Countywide : Wheelie Expert Always Up for a Ride

Kurt Osburn pops wheelies. That’s what he does; that’s what he loves.

Osburn, a Fullerton sandblaster, is so obsessed with riding his bike on its rear wheel that he wants to do it all the way across the country.

“I’m just a showoff,” he said. “That’s just how I am. I have to wheelie. It’s my No. 1--what I’m focusing my life on.”

Since he was 9, Osburn has performed wheelies on his bicycle.

Last week at the Orange County Fairgrounds, Osburn became the unofficial world record holder for the longest wheelie, balancing on the back wheel of his bicycle for five hours, 21 minutes and 30 seconds and breaking the previous record by eight minutes and 57 seconds. The last record was set in 1990 by David Robilliard on Guernsey, one of the British Channel Islands.

A notary public witnessed the event, and proof will be submitted to the Guinness Book of World Records, Osburn said.

“I had to beat that record to show that wheelies are from the U.S.A.,” said Osburn, sporting a red, white and blue hairdo. “This is where I was born and raised and where I wanted the record to be held,” said the 23-year-old, who usually keeps his hair a plain blue or bright red.

Breaking the record, he said, is proof that he can wheelie across the country. “I’m the world’s best now, so look at me. I can do it. But, beating the world record is just one step. It’s not the end.”

His flamboyant style captures people’s attention wherever he goes, Osburn said. He wheelies at the beach, movie theaters, shopping malls, even in snowstorms and blizzards in Colorado--anywhere he can find an audience.

The crowds that gather to watch him boost his ego and entice him to learn more tricks. “That’s what drives me,” he said.

Osburn said he plans to turn his bicycle trick into a lifelong career, making a childhood dream come true.

He devotes at least two hours a day for practice and takes his 20-inch BMX GT almost everywhere he goes. Rarely falling, Osburn is at ease pedaling at a 45-degree angle. He twirls, jumps, lets go of the handlebars and kicks out his feet when he wheelies to add pizazz.

“Eventually, I’m going to wheelie around the world,” Osburn said. “I can go on forever.”

His friends believe him.

“He just keeps on going and going and going,” said Scott Pacheco, 18, of Downey, who is Osburn’s best friend. “He does a bunch of wheelies. Backward wheelies. Reverse wheelies. All kinds of wheelies. I don’t even call him Curt anymore. I just call him King because no one can do it better.”

Osburn plans to raise money for his wheelie trip across the country and is looking for a charity to which he will donate some of the proceeds. He will take off from New York in February, traveling 50 to 100 miles each day until he ends up at his Fullerton home about three months later.