I couldn't restrain myself. I just had to laugh long and hard.
I was driving to work last week, my black Taurus cutting through
traffic like a shark through butter (?), Wessell Anderson's latest
CD, "The Ways of Warmdaddy," bouncing through my lousy
FM-mod CD changer, when my eyes chanced to glance upon the front
window of one of the biggest mountain bike shops in the city.
Less than two years ago, I visited this shop looking for a set
of BMX grips, only to be told, "We don't stock any children's
bike accessories."
"Do I look like a child?" I asked the guy, swelling
up like a puffer fish.
"The grips are for you?" replied the salesman. "Let
me show you a couple of mountain bikes." Oh, this shop was
far too classy to deal in children's BMX bikes and that kind of
stuff... in 1994, that is. But as I drove by this wonderful, adults-only,
mountain-bike-oriented store last week, I couldn't help but notice
that the front window was entirely filled with, you guessed it,
CHILDREN'S BMX BIKES! Boo-ya! BMX is Coming Back, Baby! I had
to giggle a bit, because once again twenty-inch cycling is flexing
its muscles in the market. For those of us who have been cowering
in the cellars of mainstream cycling for the past eight years,
this is nothing but good news.
The expansion of BMX bike sales at the bike-shop level means there
will be more and more opportunities in the sport for all sorts
of people. More sales means more money available for sponsorship,
more and better products for the riders, more respect for young
racers, more of everything that's good in the world of BMX. Even
the "hardcore" riders will benefit, because now there
will be more non-hardcore riders for them to make fun of. We all
win when BMX grows.
The increased opportunities in BMX writing will almost
certainly parallel those available in BMX riding.
As the sport grows again, local newspapers, youth magazines, and
sports digests will discover a need for precise, interesting writing
about our sport. The 'zine scene will continue to expand. Heck,
someone might even try to bring out another color magazine---a
revival of Super BMX & Freestyle, perhaps.
It is vitally important to me that young riders who enjoy the
written word consider developing their BMX writing talents. Our
sport needs skillful young writers as much as it needs young riders.
Consider this: The parent of a first-time racer will derive his
opinions about BMX from two sources---the race he watches, and
the magazine, 'zine, or BMX Today he reads. If the
race he watches is a good, safe one, and the reading material
he has shows BMX to be an interesting, challenging, and culturally
viable activity, chances are that we will have another rider on
the NBL rolls.
If, on the other hand, the race is poorly organized, and the 'zine
given to the parent is full of misspellings and absurdities, we
may well lose that parent and child to soccer or, Stu forbid,
water polo. For that reason, the BMX writer is as important a
resource as the BMX rider.
Our sport faces a serious challenge in the literary field. It
is an unfortunate fact that today's schools do very little to
prepare the young writer to express himself concisely and consecutively,
as it were. I spent two long, depressing years correcting Freshman
Comp papers at Ohio's most prestigious university and convincing
myself that teaching people to write is a nearly hopeless task.
These students, supposedly the best my state had to offer, had
only a mild command of spelling, let alone of grammar and structure.
It was enough to make me consider quitting the School of English,
which probably would have been a smart career move, now that I
think of it.
I can't create BMX writers from whole cloth any more than I could
create Poets Laureate from college freshmen, but I can recommend
the same course of study I followed in my youth---really, a course
of self-study. The BMX writer faces a couple of unique challenges.
He (or she) must write about a complex sport while using fairly
simple terms. At the same time, he must understand that riders
and parents of vastly different levels of experience in our sport
will read what he has written. I can write an entire column on
micro-splined cranks, and as a matter of fact probably will some
time in the future, but I have to explain what micro-splined cranks
are before I begin. (Micro-splined cranks are those cranks that
use a large number of very small cuts in the crank spindle to
align the crank arms. Profiles are micro-splined; Redline 401s
are not.)
The writing I regularly torture you, the dear reader, with in
these columns is not a terribly good example of sound BMX writing.
For one, I like writing too much to be really concise about it;
for another, I was trained as an analyst of eighteenth-century
English literature, and too much of the phrasing of that era slips
out in what I write. I admit my faults and apologize for them.
