Larry "Link" Linkogle (born February 12, 1977 in

Orange, California Orange is a city located in North Orange County, California. It is approximately north of the county seat, Santa Ana. Orange is unusual in this region because many of the homes in its Old Town District were built before 1920. While many other ...

) is a professional

freestyle motocross Freestyle motocross (also known as FMX) is a variation on the sport of motocross in which motorcycle riders attempt to impress judges with jumps and stunts. The two main types of freestyle events are: *Big air (also known as "best trick"), in whi ...

rider and the co-founder and owner of Metal Mulisha, LLC. Linkogle holds the world record for long-distance motorcycle jumps and has appeared in feature films as a stuntman. He is regarded as a founder of

. Metal Mulisha is one of the most-recognized freestyle motocross teams in the world and is an internationally known lifestyle apparel line. What started off as Linkogle and friends wearing Metal Mulisha gear while performing tricks and jumps at the first-ever FMX course—the Metal Mulisha Compound built at Linkogle’s childhood home—has grown into one of the most recognized and respected brands in action sports. On December 6, 2001, while serving as the stunt double for

Vin Diesel Mark Sinclair (born July 18, 1967), known professionally as Vin Diesel, is an American actor. One of the world's highest-grossing actors, he is best known for playing Dominic Toretto in the ''Fast & Furious'' franchise. Diesel began auditio ...

in the movie '' XXX'', Linkogle was accidentally struck by a helicopter blade during a stunt for the movie. At the time of the accident, the injuries suffered were believed to have been minor and Linkogle walked away from the accident. Shortly after the accident, it was discovered that his frontal lobe was torn away from his skull from the impact with the Huey helicopter's blade and his ACL snapped and shoulder separated from the resulting fall.

Early life

Linkogle was age 11 when he first started to ride motorcycles in the desert and within months began competing in amateur contests. By 16, Linkogle was the youngest professional rider in the circuit. After a successful career in motocross, Linkogle envisioned an elevated form of motocross with the addition of awe-inspiring jumps and tricks. It was no easy feat to switch from circuit racing to a purely freestyle riding but he was determined to not let corporate influence dictate the evolution of a new, exciting sport. His vision set the foundation for freestyle motocross which involved daredevil skills to perform airborne tricks on a motorcycle with the skill of an acrobat. In no time, Linkogle won freestyle motocross contests and earned the admiration of fans worldwide. During the early years of freestyle motocross, Linkogle with pals Nathan Fletcher and Trigg Gumm thought up Metal Mulisha as the calling card for the new genre of riders. At contests, Linkogle tagged his bike with Metal Mulisha and soon after created shirts for the motley crew of riders. The group became known as the Metal Mulisha troop and competed under the moniker. Aided by the first-ever freestyle motocross course built at Linkogle’s childhood home, the troop perfected their skills. The new course would become known as the Metal Mulisha compound and serve as the epicenter of the freestyle motocross movement.

World-record jump

On May 5, 2005, at

Queensland Raceway Queensland Raceway nicknamed "the paperclip" is a motor racing circuit located at Willowbank in Ipswich, Queensland, Australia. The circuit did host Supercars Championship until 2019, drifting as well as club level racing and ride days. Qu ...

Ipswich Ipswich () is a port town and borough in Suffolk, England, of which it is the county town. The town is located in East Anglia about away from the mouth of the River Orwell and the North Sea. Ipswich is both on the Great Eastern Main Line ...

, Australia, Linkogle set the world's long-distance record for the 250cc Motorbike class by jumping 255.4 feet. The world-record jump occurred at an event promoted by the

Crusty Demons Direct, produce and film Emmy Award winning Film Series. The Crusty Demons are a group of daredevil freestyle motorcyclists from the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and Europe. They originated in 1994 with the filming of Crusty Demons of D ...

production company. During the event, five other riders set world records.

Notable achievements

1993 - Won AMA Amateur National Supercross Series 1996 - Created Metal Mulisha company 1996 - Created Metal Mulisha Compound 1996 - Won the first freestyle motocross event in

Castaic Lake Castaic Lake (Chumash: ''Kaštiq'') is a reservoir formed by Castaic Dam on Castaic Creek, in the Sierra Pelona Mountains of northwestern Los Angeles County, California, United States, near the town of Castaic. The California Office of Enviro ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

, which was promoted by Shane Trittler. 1998 - Performed nationwide on the

Vans Warped Tour The Warped Tour was a traveling rock tour that toured the United States plus three or four stops in Canada annually each summer from 1995 until 2019. It was the largest traveling music festival in the United States and the longest-running tourin ...

1998 - Won second place in the Jump Contest in

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the list of cities in Oregon, largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette River, Willamette and Columbia River, Columbia rivers, Portland is ...

