Robbie Knievel, a record-setting stunt performer who jumped the Grand Canyon on a motorcycle and was the son of legendary daredevil Evel Knievel, has died in Nevada at the age of 60, according to his brother.
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Knievel died early on Friday at a hospice facility in Reno following a battle with pancreatic cancer, his brother, Kelly Knievel told the Associated Press.
“Daredevils don’t live easy lives,” Kelly Knievel said. “He was a great daredevil. People don’t really understand how scary it is what my brother did.”
Kelly Knievel said Robbie died with three daughters at his side and will be buried with other family members in Butte, Montana.
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Like his father Evel, Robbie Knievel was famous for spectacular motorcycle jumps. One of his most famous jumps came in 1999, when he jumped 228 feet across the Grand Canyon, setting a personal record before tumbling off the bike, breaking his leg.
The Grand Canyon jump had been one of his father’s long-held, but never-realized ambitions. Knievel also paid his father tribute by jumping across the Caesars Palace fountains in Las Vegas, Nevada, a stunt in which his father had crashed and nearly died 22 years earlier.
Other famous jumps included a 231-foot jump across 30 limousines and a New Year’s Eve jump with fireworks and a mock volcano at The Mirage hotel in Las Vegas in 2008.
Kelly Knievel told the Associated Press that “injuries took quite a toll on” his brother. In 1992, he was treated for abrasions to his buttocks after crashing on the 22nd of 25 pick-up trucks lined in a row, AP reported. He had tried to jump over the trucks hands-free.
