I never thought I'd say this, but it's a real shame nobody listens
to Iron Maiden anymore. For those of you who don't remember, Iron
Maiden was an occasionally educational heavy-metal band famous
for playing fifteen-minute songs based on literary classics. One
of their songs, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner", tells
the story of a dude who's on his way to a wedding when some scummy-looking
sailor "fixes him with his eye" and tells him a long,
frightening story about accidentally causing a terrible catastrophe.
After what seems like forever, he permits the wedding guest to
continue in his way. The guest is relieved to be free, but he
knows that he will not be able to view the wedding, or anything
else, the same way again. The Ancient Mariner's words have forever
changed his perspective.
There are times I feel like the Ancient Mariner of BMX---stopping
you on your happy way through this paper and insisting that I
will tell you the truth about our sport. It's a role I've been
happy to take these past three years. Since everything comes to
an end, however, even the longest of poems (or Iron Maiden songs),
I am equally happy to note that "BMX Basics" will not
continue into 1999. The website will remain open and be updated
frequently, but my days in print will end this December. In the
meantime, I will attempt to wrap up most of the "loose ends"
we've come up with over the years and perhaps even tell a story
or two, just like the Mariner himself. But enough of this. With
apologies to our Hindu readers, I have a couple of sacred cows
to cook up between now and then...
If I could snap my fingers and magically change the way things
are in BMX, I'd start by eliminating what I call the "champion-chaser"
mentality. I define "champion-chasing" as a belief that
nothing in our sport means anything unless it is associated with
victory. According to the champion-chasers in the BMX media, the
only opinions that matter are those of "top experts"
and "top pros". Never mind the fact that naturally gifted
riders rarely have to learn racing techniques step-by-step, the
way the rest of us do. Put aside the idea that it doesn't make
any sense for a hundred-pound 13 Rookie to "train like a
pro" or "ride like a pro". Most of all, don't even
consider the concept of being a "nerd" and studying
racing---if you can't "just do it", you shouldn't bother.
Champion-chasing drives me nuts, and I've devoted most of my writing
career to fighting it in every way possible. I firmly believe
that racing is as fulfilling for the less-than-perfect (the slow,
the squidly, the untalented---in short, people like me) as it
is for people like Patrick-Swayze look-alike and fellow BMX Today
columnist Jeff Dein. I'm not likely to change my mind about this.
With the above I mind, let's talk about the physics of BMX. The
champion-chasing mentality demands that I "dumb this down"
and use photos of top riders doing impossible things to demonstrate
my point. Instead we'll use humiliating incidents from my own
racing career. The champions can laugh; the rest of us can, possibly,
learn something.
We'll start with inertia. You've probably heard that "a body
at rest wants to stay at rest, and a body in motion wants to stay
in motion." If you've thought about it in a racing sense,
you may have assumed that the "body" in question here
is the bike/rider combination. That's only halfway right; in fact
you and your bicycle are each "bodies", and each has
a separate inertia.
Luckily for you, there are four "contact points" between
your inertia and the bike's: your hands and feet. When you pedal
the bike, it speeds up, and since you are holding on, you speed
up too; when it slows down, you slow down as well.
The gate start is an example of inertia at work. The NBL rules
state that you can't move your front tire over the dropping gate.
This means that, no matter what you do, your bike has to come
out of the gate slowly so as not to "jump the gate"
when it drops. You could just resign yourself to this, or you
could do what most people do and start moving your body before
the gate drops. You can get your body moving early and, by using
your contact points to pull the bike along, let it "catch
up" with you after the gate hits the ground. That's why any
photo of a Pro gate shows everyone shoving their hips into the
handlebars out of the gate. You can't ride around like that, but
you don't need to. All you have to do is get your body out fast,
and your bike will follow after a while.
Why is it helpful to do this? It goes back to inertia. You outweigh
your bike by quite a bit. It's much harder to move your body from
a resting position than it is to move your bike from that same
resting position. If you "roll the gate" then you have
to accelerate your body by pedaling. If you "thrust"
out of the gate, your body is already up to a certain speed and
all you have to do is let your bike, which is much easier to accelerate,
catch up.
