There are a lot of reasons to get involved in BMX. Physical fitness,
self-confidence, comradeship, and the sheer excitement of the
National scene are all entirely worthwhile causes for starting
your racing career. Regardless of why you begin, however, most
riders want to end their time in the sport the same way---as a
highly regarded professional rider. Nearly everyone wants to be
the next Pete Loncarevich, or the next Ronnie Anderson, depending
on one's sentiments. How will you make it there?
Prodigious athletic ability will propel you a long way in BMX.
The willingness to subordinate everything else in your life to
success in the sport will take you a little farther. But you will
need more than this to do the trick. There are many great athletes
in BMX, but few truly great riders. You will need the secret formula,
the X factor, the "Howl From Beyond" that marks the
legends.
The world's finest pros are set apart from the rest by their consistent
improvement. The pro who is a demonstrably better rider at age
26 than he was at 19 is on his way to being numbered among the
great. Now, we all know that as a rider ages his physical ability
lessens. How can a pro improve year after year, when his body
wants to take more and more of a break? That is the secret of
the legendary riders. Or, rather, was the secret
of the legendary riders.
I have learned the secret of becoming the world's best professional
rider. If I had the athletic ability of a Matt Pohlkamp or a John
Purse, I'd keep the secret to myself. Since I don't, there is
no harm in telling you. Ready? Take a deep breath. Clear your
mind. Read the next sentence twice: The world's best professional
riders are completely honest with themselves and turn their honesty
to their advantage.
What's that mean? Perhaps the best way to demonstrate what an
"honest" rider does is to demonstrate what a dishonest
rider does. A dishonest rider is one who continually refuses to
learn the proper lessons from his races. Let's consider a couple
of imaginary riders, our old friends Rider A and Rider B. Rider
A and Rider B are competitors in the 16 Expert class and are of
pretty equal ability. In their main event last week, Rider A and
Rider B were neck-and-neck down the last straight, tied for first
place, when they come to the big doubles. Riders A and B skied
over the doubles... and were passed by Rider C, who pedaled the
doubles and thus was able to gain speed while Riders A and B were
losing speed in the air. Rider C picked up the big win, leaving
our pals A and B to place and show.
When Rider A goes home, he says to himself, "Rider C got
lucky and passed me on that last straight. What a bummer."
That's how a dishonest rider thinks. If he loses, and he can't
blame it on a bad gate, he blames it on luck. Rider B, on the
other hand, thinks, "How could I have prevented Rider C from
passing me?" You, see, Rider A thinks about the problem,
while Rider B thinks about the solution.
Riders A and B see each other a lot over the next week, since
they both spend a lot of time at the local track. Rider A is busting
fat air over the doubles, wowing all the young locals, and working
on doing a perfect one-handed 360. Nobody pays much attention
to Rider B, because Rider B just keeps rolling those last doubles
over and over again. In fact, Rider B even makes a fool of himself
when he wrecks trying to get one last pedal in over the second
hump of the doubles. The next time, though, Rider B does get that
extra pedal in over the second hump. So what? Rider A is getting
rad. And everyone knows Rider C won't get lucky again.
Since this is my story, I won't end it with some of the endings
it could take, such as Rider A jumping over a wrecked Rider C
and winning. Although that would line up with the wacky path reality
takes, it wouldn't be instructive. So in my story, the ending
goes like this: The next weekend, Riders A, B, and C are lined
up going down the last straight when they hit the doubles. Rider
A hits the sky and falls behind. Rider C rolls the doubles and
picks up a little extra speed, just like last time. Rider B also
rolls the doubles, but he finds that last pedaling opportunity
he'd worked on all week and pulls ahead for the win. Rider A takes
a third, goes home angry, and wonders how both Riders B and C
got lucky this week.
Did Rider B get lucky? Of course not. Rider B was smart enough
to understand the mistake he made and patient enough to put aside
doing the things he prefers to do long enough to fix the problem.
The more Rider B pays attention to his races, the luckier he will
get. After all, most of us would prefer to "practice"
by getting rad and goofing around. Nobody wants to run the same
boring corner fifty times in a row, looking for future passing
opportunities. Nobody wants to work on pedaling a set of doubles
they can clear with ease. When we only do what we want to do during
practice time, we're all really just lining up to get beaten by
Rider B, the honest rider.
Are you laughing at this story? It doesn't have much application
to you, does it? After all, you know exactly how and why you lost
your last race. Or you know exactly how you won it. If I could
sit down with you and discuss your last race, you'd be able to
dissect it like a video camera and point out the opportunities
you had to pick up extra ground on your competition. You'd be
able to relate each passing maneuver your opponents laid on you
and why they were either successful or unsuccessful. Yeah, right.
In all my years in BMX, I have only known one rider who could
give me a frame-by-frame replay of his races. (It was Scott
Stevenson, former NBL National Track Director and now owner of
the Circle-S farm in West Jefferson, Ohio.--JB) This rider
had a full-time job and was in decidedly less than perfect physical
shape, but he was able to hang with the nation's top riders week
after week because he studied his riding. Not only was he aware
of his strengths and weaknesses, he knew his competition pretty
well and could usually predict the mistakes they would make. This
guy was an "honest" rider. Ah, there's that phrase again.
I want you to be an honest rider. If you have been using the elapsed-time
method or Boswell's Rad-O-Meter to chart your progress for the
past couple of months, you know where you are weak. Maybe you're
a lousy jumper, or have no endurance, or can't pick lines in a
corner to save your life. I don't care what your problem is. Resolve
to fix it.
Fixing your problem spots will not be fun. That's why we're going
to work on your problem spots during the off-season. Let's list
your strengths and weaknesses right now and be brutally honest.
I'll do mine right along with you.
| Strengths | Weaknesses |
| Good power in straights | Lack of endurance |
| Able to stay low over jumps | Unable to go high over jumps |
| Good corner sense | Don't pedal far enough into corner |
| Ability to catch up on first straight | Weak gate means I always have to |
| Can "open up" and prevent passing | Trouble passing over jumps |
Now that you have honestly examined your weaknesses, work on eliminating
them. Over the next couple months, we will focus on some common
difficulties and ways to get around them, but you don't need to
wait for me. If you are having trouble speedjumping, practice
it with someone who can do it better than you can. If your start
is weak, get help now from someone you trust.
When I was younger, I made a special effort to work on the weakest
and most boring parts of my racing ability. My friends would hit
the same jump over and over again while I rode the entire track.
While they were doing toboggans, I was riding the turns. Is it
any wonder that I knew the track a little better than they did?
If they hit a rock or slid out on a section of track they avoided
during the week, does that mean I got lucky during the race?
Thirty days from now, we'll work on designing a winter training
program for you. Between now and then, get a firm grip on your
strengths and weaknesses. Ask yourself what you've been doing
to fix them... and what you could be doing. Be honest.