Seventh Street bridge rider still flying high on stunt

On a breezy Saturday in January 2014, Mat Olson left his nubby tire tracks on Fort Worth history.

As the professional BMX rider pedaled up and over each of the six 24-foot arches of the northern face of the new West Seventh Street bridge, winds swirled to around 15 mph. A small group of stunned runners and passersby stopped below, on the banks of the Trinity, to see if they believed what they were seeing — and to capture the moment on video.

A group of Segway tourists nearly crashed into each other as they stared up at the Wallenda on two wheels.

Even a Fort Worth police officer, who was crossing the bridge in his cruiser, was astonished — so much so that he let Olson off with a stern warning and a sigh of relief that he didn’t plummet to his death.

Of course, a swirl of viral videos followed, including on the Star-Telegram’s website. Friends and fellow riders were blowing up Olson’s phone with texts: “Awesome! So glad you didn’t die, bro!”

News outlets from as far away as Japan and France called for interviews. Sponsors started imagining their logo on Mat’s hat, T-shirt, tires and handlebars. There was even an article in Bridge Design & Engineering magazine.

Now, a full two years after his immortalized ride, Olson says the Seventh Street stunt “definitely opened a few different avenues” for him.

“I was put in front of a worldwide crowd, and it’s given me the credibility to be a more creative rider,” he said Tuesday, standing beneath his beloved bridge.

“It’s been an awesome ride, and it’s gotten a lot more recognition that I would have ever dreamed it could have.”

Riding into a career

But the Arizona native, who turned 28 on Monday, didn’t just bask in 30 seconds of YouTube fame. He has parlayed his high-flying moves — with names like the Superman Seat Grab and Cannonball — into a bona-fide career in BMX freestyle.

Olson has wowed crowds at NBA arenas, including in Dallas and San Antonio, and he continues to test the limits each year at the Texas State Fair with the Bigtime Actionsports Team. He counts DECO, Pusher BMX and Profile among his sponsors.

He is even in the process of inventing a product that could be a game-changer in his dangerous sport: a trampoline bike to cushion the blow of learning BMX stunts.

So don’t be fooled by the facial scruff and long locks. Olson is a serious businessman and a proud pro athlete who regularly represents his sport at schools, delivering anti-bullying and drug awareness messages.

Along the way, he also hopes to chip away at some lingering BMX stereotypes.

“It’s really gratifying, to not only perform for and wow kids but give them a message,” he said. “There’s all these guys out here with tattoos, long hair, piercings, and you see all this stuff on TV.

“But once you get past judging a book by its cover, there are some really cool cats out there.”

In the last few years, he says BMX has taken him around the world and allowed him to jump into other cultures just because of a bicycle. It’s a career he could have only imagined as a 9-year-old in Lake Havasu City, Ariz., when he first saw a BMX team perform at his school.

“I knew right then that’s what I wanted to do,” he said. “I built jumps in my side yard. I started learning front flips and back flips. By the time I was 15 or 16, I knew I wanted to be a professional BMX rider.”

It’s been a crazy, perilous journey.

“I wouldn’t say you’re gonna get rich quick,” Olson said. “And it is dangerous.”

Ask him how many times he’s been injured and he’ll ask you: “How much time you got?”

The worst thing has been the concussions, he says, 15 that he can remember, plus a ruptured spleen, three knee surgeries, assorted dislocated fingers and ligament tears, and what he calls a half-broken smile.

“But if you can market yourself and be creative and stay professional, you can definitely make some money,” he said.

Braving the bridge

And make no mistake, Olson’s stunt on the Seventh Street bridge was not just done on a whim.

“I saw them building this bridge, and it was kinda obvious to me that something could be done on it. I was a little worried someone else might beat me to it,” he says.

“So I jumped at the chance and decided it was go time. Afterward, I had so many friends tell me, ‘Aww, I was gonna do that next week, you’re so lucky.’ ”

About a month after the $26 million bridge opened to traffic in late 2013, he started the planning process. For several days at nightfall, he and some friends would measure the gaps between the expansion joints because Olson was worried he might bottom out between the arches and blow a tire or break a chain. They built stabilizer ramps with boards to make the transition manageable.

“The first clear day, we went for it,” Olson says. “It was a little gusty, 15 mph winds. That was really my only concern.”

He wore a GoPro on his helmet to capture the roller-coaster ride up close and personal, and a professional videographer made sure cameras were rolling at several key vantage points, including in a car crossing the bridge.

But there were a couple of things they didn’t count on. Like the crowd, and the cop.

“We thought it would be just desolate silence, and sure enough by the time I was halfway over, there were people walking under the bridge,” Olson recalls. “And a crowd of Segways going through and people honkin’ their horn as they were driving by. It was a spectacle, but it was also kinda funny.

“The officer at the end, he was a really generous person,” Olson says. “He said he could have given me a couple of tickets, but he said the fact that I didn’t die was amazing enough. Live to fight another day, essentially.”

Leaving Fort Worth

Looking back at the bridge Tuesday, Olson allows that “it is dangerous. You’re literally doing things that have never been done before. But it just kind of promotes the idea that limits are only there to break. It’s just a rad thing.”

After four years of living in Fort Worth, he will be moving back to Arizona soon. His girlfriend will be going to medical school there. But he’ll be back in Texas often, to perform at NBA games and the State Fair.

And he says he’ll never stop looking for that next bridge to conquer.

“Driving down the road, going to the store, any bike rider is always looking for stuff to ride. Every handrail, every stair gap, every hill, every little something is an obstacle,” he says. “My palms get sweaty thinking about it.

“I go to sleep at night thinking about tricks I’m gonna do. The feeling of landing a trick is not only overwhelming joy and adrenaline, but it’s also a confidence that says, ‘Man, I got away from that one. I stepped through that one.’ ”

This story was originally published January 28, 2016 at 6:05 PM with the headline "Seventh Street bridge rider still flying high on stunt."