Cage riders take danger for granted

MOSES LAKE — Sometimes zooming around on motorcycles inside a cage runs in the family. 

“(I’m) from a circus background,” said Johnny Obando, founder of Globe of Death Squad, which performed at the Grant County Fair last week. “My dad was a lion and tiger trainer, a tightrope walker and a globe of death rider. He came to this country doing this, and me and my brother picked it up. We didn’t really get into the juggling or the animal training or any of that. We really like dirt bikes, so we stuck with this.” 

Obando formed his own traveling cage rider show about nine years ago in Greenville, Texas, and they’ve been traveling around tying audiences’ stomachs in knots ever since. The riders – anywhere from two to seven of them – ride dirt bikes inside a metal mesh sphere, coming within a foot or so of each other as they execute carefully choreographed stunts at high speeds with no safety net. They travel about 10 months of the year, Obando said, all over the U.S. and Canada, as well as Mexico, Columbia and Japan. 

If it looks dangerous, that’s because it is, Obando said. One mistake on a rider’s part and the whole team can get badly hurt. 

“It usually happens during a live performance,” he said. “My partner crashed in 2018 in Snyder, Texas, and he missed up his fingers pretty bad, (needed) stitches. The worst one I had was in Puyallup, Washington at a Shriners Circus. I broke my rib and my hand in seven places, and I crashed into a friend. He fell in front of me and I couldn’t do anything so I rammed against him. I broke his finger; my brother broke his shoulder. It’s like a domino effect; if one falls, we all fall.” 

The riders take the danger in stride, unlike the audiences, Obando said. 

“For us it’s a way of life,” he said. “When I was younger … it was something normal happening in our back yard, but I understand, now that I’m older, it’s pretty cool.”