The Motostik is a historic pogo stick that emerged in 2004, the same year as the Flybar 1200, and was used primarily by many riders in the mid 2000’s. The Flybar 1200 was the very first “Big Air” pogo stick that was released into the market, and the Motostik was almost like a hybrid between a Tech stick and a Big Air stick. A lot of pogoers then were obviously still used to jumping on spring pogo sticks, so the Motostik was a great transition stick into Big Air. We at AllPogo happened to snag an interview with Marc Matson, the mastermind behind the Motostik – a pogo stick that helped propel not only some of the greats of pogo forward, but the sport itself.
AllPogo:
What is your history with motocross as far as racing, freestyle, etc.
Marc:
I started racing motocross around 1980… and I still am. I never was really good, but I always brought two pretty girls with me, so I ended up hanging out with a couple brand-name moto guys. Meanwhile my buddy from high school, Dana Nicholson, was making “extreme” snowboard movies, so one day I took him out with my moto buddies (Brian Manley, Joel Albrecht, Jeremy McGrath), he introduced some Moto clips into his latest snowboard video, everything went crazy… “Crusty Demons of Dirt” was born. There’s little clips of me in the first few videos but I didn’t like/wear the baggy gear so I didn’t get in a lot of the shots. I partnered up with a couple guys to do a series of “ Extreme” jet ski/Moto movies called “all my crazy friends” (sooo lame now:)) I still race (gps 45 minutes, 50+ expert) once a month. 
AllPogo:
What year did you first start the process of building/designing the motostik, and when did it become available for sale?
Marc:
Roughly around 2000 I was making “extreme“ movies (on VHS) so I was around a lot of pro Moto/JetSki/wakeboard athletes. I had a lot of parties at my house & late one night after looking around the garage Kris Burke says “hey you know what I’ve always thought about making? A pogo stick with dirt bike handlebars.” we bounced a few designs off each other, he said he was never gonna do anything with the idea so he was handing the idea off to me since I had already made prototypes of other projects. I sat on it for about six months, didn’t think about it at all… all of the sudden one night, after a few, it was like a light switch, I started going to all of the sporting good stores to check out the competition. I can’t remember what store I was at when I came across a discontinued pogo stick on the markdown table way in the back that looked almost identical to what I was shooting for, a motorcycle fork. I only needed to change a few of the parts out to make it a Motostik. I did a little research, found out who made it, they happened to have a satellite office about 10 miles from my house so I arranged a meeting, showed them my (really rough) prototype (The motorcycle fork with the cut up clamp), they referred me to a 3-D designer (Mike Ducharme), Who happened to ride Moto also. After a few months of design work, we sent the files to the factory. Now I needed a box to sell it in so after I got Jeremy Mcgrath to take a few pictures on it, I called in my designer buddy Scott Burnsworth to design the box and graphics. I have a demo business a.k.a. heavy equipment, I had 0.0 experience with retail, so I got my ass handed to me a couple times but I wasn’t gonna let it fail, and by the end I think we sold about 10,000 units. Am I babbling too much?
AllPogo:
Absolutely not, the more info the better. So the initial idea came out around 2000, but when did it become available for sale? I want to say around the same time the flybar 1200 came out, which was 2004.
Marc:
You probably know when it came out better than I do! 
’04 sounds pretty close… Because we got first prototype, I sat on that for a while like I said I didn’t have any experience. I ordered several more for the photo shoot, placed the order, set up a warehouse, so yeah, probably around ’04 by the time it got Rollin’.
AllPogo:
When you initially created the Motostik, were you aware of the pogo community, or was it made strictly for motocross training?
Marc:
I wasn’t aware of the Pogo community until we decided to do a photo shoot. We looked around on the web and found Dave Armstrong doing some crazy shit on a noisy old school pogo stick (I forget the name now but chrome sides and a spring in the middle) (edit: Gravity Games) I can’t remember the other guys name (edit: Nick McClintock) but I flew them both out here, Put them up in hotels and took care of them while they shot pictures in Huntington around the pier. A lot of top Moto guys used them to train/warm up in the pits in between Motos. A newspaper in Arizona wrote an article about how good pogo sticks are for your core/balance/cardio… we sold a lot in Arizona that month. 
AllPogo:
Any stories from Pogopalooza Huntington?
Marc:
I didn’t really participate in the Pogopalooza, I think I went once in HB, The good guys were all on the other two brands, & most of it was (understandably) about how high the guys could go, so I was happy in third place. The good thing about my pogo stick was that mine had distribution through motorcycle shops, and zero competition there. Not to mention you’re used to $200 price tags in a motorcycle shop… You can’t sell a pogo stick for $250 in Toys “R” Us, cuz you can get bicycles for the whole family for that much.
AllPogo:
If you were to design and manufacture a new motostik, what would you do differently from the MX1? As far as the stick itself, marketing, etc
Marc:
I have a new one designed and I have the two Prototypes with two major improvements… 1. Better access to the springs so the consumer could change them out to fit their style/weight. 2. Adjustable tension, flexible bottom pad so you wouldn’t have to land perfectly straight on it like you do now.
Shoutout to Marc Matson for taking the time to answer our questions and give us some insight on the Motostik’s History. Below you will find some early Motostik video edits.
