How far into BMX did you get?
Posted by tinpants44@reddit | GenX | View on Reddit | 59 comments
A big chunk of my childhood was spent BMX-adjacent, it was part of every day in some way. The farthest my parents would allow was to buy me Schwinn 36/36s (two I think) and I would then customize with the big pistol grips and lighter pedals. It was a heavier bike, and I couldn't really keep up with the Mongooses and such. We would find the dirt tracks and try to jump and race. No helmets though. How far into it did you go? Were you a competitor or just stick to the tracks in the woods?
basec0m@reddit
Pretty much road every day from 12-15 (82-85). Had a set of jumps in a 7 foot high square near us called 4 corners. Raced as often as I could at local tracks. Got into freestyle, built a couple ramps, did a lot of flatland.
Four Corners
Racing my quadangle
Northman_76@reddit
I had a magenta GT performer, did alot of track running with my friends as well as downtown mid diff trick riding as a 10 to 14 yr old. Something I didn't consider at the time is that was a 600.00 bike my dad bought me, now 600.00 today isn't chump change, in 1986 it would have been probably the equivalent to 1500.00 then. I never asked for the bike tbh. And that's why my dad was, and is to this day the most top shelf man, I have ever known. Love ya, dad.
HarveyMushman72@reddit
My brother raced in his late 30s with a group of guys called the Rogaine Riders. He still rides occasionally, I had a Schwinn Predator in junior high. He recently got a new bike and gifted me this one:
ChEeSeJeWyBaCcA@reddit
Oh I loved it. Had a haro, GT and a Redline which I wish I had kept
HotAcanthisitta621@reddit
could not afford a nice one, but had a nice track where I lived at the time, have a 1983 Mongoose currently.
Climboard@reddit
I was obsessed and used to race every weekend until the local track closed so they could build a church. Turned my attention to skateboarding and that took over my life.
Still have fond memories of my Diamondback Silver Streak. I spent all my allowances swapping out every part.
Sometimesunaware@reddit
We had an abandoned construction site in our neighborhood, the builder went bankrupt in the early stages, left huge mounds of dirt, we turned it into an impromptu BMX park within a month, it was awesome, stayed that way for three years. Had a sweet Redline I saved my paper route money to buy, broken wrist, broken collarbone, good times before driver's licenses.
Minimum_Painter_3687@reddit
I wasn’t real interested in BMX and definitely wasn’t in the economic class that could afford the hobby anyway.
I did have a cheap knockoff dirt bike from Sears though.
mottledmussel@reddit
I'm on the younger side of Gen X and by the time I got into Jr High, we all transitioned to mountain bikes. My older brother and his friends were all super into BMX and Mongoose.
Anonymo123@reddit
not at all. my brother got a bmx bike with money he made doing work over a summer, never appealed to me. I had a hand me down 10 speed and it did what i needed it to. I got more into skateboarding and spent my time and money on that... even got to skate with Tony Hawk back in the day, good times.
instantlyregredditit@reddit
I’ve been behind bars since I was 10.
Raced for a season or two. Was constantly on my bike until I got my drivers license. Still ride bikes just not BMX.
general-illness@reddit
The furthest I got was dreaming of owning a PK Ripper. Part of the reason I got so in to skating is I could afford the good boards\equipment. Still searching
MaximumJones@reddit
Ipickthingup@reddit
From the first viewing of Rad until summer of 1990. I start skating then and did that until 2008 ish
largos7289@reddit
as far as getting one and popping a few wheelies and doing cool jumps.
Tinyberzerker@reddit
Got a Dyno GT for my 13th birthday. Front and back pegs so I could haul my friends around and do tricks. Got lots of street cred with the neighborhood boys. It was stolen when I was 15 and I'm still pissed about it. It was kinda heavy, but I was a 100 lb girl so it may have just been my perception at the time. I think my friend had a Mongoose that was lighter.
Knight_thrasher@reddit
I would have had whatever store brand that was on sale.
Beautiful_Arm8364@reddit
Yeah. Somebody stole my Huffy (which wasn't exactly top-of-the-line anyway, and I got a Team Murray bike from Walmart. That was the sum total of my BMX-ing.
Olelander@reddit
Being loosed in my Seattle suburbs during 3rd and 4th grade to rampage with friends on bmx bikes, learning how to endo and bunny hop and take small jumps, being a hooligan, and jealousy of the kids in the neighborhood which had mongoose bikes with pegs.
Hotmailet@reddit
Everytime I hear or read “BMX”, I think of BMX Bandits
MinimumAnalysis5378@reddit
I was going to say, I have watched BMX Bandits. Does that count?
Andovars_Ghost@reddit
Getting a bike that looked like it could do BMX, but that’s about it!
SnowblindAlbino@reddit
Not at all personally-- I got into road bikes around 1981 and had a group of friends that would do 40-50 mile rides on the weekends. We'd pour over catalogs (like Bike Nashbar) of gear just like the BMX guys, but we wanted panniers and Avocet touring saddles and the like.
I had a couple of classmates that were really into BMX though, enough so that they were competing regionally. Early 1980s, about the same time my group was gushing over Campagnolo shifters and alloy locking hubs.
BatteryChucker@reddit
All the way to the next town.
SackBadger2024@reddit
Tracks in the woods, horse traded a Tony Hawk skateboard for a cursed Mongoose, promptly went to the ER for 16 stitches in my leg, and horse traded it for a Vision Gator.
tinpants44@reddit (OP)
Oh man what happened?
SackBadger2024@reddit
While hauling through a section my foot slipped off the pedal and the metal bear claw pedal ripped my entire shin open. Damn near to the knee. There was blood and bone, the shin is very shallow under the meat.
