Freestyle motocross pioneer Mike Cinqmars passed away today at 2:08 a.m., according to the San Bernardino County Sheriff-Coroner’s Department. His cause of death is still unconfirmed, and an autopsy is scheduled for sometime next week. He was 31.

Mike “Cinq” Cinqmars was one of the originators of freestyle motocross. At the first Freestyle event at the 1999 X Games, Cinqmars grabbed the silver medal, finishing just below Travis Pastrana and beating out the Metal Mulisha’s Brian Deegan. But it wasn’t until Cinqmars started filming with MTV for “Senseless Acts of Video,” jumping over his two-story house in Apple Valley, Calif., that the mainstream really took notice.

In a 1999 interview with ESPN.com (then EXPN.com), Mike talked about the start of his career. “I pulled the house jump off perfectly, then I loaded my bike up and headed up to [San Francisco and] got second at the X Games,” he said. “I got the silver medal, and then from there the ball just kept rolling.”

After the house jump, Cinqmars went on to perform numerous jumps for MTV’s cameras, including a spring break jump in Cancun, Mexico, where he launched over 100 feet off a stationary dock onto a makeshift sand landing.

Source: ESPN Action Sports