In our June 1996 issue of MBA, we had a lot of different stories. One of them was titled, “10 Products You Should Own (Or At Least Consider).”
When we tried to come up with a way to show them all in one photo, someone came up with the above idea. It was probably Richard Cunningham’s idea. We grabbed a stepladder from our warehouse and covered it with some colored cloths that we often used in our photo studio. Then we put some of the items on the ladder’s steps. We put the rest of the items anywhere we could find a place to put them. Mike Cushionbury donned a black leather jacket and held the tire pump in the air. Richard Cunningham helped us with the item placements. The shiny black head was a glass head that somebody had found that we could use in the studio to shoot helmets without asking one of our editors to serve as a model.
The final picture was one of the strangest photos we’ve ever put on the cover of MBA —
— but it was an attention-grabber, and we still chuckle, seeing it today, 30 years later.
The products we picked for the feature were the Specialized Air Force Pump, Camelbak Hydration Systems, the Shimano XT Component Group, the Park Consumer Stand, the Ritchey CPR-14 tool, Answer Accelerator shoes, Oakley M-Frame Heater sunglasses, Cannondale Pittard gloves, the Giro Terramoto helmet, and Torelli Extra-Lite inner tubes.
Speaking of models, MBA’s then staff member, Sean McCoy actually did some professional modeling when he was in his 20s when he was pursuing a career as a professional longboard surfer. That’s Sean in the photo below:
That’s MBA’s Sean McCoy, above, modeling the Oakley Heater sunglasses above.
We don’t recall how successful Sean was in his pro surfing career, but we remember that he told us he once beat Kelly Slater in a surfing contest when they were both young. For those who don’t follow surfing, Kelly Slater has won 11 world surfing titles and is considered the greatest surfer in history.
Sean is now one of the two publishers our magazine, along with Tom Hinz.