Kestrel_Iolani@reddit
The movie BMX Bandits was where i developed my crush on Nicole Kidman. That's about it.
Alewort@reddit
For my birthday my grampa offered to get me the bike of my choice, somehow what I wanted was a used BMX bike but I insisted on getting a banana seat for it, so that was my childhood bike.
Flababulous@reddit
Had a Predator 24" wheels. Delivered papers, did some tricks (Cherry Picker was my go to), and some jumps at a decent undeveloped lot at the far end of my neighborhood. Jumped over a standing CR 500, some other humans, got decent air. Actually snapped off one end of my handlebars after one landing, able to replace and upgrade at a local shop. Said shop had an assembled race team that I was interested in joining, but the 'rents said no.
Took some spills, but no breaks (knock wood). Those were good years.
siliconsmiley@reddit
BMX racer from (mostly) 1980-1983. I was 5 in 1980. I retired (mostly) at 8 with over a hundred trophies. Was ranked 11 in Marlyand.
tinpants44@reddit (OP)
What part of MD are you from? I lived there from 1982 - 1993.
siliconsmiley@reddit
Lived in AA county at the time. Millersville was my home track. Oregon Ridge close second.
limited_instincts@reddit
There was a BMX racing track locally so we would do that. Great fun. I remember our coach removing all our seats because "you never sit down when you race" and one kid messed up a jump and came down hard on his seat stem.... Coach replaced soon after!
tanhauser_gates_@reddit
I went the other direction - fixed gear riding as a bike messenger.
flabackyardgarage@reddit
Had a Webco frame with Redline fork with Tuff wheels, never raced but jumped everything I could! And some I couldn't...I still feel those!
handsomeape95@reddit
https://www.reddit.com/r/nextfuckinglevel/s/FdaL5Xr5L1
zalurker@reddit
Oh man. I had a really crap BMX. I tried some stunts, and failed spectacularly. I had x-rays taken of my wrist recently. You can still see the healed radial fracture in my left wrist.
Bahlore@reddit
I had a Huffy and a Schwinn that I pretended was a BMX... so.. yeah.
RecbetterpassNJ@reddit
Asked for a Hutch or California Freestyle and got a K-Mart copy. Lol. Was just as happy, but I couldn’t do shit. Then I got a beach cruiser and put my pegs on the forks of that for a foot rest when riding people on handlebars. Still have it from ‘90.
Grand_Taste_8737@reddit
I had the foot pegs and tried a few tricks. Broke my arm and that was that.
CH1974@reddit
Loved my BMX, we would build jumps on the street out of scrap 2x4s and wood then jump our friends. Spent all day cruising around on them
Rude_End_3078@reddit
We mostly all had BMX's - some of us had good ones. I had a fairly crap and heavy one, but ok you took what you could get.
And yeah none of us were professional. We rode around our neighborhoods and thought it was cool to be able to bunny hop.
EnoughEstate7483@reddit
Through the B and M and all the way to the X.
blueblocker2000@reddit
I rode my huffy mountain bike leisurely where I could and mostly overheard some insufferable twatt in school talk about mongoose and stunt pegs by accident for longer than I cared to admit.
xczechr@reddit
I also had a Huffy. Good times.
blueblocker2000@reddit
Do you remember the smell of a new bike fresh off the rack at a store? The new rubber smell...
TheRateBeerian@reddit
I got a cool ass BMX bike but i wasnt exactly skilled. And then it got stolen.
9inez@reddit
My group of friends were “cutters” as they might have said in Breaking Away. Except dirt bikes and grade school. No organized BMX. Self made trails, crazy jumps, mud races, “gladiator” races, bikes converted and pieced together. I had converted Schwinn 5 speed. The key piece was pedal crank arms that wouldn’t accidentally hit the ground in sharp turns.
Key-Cattle-2866@reddit
I had a Redline. I did some racing, but never got into it seriously. I was very immersed in the culture, though. I read all the magazines, had some shirts, a pair of Vans, etc.
drifter3026@reddit
Me and my brother raced the local tracks every weekend. He was ranked top 5 in the state at one point. I still have a few of my trophies in a box someplace. As well as my number plate (41E). And still have my Redline 600C in the shed.
Bob_12_Pack@reddit
I built my own bike on a Diamondback frame. I sucked at doing any tricks but damnit I looked good rolling with my friends.
-Ancalagon-@reddit
I was moving on to 10 speeds when BMX started taking off. 10 speed lasted until I got my license.
apc961@reddit
I was ranked in the top 10 in my state for my age group at one point and was doing races all the time. That was probably mid-late 80s. Had the light frame and light peddles.
Just sort of grew out of the hobby but "cycled" back to it in my 20s and early 30s doing off road riding mostly on Honda 250 dirt bikes. Had some awesome times doing that.
ONROSREPUS@reddit
At that point in my life I was more concerned about the destination now how cool I was getting there. I thought those bikes were cool and I had a friend that was really into them but as long as mine got me to and from I didn't care how it looked.
Mine looked similar to this but it was blue with chrome wheels.
Sheegssternator@reddit
I spent two summers building a trail system in the woods. Won Bensalem nationals in 89.
tinpants44@reddit (OP)
Those were the absolute best, cruising through the woods, jumps and logs. Perfect.
NPC261939@reddit
That's cool. I lived in Bensalem for a few years. I never knew there was a track there.
NPC261939@reddit
My friends and I rode street. I guess kids today refer to that as BMX for some reason. One of my local parks has a track where they hold races a few times a year.