” Pastrana said. “She gets to 45 mph sliding down. She giggles and keeps wanting to run back to the top. It’s an interesting way to be brought up around all these circus guys.”
The Nitro Circus crew suffered a devastating blow in September when longtime tour leader Erik Roner struck a tree in a skydiving accident in California. Pastrana said Roner dying in a routine skydive “would be like Evel Knievel dying on a freeway.”
The loss of Roner makes Pastrana think about letting off the throttle a bit.
“In the sports we are in, it’s high risk,” said Pastrana, who has suffered many broken bones. “It’s pretty gnarly to think about the risk versus reward. This is something we think about, for sure. But I feel like if my kids grow up with half the passion of my wife, or half the passion of myself or any of the Nitro Circus family, I’ve done my job well as a father.”
Jason Blevins: 303-954-1374, jblevins@denverpost.com or @jasonblevins
