Joe Rich

Joe Rich is an American BMX rider who came up as a professional in the 1990s and became one of the defining figures of the Austin, Texas scene. He co-founded the bike brand Terrible One (T-1) with Taj Mihelich in 1998, rode on the first Road Fools trip in 1998, and built the T-1 backyard ramp, a private session spot in Austin that ran from 2002 to 2016. Fellow pros have described him as one of the best all-round riders in the world, comfortable on ramps, trails and street.

Early life and background

Details of Rich's childhood and hometown are not well documented in widely available sources, so they are left out here. He is usually described as a 1990s-bred pro, part of the generation that grew up on the magazines and videos of the late 1980s and turned pro as freestyle shifted from flatland and vert shows towards ramps, dirt and street.

By the mid 1990s he was riding at a professional level for Standard Byke Company. By the late 1990s he had left Standard, at roughly the same time that his friend Taj Mihelich left Hoffman Bikes, and the two decided to start a brand of their own.

Career

Terrible One

Rich and Mihelich borrowed some money and started Terrible One in spring 1998, with the first products arriving around the time of the first Road Fools trip. An early arrangement to have the business run from Chicago while the two of them rode did not work out, and the company settled in Austin, Texas, run at first from an apartment. The idea was a rider-run brand making the frames and parts they wanted to ride, without answering to a larger company. The early team included Paul Buchanan and Robbie Morales.

T-1 became one of the respected small brands of the late 1990s and 2000s, known for strong, simple frames and a team that rode everything from trails to street. In March 2006 Mihelich announced that he was handing his half of the company to Rich, and Rich has run the brand since.

Road Fools and video work

In 1998 Props, the BMX video magazine, put together its first Road Fools trip. The crew on the bus included Rich, Taj Mihelich, Jimmy Levan, Robbie Morales and others. Rich's gap to rail in that first Road Fools video is still ranked by DIG BMX as one of the top moments in the series' history, and he filmed heavy street clips in Austin for it as well. He also appeared on later Road Fools trips.

Before Road Fools, Rich had the closing section in Stew Johnson's Anthem (Anthem: Home of the Brave, released on VHS in 1997).

Rich was also part of the etnies team during the 2000s. He has footage in the etnies video Forward (2002), but knee injuries kept him off the bike for most of its filming and he did not get a full section. He then had a section in the follow-up etnies video Grounded (2007). While he was injured during the Forward era he started shooting photos, going from DIG's cover to shooting for the magazine, and photography stayed part of his work after he returned to riding.

In 2005 he went on a six-week train trip around Europe with Ruben Alcantara, and he finished second in a vert contest at the Soul Bowl in England at the end of that trip.

The T-1 ramp

In March 2002 Rich and Mihelich began building a ramp in the backyard of the T-1 office on the east side of Austin. It started as a seven-foot mini ramp. Over the following years, with help from riders including Ryan Corrigan, Nate Wessel and Pat Schraeder, it grew into a large and constantly changing wooden ramp set-up.

The T-1 ramp became a hub for the Austin scene and a stop for visiting pros and filmers. Younger Austin riders such as Chase Hawk grew up around Rich and the scene that formed there. The ramp was taken down in April 2016 when the neighbouring building was demolished for a hotel development, and its pieces went to new backyards around the city. Rich has reflected that getting 14 years out of a spot like that was a good result rather than a sad ending.

Riding style

Rich is best described as an all-round rider. His favourite things to ride, by his own account, include big tabletops, alley-oops and bowl corners. Key features of his riding include:

• Ramp and transition flow. Years on the T-1 ramp gave him a smooth, fast approach to wooden ramps, spines and corners.
• Street commitment. His Road Fools gap to rail and his Austin street footage showed a willingness to ride big, risky street lines.
• Classic airs. Like many riders of his generation, he favoured big, stylish airs over technical combinations.

Legacy

Rich's influence comes through three things: the brand he co-founded, the scene he helped build in Austin, and his footage in some of the most important videos of the late 1990s and 2000s.

Terrible One showed that pro riders could start and run their own companies, which became common in the 2000s. The T-1 ramp gave Austin a private, rider-built hub at a time when the city was becoming one of the main BMX centres in the United States, and it shaped a generation of local riders. His Road Fools footage remains a reference point for how heavy street riding looked on the cusp of the 2000s.

DIG BMX has featured him repeatedly, including a Legends interview in its 2012 relaunch issue and a later video series in which he looked back through his photo archive.

Sponsors

Notable sponsors across his career (not a list of current sponsors):

Sponsor	Type	Notes
Terrible One	Bikes and parts	Co-founder, from 1998
etnies	Shoes	2000s team rider, Forward (2002) and Grounded (2007) videos