The difference between body inertia and bike inertia can have
disastrous consequences for the rider. Example: Fourteen years
ago, I lined up on the gate for the very first moto of my very
first race. Like most Rookies (then called Beginners), I was using
the one-pedal start. Also like most Rookies, I was very, very
nervous, so much so that I started my pedaling motion too early.
My bike and I started rolling together, which was just fine, but
soon after that, my front wheel hit the gate.
Remember, a body in motion wants to stay in motion. My bike had
to stop because it had hit the gate, but does that necessarily
mean that I had to stop? Only if my "contact points"
were strong enough to slow me down. In my case, my feet weren't
planted securely, so they slipped and my body kept moving.
I landed in a position known as the "top tube tango",
which is where your hands are still on the bars, your feet are
dragging on the ground behind the bike, and your, um, let's call
it the "crotch area", has landed hard on the top tube
pad. By this time the gate had actually dropped, so I rolled all
the way down the starting hill in this position. Needless to say,
I didn't win that moto.
That was a humiliating way to begin my racing career, but my luck
improved after that and before I knew it I was doing the two-pedal
start. We've already discussed how it's important to get your
body moving early and bring your bike up to speed once the gate
has dropped. Many riders pull their bikes forward so hard after
leaving the gate that said bikes get ahead of them and they end
up doing a "power-wheelie" down the starting hill. This
is very impressive looking, but it isn't necessarily the best
way to do things. Ideally, once you leave the gate your bike should
be solidly planted and you should be using your power to move
forward, not to keep the front wheel up.
I'm sure you won't blame me for not knowing this back in 1987,
when I was struggling to make my way through the Ohio State Race
Series. There I was, in the semi for 15 Novice at the West Chester
track, and absolutely ready to do whatever it took to win. The
gate dropped and I blasted out with all the feeble fury I could
muster. I was so impressed with my start that I shoved the bike
out and began power-wheelying to victory... and fell backwards
off the bike.
At first glance, this seems like a balance problem, but it's really
an inertia problem. I was letting my bike accelerate out from
under me. Had I not made the mistake of bringing my bike too far
forward, my "contact points" would have kept it under
control and I would have been able to put whatever power I had
into the bike without worrying about losing it. This isn't the
same as falling off the back of a manual or sit-down wheelie;
I had actually pedaled the bike away from my body. If you try
it yourself you'll see what I mean, although I warn you it will
hurt.
Inertia doesn't just help young riders make fools of themselves
out of the gate---it works its magic everywhere. A body in motion
wants to stay in motion, and that also means it doesn't want to
change direction. Mrs. Boswell frequently complains about being
tossed against the armrests and center console of my trusty Rover
when we are traveling somewhere. "You're turning too hard!"
she will say, usually while smacking me.
"I'm not turning too hard," I reply. "It's your
stubborn inertia." If Mrs. Boswell didn't want to obey the
laws of physics and keep traveling in the same direction, she
wouldn't "travel" directly into the armrest when I hand
a hard left. Explanations like this are what help keep a marriage
together, and darn it, they also apply to BMX.
Once upon a time, at an indoor track in Hilliard, Ohio, yours
truly was a real threat to win his main event. I'd won all three
of my motos, stomped the comp in my quarter, and easily won my
semi. I was on fire. This was going to be the day I triumphed
over all my enemies. Why, then, did I let my enemies, who were
also kind of my friends, talk me into leaving the indoor track
and going riding in the snow?
We had a lot of fun getting our tires full of snow. We got back
inside just in time for our main. I took a commanding lead and
was four bikes ahead going into the second-to-last turn. Meanwhile,
the snow in my tires had been melting and mixing with the dirt
of the track, creating a slippery kind of mud. When I pointed
my front wheel into the turn, I was surprised to notice that the
bike didn't turn with it. The inertia of my straight-forward motion
was too strong for the weakened turning force my slippery front
wheel provided. I saw the disaster coming, but there was nothing
I could do. The last thing I saw before plowing into the berm
head-first was the triumphant grin of the dry-tired rider behind
me.
Until next month, then, we'll leave my younger self chewing dirt
in the berm. When we return, I'll discuss the other candidate
for Most Likely to Humiliate a Racer---center of gravity. Until
then, may The Force (of inertia) be with you.