3 Rail Firsts with George Dossantos

If you're like me and grew up on Don't Quit Your Day Job, George D isn't just some rail boss, he is THE rail boss. In '99 I didn't think you could do much on a rail besides double pegs and icepicks, but George changed all that and helped usher in the era where any trick that can be done on a ledge or a mini ramp can be taken down a handrail too. He was nice enough to fill me in on 3 tricks that he did before anyone else ( he opted to fill us in on his smith to half barspin instead of my first choice, the rail ride, because he says he thinks he was the second person to do it ). Check it:


Crooked 180: When I was 18 I got my license. I had a blue Plymouth Horizon. We used to go down to Philly EVERY weekend. Jeff and Bob had just finished Don't Quit Your Day Job, and everyone was psyched. There was this rail down about 6 or 7 stairs... I forget what building it was in front of. That day I remember Rich Andreu being there, along with my friend Mike. I don't think Bob was there. Me and Rich started riding the rail (no homo). Started doing some tricks down it, I did a feeble, a crooked, and even a double to manual to no footer. I was always good at spinning off of stuff, so in my head I was like, I'll let her rip. Did a few more crooks and the one time that I locked on good, I just swung a 180, and it worked! I wasn't sure if it was gonna cause the rail was down stairs. We all just laughed and my friend Mike started yelling. He still brings it up whenever I see him.

Smith to Half Barspin: This was pretty much around the same era, another Philly trip. Jeff Z. was getting damn good at taking pics and Ride BMX was gonna run a bio of me. This went down on the LOVE park BLUE RAIL. I loved that rail. There were soo many sessions on that thing I get them all mixed up. I remember getting to the rail and wanting to do something cool. I was already pretty confident with smithing down it, so I did a few of those, and even tried a smith to 180 and landed 90... after that didn't work out too well I thought "I still wannna do something different", so I thought of throwing the bars I think I ended up doing 3 or 4 smith turnbars until I finally handed them off. There was no way at that time that I could've thrown a full. I was happy though. I even remember seeing Butcher months later and he was psyched on it... that was awesome.

Half Cab to Rail: This one was kind of weird. Jeff Z. had already moved out to Cali, so shooting pics with him was few and far between. He was out here for some reason I forget. Anyways he wanted to meet up and shoot something... at this point I had already done a half cab to rail, in my Standpoint interview but never shot photos of it. But that was in Ohio so that wouldn't work. So I picked Jeff up at his parents house, and went to the Monroe rail 3 towns over from where I live. It was strange 'cause it was just me and Jeff, and he didn't even bring his bike, just his camera stuff. He asked what I wanted to do and I was like I guess half cab to rail, and he was like "ohhhh man that would be awesome"... I laughed and said, if I get on I'm gonna 180 out of it. So I did a couple of 180's and rolled backwards to the rail a few times. And then within a few more I got a perfect setup and just hopped up, I couldn't believe I didn't miss, slid down and as I got to the end of the rail I made sure I 180ed out. I heard the shutter on the camera going crazy. I turned around and just started laughing and Jeff was doing his laughing/yelling "YES! YES! George muthfucking D!" and then he got on his cell and called Losey to tell him what had just happened. Very interesting.....

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