Miles Canevello's Monster Truck
bts of the heaviest dump truck of all time
[editor’s note: originally had miles’ last name spelled wrong, b/c we’re not a good editor]
Look, you might as well let the blood drip and the lime flames lick and the purple mist shroud because what was laid down — like roses, like dirt — was a monster. truck., ok?, a hammerdown hellride capped with a banshee scream on a blown knee … basically, the dump truck to end them all, hear those bells toll?
The clip of him getting smoked periodically makes the rounds like a bummer rotation, but we know Miles Canevello got the make, closing out his part in Danny Pasminski and Tim Kozlowski’s Caddywhompus. Drop pop swerve hold nerve then absorb power slide slam, slash palms without pain — just going full Tony Hawk or Skate 3 on the Scottsdale Medical Pavilion. That brutalist spearhead strikes Arizona like a Longo sculpture, all sharp angles scored with slats softened surreally by its lipstick tube elevator shaft, its seamed panels coated in slick Pebble Tec … anything going down on that spot is worthy of flowers.
We don’t do slamsploitation here, bb; we ascribe to the Cult of the Dump Truck and its Sacred Catechism, d.t.e. — dump truck everything. Including your building.
Look up the slam on your own time, ghouls; this one’s all about the make. Between working on his new non-profit Push Forward and playing drums for OBL — the perfect way for a math teacher to apply years of rocking out — Miles took the time to tell me how it went down. [editor’s note: The following has been edited for content & clarity]
4ts: Alright. How did you even see that [as skateable]? That's the kind of spot someone would point at and be like, oh, I would skate that in Tony Hawk. How did you see that and think, you know what, let's for real hit that thing?
Miles: My initial thought was just the Tony Hawk thing, and that was probably, I don't know, three years before we did it? I just remember driving by it, and it's a skate spot. There's people that have done tricks, not on the mega drop in, obviously, but on the bottom rung of it. Ted Schmitz has a pretty gnarly clip there. I think he did a tail drop kickflip into it or something, and then it drops off roof high. So there's gnarly stuff there. I know Aaron Goure at some point went there and dropped in maybe halfway. It was kind of touched.
How that transitioned to me actually skating it was kind of the situation where I'm at right now, where I have a bad knee. I'd blown up my knee prior, and at times it's just super hard to deal with.
And so we were trying to film an ender for my friend's Caddywhompus video that we probably worked on for maybe four to six years. My knee at the time — trying to film an ender — was telling me you can't pop onto anything. You can't jump down anything. And that was like, okay, what can I do? And for some strange reason, that building just came up. Oh yeah, I could just drop in on it, that’s safe [editor’s note: ‘safe’ here being a relative term]. I don't have to jump, I don't have to lock in to anything; easy. So the original intention was to drop in. Actually I wanted to drop in from the top and then
The top-top?
Yeah, near the top-top. Once I felt the speed and how gnarly it was, because I did halfway and then a little higher, I realized there's no way I can do it from the top. So to me, scaling it down from the top was like, well now I can't just drop in. Dropping in is lame if I just drop in halfway, or 75% or whatever. So then that's when — I don't know how it came into mind — but oh, I could drop in to dump truck. I don't know how that came into the picture, but it’s kind of cooler and now it made it worth it in my mind. So where I could do 75% and be okay about it.
I feel like I'm talking too much.
No, no, that's the exact kind of stuff I'm super fascinated with.
Is that sort of odd kind of drop in into it you had to do … was that mainly just because it was the best way to get in? Were you taking advantage of that motion to help you pop it out?
No, I mean, to me it didn't make sense as a trick. So I was like, cool, I've never seen someone drop into a dump truck.
Not like that.
So it was kind of, this is really weird and funky, but it works and I've never seen it done, so let's do it. And that's what, again, to me, I almost wasn't going to do the drop in because it wasn't from the top. It seemed more worth it to me with that little maneuver in there.
And I love when people try to take a little piece of the architecture, the environment, and use it in a unique way, right?
