For the past year, Fit Bike Co. and filmer/producer Stew Johnson have been working on a documentary-style film dedicated to original Fit team member Brian Foster. The film is called "BF-It" and it debuted at the Odyssey Texas Toast Jam in Austin, Texas several weeks ago.
Foster started riding for Fit at the brand's inception in the year 2000, alongside names such as Mike Aitken and Van Homan. At the time, Brian Foster was already a well established name on the BMX scene, with X Games medals, pro race titles, signature products from Schwinn and Airwalk, and video parts in legendary videos such as Dave Parrick's "Dirty Deeds."
A year earlier, Foster had reached a crossroads in his BMX career -- he decided that he was done racing. In an interview with Foster in the now-defunct Snap BMX Magazine, Foster expressed the rationale behind his decision: "I wasn't really psyched on what was going on. It was one of those things that I didn't want BMX to become, something that I didn't look forward to doing. There were weekends where I didn't want to go to races."
BF's signature stem promo from May 2012.At the time, Foster had already successfully transitioned into competitive dirt jumping. He probably could have coasted as a professional dirt jumper for another decade, but Foster has never been one to place limits on himself. Instead, under Fit, Foster started expanding his horizons into street, park, vert (yes, BF has entered vert contests) and if he didn't hold an aversion to pegs, he probably would have tried riding flatland too. And for the past twelve years, Brian Foster's riding alongside the Fit Bike Co. brand has progressed from legendary to something beyond legendary, while he remains as humble as they possibly come.
To pay homage to Foster, Fit began production on a documentary of Foster's BMX career thus far. Featuring interviews with Alan Foster, McGoo, John Paul Rogers, Chris Moeller, Todd Lyons and many more, the 45-minute film traces Foster's roots as a young racer in Maryland to an established dirt and park rider in 2012. And proper detail is paid to every step of Foster's career, including the infamous seventh place finish in 1995 that caused him to lose the ABA number one pro title in 1995 (told largely by John Paul Rogers) and the decision by Primo to sever sponsorship ties with Foster earlier this year (with a candid reaction from Aaron Ross).
For the sake of not wanting to give away too much about the film, I'm not going to divulge much more. What I will say is that Stew Johnson and Fit Bike Co. did an amazing job on the final project, and that it's awesome to see a brand foster a rider's progression and pay homage to their accomplishments. While Fit Bike Co. has not released a specific date just yet, the film is being released on DVD and will be available soon.
