BMX Basics
Thug Life, BMX style.
I admit it: Once upon a time, I was a committed BMX thug. As a
matter of fact, I was probably the subject of at least one rider
protest nearly every race weekend from 1986 to 1988. My evil and
generally illegal riding style accounted for twisted wheels, dislocated
shoulders, snapped visors, and at least one instance of unconsciousness
among my unhappy competition. There is a track in America which
added two extra hay bales in my honor after I ran a fellow racer
right off the track and into a wall.
In my defense, however, I must say that I was not even close to
being the meanest-spirited rider I knew. In the long-ago days
of my youth, quite a lot of riders chose the Dark Side of the
Force to obtain victory. The bump(your buddy into a pole) and
grind(your chainwheel into your buddy's mouth guard) style of
riding was so popular that many riders, including myself, would
"suit up" for combat in the mains by adding a shoulder
protector and extra elbow padding.
Luckily for the future of the sport, the Age of Thuggery didn't
last. The NBL became very serious about enforcing penalties for
unsportsmanlike conduct, and before you could say "What do
you mean, my pedal was in your spokes?", BMX thuggery was
a thing of the past. Just two months ago, I watched approximately
four hundred motos in a row at the Christmas Nationals without
seeing a single instance of bumping, shoving, kicking, or handlebar-grabbing.
It would appear that the days of the Bart Taylor-style intentional
bail are dead and gone.
Although nobody in their right mind would want to return to the
Cro-Magnon ethic in BMX, most of us have lost something as our
riding styles have evolved from violence to peacefulness. The
entirely laudable lack of viciousness among today's racers has,
rather regrettably, been accompanied by a similar decrease in
what I call "track sense". I will illustrate by referring
to a local race in which I participated last week.
I might as well admit before we begin discussing said race that
I am a very big fan of Schwinn factory racer Matt Pohlkamp. It's
not generally my policy in this column to praise or criticize
riders individually, but Matt probably warrants an exception.
Mr. Pohlkamp is an excellent example of the modern, civilized
rider.
Anyway, Matt and I were both in last Sunday's race. I was participating,
for lack of a better word, in the 16-Geritol Cruiser category,
while Matt was rather easily embarrassing the Pro Open class.
In his first two motos, he didn't let anyone get within ten feet
of him before crossing the finish line. You could see the riders
following him across the line shake their heads vigorously, like
cats trying to get rid of unwanted rainwater. I had to laugh at
these poor guys, while simultaneously congratulating myself for
having had the good sense to avoid the Pro Open class that weekend.
Not everybody gets the message about these kind of things, though,
and I wasn't surprised to see one of the younger amateurs really
knock the gate over in Matt's third moto. After all, the third
moto is the desperate moto. Ask anyone. As Mr. Pohlkamp approached
the last turn before the finish line, with this young hothead
in close pursuit, it was plain to see that Matt was going to run
this turn wide, probably out of boredom. The rider behind him
should have smelled opportunity. A traditional block
pass, as described before here in "BMX Basics", would
have easily enabled him to cut under Pohlkamp, come up hard in
front of said factory rider, and emerge victorious. I could see
this rider scan the turn desperately, and chuckled to myself that
Matt wasn't going to knock all three motos off today.
What the young Pro-Ammer chose to do utterly befuddled me. He
decided to run the berm even wider than Matt had, apparently believing
that he could come out at top speed and somehow win a pedaling
race with one of America's fastest men. Needless to say, he ended
up losing by four bikes. I thought about pulling him aside after
the race and explaining to him how races are really won and lost,
but decided that he probably wouldn't appreciate the advice.
Good, hard, physical riding can and will
win races for you. In the case described above, it could have
permitted a rider to beat someone whose talent and experience
greatly exceeded his own. In the following paragraphs, I am going
to provide you with all the information you will need to win more
races, get bigger trophies, and catch the factory ride you've
been hoping for sooner. Ready?