Yeah, that's 100% I'd say where I come from as a skater. Because I'm not a technical skater, and to me, it’s more so how can I skate this in a different way then? So yeah, once I found that different approach to getting into it, it was like, all right, yeah, let's do this, man.
Seems like maybe the dump truck per se probably wasn't the hardest part of the trick, right? Was the hard part just sort of surviving all the way down? The mental aspect?
I mean, the mental aspect was a big battle. Once I started going, it was good to go.
I'm a math teacher and science teacher teaching physics. So to me, I just think of it in terms of physics. How do I make sure that this amount of momentum is tolerable because it's super steep? But the steepness of the building is obviously mega, and it's Pebble Tec, so you're not really getting much grip. You're just — dude, it's one of those surfaces where you're getting a foot massage on the way down, and then there's big old cracks throughout it. There's probably four, they're maybe a half inch, inch thick; big cracks.
Like seams?
Giant tiles, 16 ft tiles or something. There's four of 'em. And so in between each tile you have a solid gnarly crack, and so the texture of it is pretty hectic. The straight down factor’s hectic. And then what's weird about it too is at the very bottom it goes not into the ground, but there's probably eight inches until it actually gets to the ground.
The first day we didn't even have wood and that was so stupid, and that's where the slam clip came from, the slam clip that went viral and kind of haunts me to this day.
[how the missions went down]
I think day one, it was three of us, maybe five of us. Not a big crew. Thanksgiving actually was our first day going there. I don't think it was the slam that went viral, but the slam that took me out of that day — I couldn't walk for four days pretty much. I don't think I broke my tailbone, but it was as close as you could get to breaking your tailbone without breaking it and that sucked. And then, I think it was some time in January, we went back and somehow got out of it for real.
What was crazy was, day two there was maybe three to five of us that rolled up. But then as the session was going there was a car full of homies that rolled up, and then maybe even a second car full of homies. There was definitely 10 to 15 people there. It was sick to have a couple homies, even not close homies, but just random dudes that burned around in Arizona at the time. So that hyped it up.
The homie Conor Holiday, I'm going to name drop him, he deserves it. There's probably been two or three enders that I filmed, and he's been my wood guy, and he came through on the wood that day and he brought the wood. He had extra wood; he was just clutch. I've talked about the eight inches, but I don't think that trick would've happened without him. And of course, without the filmer Danny Pasminski believing in the dream; it's cool that at the time Danny was believing in the dream and supported it. So shout out to him.
[after the make]
We were watching the clip, and as we're watching the clip, cops roll up and they're like, hey, what's going on over here? And we said, oh, nothing. Don't worry about it. Yeah, we're good. There's nothing going on. And they said that's not what the people who called said. They said someone was at the top of that building, jumping their skateboard off it, trying to kill themselves.
Wild!
Literally they thought it was a suicide mission. So we were just like, no, none of that, that's not true. We'll grab our wood, we'll get out of here. And then we dipped. I would not be down to try it if I was going to put myself in that situation [of a potentially fatal slam]. But I guess there was one where I was close to that edge, so that could have been bad. Luckily I didn't go off the edge.
But yeah, that slam sucked. I remember I could not really walk or sit down after that first slam, the tailbone one. I remember sitting down for Thanksgiving dinner, it took me two minutes to go from standing to sitting just so I could eat.
Do you remember roughly how many goes you had at it? It seems like the type of trick where you're on a pitch count, right? You get slammed, you don't bail that.
So day one, not anticipating the speed and not anticipating that eight inches of not having a transition, that day I probably gave it six to eight tries. Day two it might've been fifteen? Maybe in the twenties? I was not dying every try because that plywood and that eight inches being accounted for really helped me somewhat.
I feel like there was probably a total of 30 tries between the two days. Day two was definitely a lot more tries, but not getting smoked. Day two was a whole different approach. I believe very heavily on the power of sleeping on it.
What was the hardest part of getting the landing, literally just taking that much momentum into the rollaway?
Yeah, essentially. Part of the weird part was starting where I started for the dump truck and shifting over.
I was going to ask you about that too! The swerve around.
You got to shift over and then you got to get it straight and keep it straight.
