[S.Brothers]

I love it. If only a guy could make a living and solely study this stuff, wrench on bikes and ride all day and then in between various bmx activities, pause to post sick bmx content on the site,

If I had more discretionary spending money, I'd buy amazing bmx stuff every day.

It's all very appealing.


Not mocking you at all Brett (CharleyGnarly)! I've always appreciated your positive posts every day. I know people feel the burn out thing from time to time. I get it.

But ... there's something about it I love. The whole thing.

[lboorse2]

[Capt. Nemo]

I feel you Steve.

Today is the 20th anniversary of my father's death, and some of my best memories are with him taking me to the track, and the local bike shop, and watching me build jumps in the back yard.

I wanted so bad to take my son to the track today, and kinda relive some of those memories through him, but the weather blew today.

BMX is SO much more to me than a collection of stuff. That is why I gravitate back to this site. BMX SOCIETY. It isn't just a "hobby" or a "sport", but a way of life. And this site, even with all the collector/purist bravado, embraces that.

It isn't like I focus all my energy on it. I don't obsess over it. ( Well, maybe a little). But it's more like breathing or sleeping or eating. I need it to live. It's a part of me. Even in small doses, I get what I need, but I'm not sure I could live completely without it.

If I'm not riding, I'm reading about it. If I'm not working on a bike, I'm looking for parts. If I'm not building, I'm thinking about building. But only when needed. Again, like food and water.

It isn't my end all and be all, but it does help sustain me. I try and respect it, and not take it for granted. BMX is in my blood, it's in my soul. It's part of what makes me what I am. Without it, I'm not me. I don't live for it, but I feel more alive because of it.

[Red Baron]

Wow...that was...really good!

Well said and I feel quite the same way.

I feel that I am a little different than most here. I am of the older group for one thing. But for me, it's not all about the bikes. It is more about the stories and events of my time in the 70's and everyone elses in their time.

It was a very special time for me that helped mold who I am today. It is not the 'end all be all', but it is very important to me.

[donvader]

I'm still loving it. I have this one bike I've been working on and I'm down to the very last 2 small parts to find. It's coming along really nice and I'll post it here when it's done. We had a few good weeks of nice weather out here in IN and I was so happy to get out and ride around again in a t-shirt. It's been in the shitty 30's again and raining lately, but there are some days in the 60's coming up this week and I'm waiting patiently. Even just now I was looking around in the parts database just to see what was there and see some cool stuff. I've gotten burnt out on a few things here and there, never bikes though. Since the days of building dirt jumps as a little kid, to the days of flatlanding all day and night in a school parking lot at least into my 20's, to buying old 80's freestyle parts to decorate my walls in my house when I bought it then discovering BMX sites on the web, to just riding across town now with my little girl to play at the park, I just never got tired of it. I'm even antsy about a part I have coming in the mail hopefully very soon! 84 Haro forks to go with my 84 Master frame, woohooooo!!! He said he sent them out this morning. It's just fun to me, everything about it.

[MelvinsArmy]

I'm here because I love bikes, I love riding bikes, I love working on bikes, I love building bikes, I love looking at bikes, I love everything about cycling. My earliest memories of cycling are on bmx bikes. I guess that's why I'm still around, to try to recapture that primordial ooze experience. We'd ride for hours as kids and I still do whenever I get the chance on a nice day. Our library in elementary school had BMX Action and BMX Plus, we'd study them cover to cover and draw pictures of the layouts and ads in the magazines, maybe that's the roots of my tech and gear fetish. Or maybe I just like cool shit. BMX is cool shit. I love it.

[Brian Hays]

What about my positive posts Steve?

I do love this stuff. I would give anything for one of those new baby blue PK Ripper Team bikes to ride. I wanna ride more and get back into that aspect as much as my janky back allows. I will always love the old stuff. Wish I could afford it all. So much cool stuff on my list still.....

[Curt]

Well stated by Brothers, Nemo, Baron, Donvader, Hays, M Army!

I grew up doing the BMX thing and for the last 4 years (and the future) into the mountain bike thing pretty hardcore, for a small business owner.

I feel they are related and if it has 2 wheels and a human motor count me IN.

[Richard Vogt - bmxmountainbiker]

Red Baron, on 28 April 2012 - 11:55 PM, said:

It was a very special time for me that helped mold who I am today.

Amen.

Richard Vogt
bmxmountainbiker

P.S. I love seeing the old bikes, preserved with their battle scars and emblazoned with crazy embellishments by some unknown kid or well-known star long ago. These bikes evoke my memories from back then and that is why I'm here: for the back story of BMX at ground zero.

