Real Moto: Jeremy 'Twitch' Stenberg

Jeremy "Twitch" Stenberg, 33, competed in the very first X Games Moto X Freestyle competition when the event debuted in San Francisco in 1999. He finished sixth. Today he has 22 X Games appearances and 15 medals to his credit and splits his time between making full-length videos, racing in the Lucas Oil Off Road Series, and running his brand, Dirt Bike Kidz.

Stenberg's popularity -- he's got 360,000 followers on Instagram alone -- has helped him sell countless freeriding videos and win four X Games Best Whip (fan-vote decided) gold medals. In January, four months before the Real Moto roster or contest was announced, Stenberg claimed he was going to win the contest's first gold. He says he's lobbied to get moto included in the Real Series since Real Street started in 2010, which is likely why he got the inaugural contest's very first invite.

Cinematographer: John Sanders
Bike: Kawasaki KX 450F

X Games: Is that a retaining wall that you jump up in the beginning of the video?

Twitch: Yeah, it holds up the Temecula junior high school! I think I went about 15-to-20 feet up it. That wall is probably 40-to-50 feet tall. I found it two years ago after I moved into my new house. We were out trail riding and I looked over one day and I saw that big-ass wall. I rode up to it and thought it would be rad to build a wall ride on it someday.

I had to do something different because I knew nobody else was going to have a wall ride. Me, my buddy Vinnie Carbone and Todd Potter shoveled that thing for three days. And then I had to use some power tools to cut through the bushes -- I made a full tunnel through them. We had to work in a way to capture the tunnel because it made the wall ride even cooler. It was fun. A lot of thought went into that thing for how short of a clip it is.

That Strung Out song took me back to my adolescence. It was the opening song to the original "Crusty Demons of Dirt" movie from 1994. How did you decide on that song?
[Laughs] I wanted to keep it original and what Real Moto was like for me growing up and watching Crusty Demons and Moto XXX videos and stuff like that. As soon as we figured what we were going to do I called my buddy Jordan [Burns], the drummer for Strung Out, and asked him if I could use the song.

We said, "There's only 90 seconds. Let's keep it rough and keep it raw and how we would want to see a video." I just tried to work with what I knew and what looked good on a video.

What story are you trying to tell? Is there a theme?

I wanted people to watch this video and make them want to go ride. When I watch someone's video I ask myself if it made me want to rewind it, watch it again and go ride? Or do I want to fast forward through it and get to the next one? Whenever I put a video part together I want to inspire people to go ride.

You told TransWorld Motocross back in January that you were going to win this contest.

I like to make big claims!

The Real Series is right in your wheelhouse isn't it?

I've been trying to get moto to this point for the last four or five years, to get video parts. That's all I've been doing is filming and putting out parts. My sponsors love it. Look at skate and snowboarding. It's all the baddest dudes who don't even ride contests. I remember talking to [X Games Vice President] Tim Reed about this Real Moto thing when they first did Real Street [in 2010].

A couple years later I got a phone call: "Hey, you're the first one invited." I was like, yeah, I should be. It was kind of my idea. I'm pumped to see this come forward.