The one that I landed, I didn't even think about the wall at the bottom. I was so hyper-focused on handling it that I didn't realize, okay, I have two seconds, I need to stop.
Coming in hot.
Yeah, yeah! It was crazy that I did the power slide all the way across the road, somewhat slowed down.
Best way to end; I love a good slam-the-brakes make.
I did not think that far ahead. I remember that wall that I slammed into is all gritty. I definitely sliced my hands all over it, and that sucked.
Probably didn't feel it at the moment though, did you?
No, no. Nah. Adrenaline was full blast!
Did you do any setup changes for it? Like wider board, slightly tighter trucks, softer, bigger wheels, anything like that? Or did you just take your daily driver and head up there?
I don't recollect changing too much about myself. I know day one, the reason we didn't go with wood was because I brought these ATF wheels. You could ride 'em on any terrain.
Oh yeah.
I think they're Bones, the ATFs. Who needs a rollaway when you can just barge the grass? In the desert, if it's dry grass, it's dirt solid. But no, it's like a fancy hospital or doctor building. So they’ve got luscious grass and then right away I was like, oh, this is totally not going to work. And then there's this eight inch drop into the landing.
And yet you went for it anyway [laughs].
Sometimes I just have tunnel vision; well we're here, let's figure it out.
Literally kitty corner to it was a dumpster, and the dumpster was filled with plexiglass slices and carpet squares and I was just like, oh, sick. I'll make a bridge of plexiglass and we'll put the carpet squares on top of that so it's not, you know, like glass. And then we're good, dude, let me try it! So that was day one, literally a patch of landing with plexiglass and carpet squares.
That day I might've had way softer wheels, so going down that Pebble Tec, I picked up speed. And then day two, I think I had harder wheels that increased the resistance. And then obviously the wood. Carpet squares were ... it didn't work out. It didn't work out
A good try, a good thought.
You mentioned the speed picking up. Was there ever any thought of maybe I can kick a little baby power slide or something? Or would that just not even be possible with the way it was?
No. That thing's way steep. That thing is so steep.
Too steep, basically.
Yeah. Yeah.
As a physics teacher, you understood that wasn't going to work [laughs].
Oh, dude. Well, and the Pebble Tec too, if you started a power slide you wouldn't gain traction. It's not an option.
I guess the traction is what snaps them back for you, right? The wheels re-gripping.
Yeah, you got to get back in. And if you're going that steep with that much Pebble Tec to get back in on, you're probably going to skid out the other way. That's way too steep for that kind of maneuver. Maybe you could do a tail skid for a little bit of a brake.
Sketchy! Do you have any idea, any estimate on what the angle was and how high up you were?
I would suspect if you're in the building and you took the elevator to the fourth floor out of five, I think that's where you'd be in the building. Don't quote me on that [editor’s note: sry dog], but that'd be my guess. I should probably go measure it. That'd be sick to go measure it.
Give it the Dern Brothers treatment with the whole long measuring tape. You'd need one of those rolling ones like marathons are measured with or something.
Angle wise, dude, I would probably guess it's like 65°? I'd go almost right in the middle of 45° and 90°.
That's wild.
It's hard and it's weird. Every time I go there I think it’s more mellow and then I get there and it's steeper than I remember.
I'd be stoked if someone did something on it, switch drop in or something.
The way that the slam clip took on a life of its own, I'm curious how that feels, when only the worst part of it or the most exploitive way to check it out is the part that goes around? That's got to be kind of a bummer, and it's sort of out of your control.
100%. I don't really know how to elaborate on that — it is just kind of whack. And I think my thing is just the connection piece. Some of these Instagram accounts that want to just rip the clip and post it, that's cool, but at least say what's up.
Maybe not even asking permission, but at least saying hi. But I don't know. To me that's what I love about skateboarding, is connecting with people through it. And so for people to just take my skating and use it without even saying hi or anything, it's kind of like, yo, what's up with that? And then the slam sucks. I think it's funny looking at some of those videos. A lot of people see that clip and make comments like, ooh, no way in hell. People just think that it never happened. If you dig deeper or look at the person beyond the trick, you'd know a little better.
