The X-1 Skycycle Unveiling
at the Snake River Canyon
May 6, 1972

First of all, Evel was not the first person to ride the X-1 Skycycle!  My daughter Michelle was - as seen to the left!   (Arrrgghh! - she's 36 years old now - where has all the time gone?) 1999 photo of Michelle to the right.  Clowning around on our way to Arizona for our April 99 backpacking trip down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon.  Click here to see two more photos of Michelle (and I) down in the spectacular Grand Canyon. Michelle has become one of Southern California's top trail runners.  In 2007 she set 12 female course records (one 50 mile race, ten 50K ultras [31 miles] & the inaugural Catalina Island ECO-Marathon.  See: RECORDS

Doug Malewicki, designer and engineer of Evel Knievel's steam rocket powered SkyCycle X-1 canyon jumping motorcycle is shown here shaking hands with Evel at the machine's unveiling at the Twin Falls, Idaho Snake River Canyon jump site on May 6, 1972.  (Yikes - did I really think bell bottoms were "cool" back then? - wait shouldn't that be "groovy" instead?). On the left is Robert Truax who invented and holds the patents on Steam Rocket engines.  In the background wearing sunglasses is Facundo Campoy, one of Truax's partners. This was the first public static firing of the X-1 (the vehicle was tethered with a hold down cable to prevent forward motion). (The following pictures are thumbnails that you can click on to see a larger version.)

Press interviews	Final checkout.  Note hold down cable yoke between the exhaust nozzles.	Evel suited up.  He is facing Russ Wheeler of Paranetics who made all of Evel's custom parachutes.  Note Evel's fancy tandem tractor-trailer in the background.
Evel gets into the cockpit.	Canopy is put in place.	I am still looking for photos of that first public rocket firing...  In the meantime, a picture of my 15 month old daughter Michelle & I over looking the Snake River canyon and waterfalls.

We also launched three sub scale rockets across the Snake River canyon that same afternoon.  The launches were set up at the top of the dirt ramp that Evel had built.  See: TEST ROCKETS.

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