1998 - Won third place at Free Air Festival 1998 - Promoted first-ever Freestyle Extreme Moto-X Show with the Metal Mulisha Troops at the Winchester Arena,

Winchester, California Winchester is a census-designated place (CDP) in Riverside County, California, USA. As of the 2010 census, the CDP had a total population of 2,534, up from 2,155 at the 2000 census. Winchester was founded in 1886 in Peasant Valley in what was th ...

1998 - Won fifth place in the Freeride Motocross Championship 1999 - Won second place in the Zero Gravity Festival 1999 - Won sixth place in the

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). Th ...

X Games The X Games are an annual extreme sports event organized, produced and broadcast by ESPN. Coverage is also shown on ESPN's sister network, ABC. The inaugural X Games were held during the summer of 1995 in Providence and Newport, Rhode Island, ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

, California 2001 - Featured rider in

film ''Crusty 6'' 2001 - Won first place in MX 2002 Moto Survival Tour 2002 - Voted the most popular extreme natural terrain rider in the world by

Fox Sports Fox Sports is the brand name for a number of sports channels, broadcast divisions, programming, and other media around the world. The ''Fox Sports'' name has since been used for other sports media assets. These assets are held mainly by the F ...

/''Bluetorch TV'' during the 2002 Moto Survival Tour 2003 - Nominated for World Stunt Awards and Tories Award for stunts performed in '' XXX''. 2005 - Featured rider in 10th Anniversary Crusty Demons World Tour Australia 2005 - Performed fire jump stunt off Docklands Wharf in Australia 2005 - Performed "superman" stunt into

Waitemata Harbour Waitemata or Waitematā may refer to: * Waitematā Harbour, the primary harbour of Auckland, New Zealand * Waitematā (local board area), a local government area in Auckland, New Zealand ** Waitematā Local Board, a local board of Auckland Council, ...

at Princess Wharf in

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

2005 - World-record jump (see above) 2006 - Competed with

Mike Metzger Michael Metzger is an American freestyle motocross (FMX) rider. Life and career In the 2002 X Games, Metzger won the Freestyle and Big Air events and got second place in Step Up, earning him an estimated $100,000 in three days. In 2003 he also ...

in the first-ever ''Freestyle

Biker Build-Off ''Biker Build-Off'' is a reality television series for the Discovery Channel. Created and narrated by Thom Beers, the series was originally conceived as a single special called ''The Great Biker Build-Off''. The show proved so popular that more e ...

'' by Discovery Channel

Entertainment

1991 - Stunt double for

Edward Furlong Edward Walter Furlong (born August 2, 1977) is an American actor. He won Saturn and MTV Movie Awards for his breakthrough performance at age 13 as John Connor in James Cameron's '' Terminator 2: Judgment Day''; which was followed by a mini-seque ...

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in '' Terminator 2: Judgment Day''. 1998 - Featured in MTV Sports and Music Festival 2 as himself 2002 - Biker double for

in the film '' XXX'' 2002 - ''Crusty Demons of Dirt, Vol. 4: God Bless the Freaks'' as himself. 2006 - ''

'' TV series documentary - "

vs. Larry Linkogle" (Episode #5.3) 2009 - ''Mind of the Demon: The Larry Linkogle Story'', based on Linkogle's memoir, directed and produced by Adam Barker is a dark, analytical look into the psyche of one of the most brilliantly talented, yet aggressively self-destructive minds of our generation. The film is the winner of the 2009

Bel Air Film Festival The Bel Air International Film Festival, first held in 2008, is an annual international film festival which takes place in Bel Air and the greater Los Angeles area. The festival honors films in the following categories: Film Fashion, Documentari ...

for Best Jury International Documentary. and the

2010 Slamdance Film Festival The 2010 Slamdance Film Festival took place in Park City, Utah from January 21 to January 28, 2010. It was the 16th iteration of the Slamdance Film Festival, an alternative to the more mainstream Sundance Film Festival. For the 2010 Festival, Sl ...

as the Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature. 2013 - Linkogle along with other members of Metal Mulisha starred in the music video "Smash It" by

Suicidal Tendencies Suicidal Tendencies is an American crossover thrash band formed in 1980 in Venice in Los Angeles, California by vocalist Mike Muir. Muir is the only remaining original member of the band. Along with D.R.I., Corrosion of Conformity, and Stor ...

References

External links

Mind of the Demon: the Larry Linkogle Story
* https://web.archive.org/web/20140103200412/http://larrylinkogle.com/ * http://www.metalmulisha.com * https://twitter.com/MMLinkogle {{DEFAULTSORT:Linkogle, Larry Living people 1977 births Freestyle motocross riders