I remember I did a story once a long time ago about, and it was Chris Nieratko I think that was saying, it kind of pisses him off, like people who watch NASCAR for the crash. Or that Jake Brown slamming has way more views than him skating. But something like the highlight reels with the slide outs and stuff, I feel like that's a little different, right? It's different to see the battle.
Watching people's My Wars is sick because you're hearing their story and you're also seeing the success in the end. But for people to just take part of that experience and milk it, that's kind of messed up. Kind of like you said — exploitive. But I love My Wars, dude. It is so cool to look into the mental battle, and the persistence. And then again, with the success, it's very inspiring still.
miles’, ummm, ‘personal battle,’ cut together by peter grannis
Similar kind of question, but a little different spin. This was the ender for your Caddywhompus part, and the whole part is sick. Is it kind of a bummer that the ender has become sort of its own thing, maybe eclipsed the whole part? Or is it still just dope that people are stoked on it?
I haven't thought too much about that, if the clip overshadowed the part.
Two moments that made me not care about that was John Cardiel giving me a shout out or commenting on the clip. That was just a life hammer.
Yeah, it's like a co-sign from God for if you're going to get gnar.
I think at the premier, someone leaked it and tagged him in it and then he messaged me or something like that. I'd honestly be curious to look at my Instagram and see if that's what it was. Or he messaged them and then they were like, dude!, or something.
And then some other dude — I wish I knew the dude's name, then I could give him a shout out — but some legendary big wave surfer, he shouted it out or reposted it and he's like, dude, I've surfed 50 foot waves and this looks so gnarly or something like that. To get homage from a big wave surfer is pretty special.
I got to ask, because the Chicago clips in the part and your area code, are you an Illinois guy originally?
Yeah, I grew up in a small town called McHenry, Illinois. I was born and raised there, stayed there until I was 18.
And then the second that I was an adult and good to move out of home, I did. I came out to Arizona to skate, but college was the vessel that allowed me to go for that. Both college and skateboarding were my goals when I moved out of Illinois.
I want to talk about your non-profit, Push Forward. Can you tell me about where that came from and what you do?
I was a teacher for seven years, and the past two years a bunch of kids were bringing up skateboarding, hey, I saw your videos, or I heard you're a skater. I'd always ask them, do you skate? They have a board, but it’s like no, not really.
Well we should do something about that.
Eventually I talked to my school and they said, hey, do a skateboard program.
So I started doing skateboarding clubs at my schools. I did it at one school one year, then I left that school the next year, went to another school and started another one there while I was still operating my old one at the old school.
One school was great. But once I started doing two schools, it was like, wait, this is sick. Kids are stoked! And it was just really magical to see not only kids stoked on skateboarding, but the kids that were skateboarding with me very stoked at school. That was the biggest thing; whoa, these kids are hyped to be at school this day. Because at the end of the day, they're skateboarding.
It's the carrot.
As a teacher, my goal is always to inspire and motivate and get students to do what they're passionate about. And sometimes what I found in schools is it's really hard to do that as a teacher. No matter what conversation you have, no matter what angle you come from, you're always going to be that person that's the teacher.
Getting to connect with kids in the skateboarding context, it's a whole different ball game where you almost don't even have to try to inspire or motivate, because the skateboard does that itself.
Once I saw the magic of the two schools happening, immediately I was like, how can I do this wherever? With whoever? So I started Push Forward late last year. I started planting seeds for it, and then January 1st of this year was kind of like my launch day to start it.
It's kind of like an art class and a PE class mixed together, too. You're being active, but you're being creative too.
Really my philosophy of skateboarding instruction and the program of Push Forward is literally, if you've never touched a skateboard, here are all the foundational skills to be comfortable as a skateboarder and understand how to walk and talk as a skateboarder. And then once you're there, it's kind of just like, cool, let's skate.
And then really, you are then your own teacher. You are your own inquirer of what you want to discover on a skateboard. I'll give you tips and tricks, but I'm not going to tell you what to do. As long as more kids are getting on skateboards and it's a good experience for them, that's where I'm at and where I think most skateboarding should be.