Long Live BMX

Being a lifer on a bmx bike is a tough business. We get the kids who literally live bmx in their early teens and then disappear the day they get a drivers license. Some return after realizing how expensive gas is, how big their rear ends have gotten driving to and from work, and when the sheer fun of riding ledges, banks, transitions, and random obstacles confronts them after a decade of abandonment.

Those who chose BMX as a life-style over simply riding a BMX bike can also become extinct. When the style changes, so does the life. One decade its pink checkered vans and matching pink pegs. The next decade it 40 pound bikes and baggy jeans. On and on until pink checkered vans are back, baggy jeans turn into skinny jeans, and the bmx fashion runway spits out another generation of dudes who care more about what they wear, how they sound, and who is watching then the simple fun of doing a bunny hop or a 180. WAH WAH WAH.

Perhaps the most difficult thing to endure these 30 years has been the demise of big and small companies; from industry giants like Hutch and Torker to Skateparks like Vans and B Cubed to seeing your local bike shop fold like All Stars United Square One, and Round Two BMX, here in Pittsburgh.

Depressing, but it is 70 degrees in Pittsburgh and the old man is going to go ride the Polish Hill Bowl on his day off. Long live BMX!