We have it in our power to begin the world over again.

[bmiddaugh]

Thomas Paine.
1979. Bicycle Motocross Action, (what would become BMX Action) I picked up a copy of it at my local newstand with my arm in a cast and couldn’t believe it. Someone had made a real slick magazine about what I and my friends were doing, jumping our bikes in the dirt and having fun. Our young eyes were opened and a new world of possibilities began for my generation. My Dad who saw my interest in this BMX thing said he had seen a track near the old Flemington speedway at a place called Pete’s Bike Shop. Myself and the neighborhood kids went there, checked the scene and soon realized our huffys and raleigh grifters didn’t cut it as BMX bikes. Mongoose bikes with motomags were in order and our very cool parents obliged us. Why Mongoose? BMX Action told us so.
The game was on and our generation grew the sport, broke bones, hated each other, made friends with each other and through it all believed in BMX above everything else.
If you are over 32 or so you have a unique perspective on everything. You lived during the days of being ridiculed for riding “that little kids bike”, of racing locals and hoping to make the main so you might get a trophy if you placed top three, of begging to help rake the turns, feeling pride because the track operator let you drop the gate. To us it was just having fun doing what we love, in retrospect it was the birth of everything BMX.
The original seed, the beginning, that is who we are.
BMX isn’t what we do, it’s who we are, it’s what we believe in. We know what the 6 beginner feels when getting over that big jump the first time, how the 13 novice is stoked to finally move up to expert even though it’s probably another year of getting smoked by the fast guys. We have lived it, we started it. It would not exist if we had not taken those risks back over 30 years ago and built those jumps back in the woods.
Some of us could have gone on to race motorcyles, cars, or any of a myriad of activities but BMX, BMX called to us like nothing before. It allowed us to be individuals, to have our own style, to learn humility, to learn the feeling of winning and the pain of being beat.
We are BMX. We only do what we do because we love it. There is no money in the world that can give us the feeling of going over a jump, going through a turn, or now as we get older making sure that every succeeding generation gets to experience the fun that we had in BMX.
Our hearts lie firmly in BMX, blood deep, because we experienced first hand the evolution of this sport. We gave birth to this, nurtured it in our youths and are proud it has continued to this day.
The best days still lie ahead, the more of the original generation that returns will mean more people who will do the best they can to push BMX into the hearts of the uninitiated while keeping true to the nature of what BMX truly is.
Corporate officers of foundations who put a dab of chew in their lip and blast over a tabletop.
Mortgage brokers who scream yeehaa after a win.
Operating engineers who stay up for 24 hours to make sure tracks are built and jerseys are given out.
Firemen who take every day off to work on a track.
Contractors who build podiums and rub elbows.
State DOT workers who work on tracks and build doubles in thier backyards.
The list will just get bigger and bigger as the years go on.
Make no mistake these people love BMX and have an enthusiasm unmatched in the sports history.
THEY GREW UP WITH IT.
The only thing they ask is for everyone to have the same love for BMX that they have.
I ask all of you this.
If tomorrow it was all gone, the tracks, the nbl, the aba, the olympics, the whole shebang.
If tomorrow it was all gone and 10 kids walked up to you and said it would be cool to have a place to race our bikes.
Would you take time and money out of your own pocket and make it happen?
Like we did way back then.
It seems the cycle, the upswing for racing is returning once again, but this time, make no mistake, for racing, the riders who bled for this sport will do what they must for it.

[rodney]

WELL written and to be first to anwser… YES!!!!!

[BrianP]

i will second rodneys response

ALL OF IT

[BIGANT-DOG]

So rod and brian- are ya gonna come race this year? I hope so.

[rodney]

Not me but both my kids 3 and 10 rookie . If I can get a bike and find the time I might go around once or twice

[Author]

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