Now, I could tell you how to injure riders and damage their bicycles,
and as a matter of fact I probably would do that if you were to
pay me. That's not the right way to ride, however, so we'll do
all this in accordance with the NBL rules, which are reproduced
below as they are found at the end of the magazine:
- Moving Violations. A rider may not cause
any part of his person
or bicycle to come into contact with another rider's person or
bicycle
during a race with the intention of impeding his progress so
as to
overtake him or cause him to be overtaken by another rider.
The above is actually a considerable simplification of the
old rules, which were a little more specific about what you couldn't
do (punch, bite, etc.). This one sentence will guide our actions
on the track.
Let's look first for what isn't there. It does not say that you
cannot contact another rider. It merely says that you cannot contact
another rider to impede his progress. It would be poor sportsmanship
to contact another rider unnecessarily or maliciously, so there
are really no loopholes in the above statement. The basic idea
I get from reading this rule is that you cannot contact somebody
for overtaking purposes.
After perusing the rules, we will examine another basic idea,
reproduced below as I found it in my head.
Jim Boswell's Concept of Clean Physical Riding. Clean
physical
riding happens when you occupy a desirable spot before another
rider can
occupy this spot, without contacting or injuring another rider.
We're going to think like Patrick Ewing thinks as he watches Michael
Jordan drive down into the paint. (These two individuals are pro
basketball players.) In basketball, it is illegal for a defensive
player to move against an offensive one. The defender must occupy
the spot he thinks the offensive player will want to occupy before
the offensive player gets there. Let's transfer this to BMX by
using the below diagram. You've seen this diagram before. It's
a block pass, but let's figure out how it works at the most basic
level.
Physical Corner Riding.
In the above diagram, Rider A, represented by the solid line,
is in front going through a turn. He would like to take a wide
line through the berm. Rider B, however, has different plans.
He will take the path represented by the dotted line. Rider B's
goal is to get to point X before Rider A does. If Rider B beats
Rider A to that point. Rider A will have to slow or stop his bike.
If Rider A has to slow down, then Rider B will have the advantage
coming out of the turn for two reasons: he will be in front, and
he will be moving faster. That's how a block pass works: you get
there before the other guy does, without touching him. I have
seen a lot of contact occur during block passes. but this contact
is optional and does not really improve the technique unless you
are trying to block pass a very large Pro.
There are two ways to beat a rider to the finish line. You can
ride faster than he can, or you can make him ride slower than
you can. I am not a fast rider. I never have been. Every race
I have won (and I've actually won a couple) has been won by making
everyone else on the track ride slower than me. The mechanics
of this are simple. Pass riders in corners by using the above
technique or similar ones. Once you are in front of them, occupy
their space. If you know that a certain rider is very good at
clearing a set of doubles and you are not, occupy the space in
front of those doubles and cause him to slow down. As Billy Dee
Williams would say, this works every time.
There is nothing wrong with weaving a bit down a straightaway
if you know that the rider behind you is capable of passing you
on a straight. You do not have to contact the other rider. As
a matter of fact, it would be illegal to do so. Simply occupy
the space.
It doesn't always work. I tried to block Todd Lyons in a turn
some years ago, only to have him slip under me. I'd been leaning
into the turn so hard that I bailed the minute he got past. There's
really nothing you can do against someone who is that much better
than you are. Assuming for the moment that you are not going to
face too many World Champions in your local races, however, you
will do just fine using the above technique.
In order to win races with the space-occupying technique, you
will need to develop track sense. Here's how to do it. Take a
friend to the track and have him ride around behind you. Try to
figure out where he is. When you know where he is, call his location
out to him, like so: "Five feet back to the left!" Once
you can spot him consistently, pick up the pace a bit. Eventually,
you will be able to "sense" riders up to six feet behind
you at top speed, using your peripheral vision and your ears.
Don't forget that you can usually hear someone behind you well
before you can see them.
As you gain track sense, develop your own strategies to discourage
passing riders. Remember, contact is out. Not only is it illegal,
it will gain you a reputation as a dirty rider and will cost you
the friendship of your competitors. I have had many a rider say
to me in the past couple of years, "I knew I was faster than
you, but I couldn't get past before the finish line..." They
were wrong, of course. They may have been faster than me, but
as long as they were stuck behind me, they were going slower.