A global pandemic. Apocalyptic wildfires.

Where to escape from it all? For me, Ive been traveling to the 80s during the strangest year of my life.

Life there just makes more sense. Which is weird because, if you really think about it, not a whole lot made sense in the 80s.

In Footloose, for instance, how is it that in a town where public dancing is illegal, all the seniors at Bomont High are secretly professional-caliber dancers who somehow break into precise choreography the first time theyre allowed to have a senior prom?

Equally confusing: Does anyone really believe that a small high school in a farming town like Bomont, Oklahoma, would have a mens gymnastics team? Not to mention the fact that when Ren McCormack gets kicked off the team for having drugs planted on him, hes ridiculed for it. Id think, in a place like Bomont, being on the gymnastics team would be grounds for getting your ass kicked. (That, and having a haircut like Kevin Bacons.)

I could go on for days with this stuff. In The Karate Kid, are we really supposed to believe that Elisabeth Shue would go for Ralph Macchio? Or in the Rocky franchise, that Sylvester Stallone, all of 5-foot-9 (sorry, Sly, you aint 5-10) and 185 pounds couldve beaten Carl Weathers (6-2, 220), Mr. T (5-10, 231) or freakin Dolph Lundren (6-5, 243)? Or that he wouldve even been a heavyweight? How did Michael Keaton get picked to play Batman? Does anyone know what the hell is going on in Purple Rain? And did people really think that we could win the War on Drugs with Just Say No.

You see what I mean. Ton Loc rapped This is the 80s and Im down the ladies.

Me, I was down with G.I. Joe, Garbage Pail Kids, neon Converse Chuck Taylors, Def Leppard, Guns N Roses, and John Elway and his Three Amigos wide receivers considering I was only 9 by the time the decade ended.

I often confused Ronald McDonald for Ronald Reagan and didnt have the faintest clue about the Iran-Contra Scandal, Voodoo Economics or Gary Harts Monkey Business.

My life revolved around AYSO soccer, building tree forts in the Black Forest that backed up to our yard in Monument, weekend sleepovers and a BMX movie called RAD in all caps.

Ive found comfort these past few months going back to some of those touchstones of my youth while the world around me felt like it was descending into chaos. There was safety in the well-worn and the nostalgic. I needed endings where I already knew the outcome.

I especially needed RAD, a movie from 1986 that youve most likely never seen that was finally released in a new restored 4K version this summer after never actually being released on DVD. Diehard fans had previously been left to watch grainy YouTube clips or dig around for their old VHS tapes.

How beloved is this wacky bike movie? According to aGuardianinvestigation into 10,000 movies in the Rotten Tomatoes database, RAD yes, all caps was the film with the greatest discrepancy between critical reception and fan adulation.

There were kids like me and my older brother, all across America, who literally sought this movie out anytime they hit the local video store. RAD was always the first pick for a Friday night sleepover over The Goonies, Adventures in Babysitting, Top Gun, Karate Kid, Bill and Teds Excellent Adventure, you name it.

Kids like us literally watched those VHS tapes until they broke.

I still dont quite understand why, but its probably because RAD was peak 80s. Its like the director, Hal Needham, who was Burt Reynolds old stuntman and who Brad Pitts character in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was based on, took all the best parts of classic 80s movies, threw them in a blender, and soundtracked all the action to soaring, goofy power ballads performed by John Farnham.

You know John Farnham, right? Probably not unless youre Australian.

Ray Walton, better known as Mr. Hand, is in RAD. So is Jack Weston, who played the creepy resort owner in Dirty Dancing. So are Talia Shire (Yo, Adrian!) and a young Lori Loughlin (pre-Aunt Becky fame and college admission scandal infamy), along with Olympic gymnast Bart Conner who, to this day, says hes more recognized for playing cocky BMX star Bart Taylor than he is for winning gold medals.

Some 34 years on, I still get amped every time I hear the opening keys to Thunder In Your Heart as local hometown kid Cru Jones (Bill Allen) races off the start line to take on the best in the world for a shot to race HELLTRACK.

My 5-year-old son watched the movie with me and hes been singing the song to himself ever since. You can probably guess the ending. Cru wins the big race, gets the girl and lives on forever in 80s glory.

Theres no big surpise ending. Which, in a year full of surprises and uncertainty, is pretty gnarly if you ask me.

Nate Peterson is the editor of the Vail Daily. Email him at npeterson@vaildaily.com

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