[vintage chromoly]

i keep all my bike stuff in tha basement except for one bike i keep in the livivng room. (it rotates from bike to bike). i like to head down there a few times a week, have a couple beers, and just stare at them.

once in a blue i get this remenition of being 14-15 years old again when a "combo" looks just right or i see some old packaging. i don't really know how to explain it other than that it brings me right back to 1984.

i, too, would go on an aquiring spree if money and time were not limitations. so many cool things i want to add to my collection.

i get pulled away from active participation as i seem to have too many interests. right now i'm in the middle of a major restoration of my old boat.

i would never sell off my "core" collection as i appreciate it too much and it's taken me a lifetime to assemble it.

see you guys in a month.

[Contender]

I came back around to bikes and got over my BMX angst from BITD.

It (BMX) doesn't have to be hidden away somewhere in my memory banks.

Riding the old bikes today, fires me right back in time.

[thumperpilot]

As Brad from Fast Times at Ridgmont High would say.... Learn it, know it, live it....

[Red Baron]

Quote

As Brad from Fast Times at Ridgmont High would say.... Learn it, know it, live it....

Hey Shannon, you and Brad have something else in common. You both have the most awsome 'Cruising Vessel' around.

[Jays24]

I love it for sure! I never raced back in the day, just rode for fun! My friends and I would go to local tracks to ride them when races weren't going on but we just did it because it was fun, not to compete. The ONLY thing that kept me off my bike was when it was broke, if I was fixing it, or if I was taking it apart to repaint it. There's not a single part of dirt or pavement in my hometown that I haven't covered on my bmx bikes. I'm in the process of building my favorite bike from back then too. My 6yo son loves it as well, hopefully him and I will pick up right where we left off when he gets home from FL. He wants me to build him a replica of Bart Taylor's bike from the movie RAD. lol

[Joe Buffardi]

There are no words to describe to how happy I am when the word BMX pops up. I have been into BMX since I was 5 and most of the bikes I had were from the late 70's and then as time passed I had 80's bikes. My mom couldn't afford to get me anything new, I had hand me downs growing up as a kid.

When I see BMX parts for sale that I had it not only adds a part to one of my grail builds but it also unlocks a memory bank in my mind. I grew up in Downey, Ca. BMX was huge and the bikes were super expensive. We would ride our bikes behind the All American Home Center by the railroad tracks. There was a track that somebody built and there were always pro riders and just really good nobody riders there also. I would get there early in the morning and race till dusk.

We would find broken bike frames at that track and take them home and have our neighbor, Jim weld them for us. My friend Kris Jones scored a Kuwahara from there and I scored a 79 Diamondback. It had broken forks and taco'd back wheel. Those were the days. We would ride to Ralph's Bicycles get stickers and grips and then we would all ride to Harvey's Broiler and get a malt, and then ride to Divers Corner and watch the girls swim, and then ride to the golf course off of Old River School Rd. We built a huge fort and stashed all our bike parts and penthouse magazines there, good times!!

I know I could never relive those days as a kid so that is why I still ride and collect BMX and will never forget or get burnt out on BMX. I am not a super high end builder who spends thousands of dollars on bikes, "That will burn you out quick", I just build my bikes with parts that were standard issue with most race bikes from back in the day. I get lucky from time to time and find some crazy rare obscure parts. I have always loved the search, the hunt, the challenge. I am thankful for the bikes that I have and the friends that I have met through BMX.

[bennyt4130]

I am just as stoked on BMX now as I was when I was a kid! I still lust after parts the same as always.

[TrulyOdd]

bmx is where it's at!!

[Cycle24-7]

DITTO, TIMES 10 ON EVERY POST... DARN GOOD STUFF HERE..........

[66alfa_gtv]

Every so often, my brain produces a recollection of the smells of Bike Factory in Bellevue Wa. I don't know if it the rubber tires, or some kind of assembly lube. Whatever, it happens and I am taken back, if only for a split second, to 1978~79 when I was riding and racing.
Being a 13 year old kid was pretty difficult. you are on the cusp of big change, leaving childhood behind. You are in no-mans land for a little while, and things like BMX help you ride through all that confusion. It was escapism in a most thrilling way. Video games, no matter how good, cannot replace that kind of adrenalin rush. You are living. Everything is new. I miss those days, and my collection of BMX stuff from the '70s helps tame the cynicism of this middle age punk.
And, as a product designer and fan of pop culture, how can I not like the purity of these artifacts from a time when the sport was in it's most exciting infancy?

[66alfa_gtv]

http://www.youtube.c...d&v=x0jBF912xYY