Better examples of how BMX writing should look are provided by
racer/writers such as Jeff Dein and James Ayres, as well as the
race reporting of Tony Donaldson. The blueprint for BMX writing
was laid down a long time ago by Bob Osborn, and his "Bob
Osborn's Complete Book of BMX" is, without a doubt, the most
complete history of the sport available. (Unfortunately, it is
more than ten years old.)
How can you learn to write about BMX? Years ago, most students
were taught to write by imitation. They would be directed to read
the works of, say, Cicero, and then to write a paper using Cicero's
"style" of writing. Having done that, they would be
exposed to another writer, and repeat the process. Nowadays, English
teachers stress "writing from within". This is silly.
If you could "write from within", you wouldn't need
someone else to teach you writing. Learning by studying the greats
is still the best way to go. Below is a reading list designed
to impart to the teenaged BMX writer the skills he or she will
need to write about our sport. Most of these books are available,
free, at the local library. I'm not going to bother with "MLA
documentation" on these: just remember the author and title.
A BMX Writer's Reading List
Plato, Republic. A translation is fine---I don't
read Greek, either.
Samuel Johnson, Rasselas. This is the very model
of a modern moral tale.
Samuel Johnson, Selected Ramblers and Idlers. Samuel
Johnson wrote the finest essays known to the English language.
Reading his work will provide you will all the skills you need
to organize and create a BMX column.
James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson. Not to
be confused with me, James Boswell is the greatest biographer
of all time. This is a long book; you can read snippets.
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice . Ms. Austen was
a teenager when she wrote this book. It is a wonderful read. Unfortunately,
it makes me cry in the later chapters.
Junichiro Tanizaki, Some Prefer Nettles. A heartbreaking
tale, written with the clarity of a laser torch. Again, a translation
is okay.
Barry Hannah, Airships. This will teach you how to
write a hard, brittle short story.
John Updike, Picked-Up Pieces. Modern essay-writing
at its finest.
John Updike, Odd Jobs. May be easier to find than
the above book--can be substituted.
Nine books. Probably about three thousand pages. If you read fifteen
pages a night, you can do it in under a year. Pay close attention
to these books, and you will learn writing techniques superior
to those of your classmates and ninety percent of your teachers.
When you begin writing about BMX, write slowly and carefully.
Read your sentences aloud to see if they make some kind of sense.
Have a friend who doesn't know anything about the sport read them,
too, just to see if you are reaching new riders with your work.
Don't feel like you have to write "hardcore". Be yourself.
Use proper spelling. Don't be ashamed to look up a word and learn
its meaning.
Here's are some lessons I've learned the hard way: Don't use profanity
in your 'zine if you can help it. Explain any terms you think
may need explaining. Leave out any inside jokes that aren't also
funny to someone who doesn't know you.
Writing an article about BMX is like building a pyramid. You start
with the bottom level of information you think everyone has: what
a bike looks like, etc. You add a layer: how cantilever brakes
work. Add another: common cantilever problems. Another: how those
problems come about. Keep building: how to correct those problems.
Last level: how well-adjusted cantilevers will work. Top of the
pyramid: And that's the way to use cantilever BMX brakes.
Each level of your story has to support the one above it. Your
lower levels provide the information; the upper levels provide
the conclusions. When in doubt, have someone else read your work.
When you are done, look through and see if there is anything you
can take out without weakening the story. For example, I had a
gig writing for a wonderful editor in the early Nineties. (Jill
Geiger, who was my editor both for "One Racer's Perspective",
as Jack Baruth, and "BMX Basics", as Jim Boswell. An
inside joke--JB) I would write seven thousand words and cut
it down to five thousand. She'd cut it down to three thousand.
And you know what? Looking back, those articles are still too
fat. Cut the fat. Keep the meat.
Those of you who are interested in BMX writing should write me
care of BMX Today. I will read and respond to all
articles, questions, and opinions. There is nothing I'd like to
see more than a young generation of BMX racers who stop to pick
up the pen every once in a while. The pen is mightier than the
seatpost. Well, at least it's mightier than the lousy seatpost
in my cruiser, which bends during no-foot endos. But that's another
story...