BMX Basics

Ah, the new millennium. A time to share, a time to celebrate, a time to (possibly) riot, a time to waste your reader's time with worthless Top Ten lists, retrospectives, and Year 2000 features. At least that's what the color rag editors must think. Even the normally stolid and sleepy BMX Today has yielded to the impulse to create a "BMX in the Twentieth Century" feature. Why this sudden interest in the past, on the part of magazines which have long conspired to forget about everything but what's hot, trendy, and advertiser-supported right now?

The easy answer is, "Cause that's what everyone else is doing," and it's a valid one. The BMX media has long been woefully short on creativity, and if this is simple bandwagon-hopping, well, that's in accordance with a powerful tradition of said hopping of the said bandwagon. I'd forgive them for that, inasmuch as it's my job to forgive.

The more difficult, and more sinister answer is straight from George Orwell's 1984. "Who controls the past controls the present." Sounds wacky, but bear with me for a moment. In my opinion, most of what you're reading in these so-called "historical" features is not really history, but rather a particular presentation of history as the corporations and sanctioning bodies would prefer to be. Once you buy in to their version of history, it will be easier for them to sell you stuff and push you around. I'd prefer that not be the case, so why don't we take a look at some of the "history" being taught in these features and compare it with what really happened:

• Fib #1: Gary Ellis is the greatest rider of all time. The GT advertising hacks have been trying for nearly five years to convince us that Ellis is history's finest rider, citing as evidence his numerous ABA, NBL, and NORA (chuckle) titles. Well, if putting the numbers on the board makes you the best, Pete Rose is history's finest hitter, and Stephen King is history's finest novelist. Ellis is a fine rider, but he deserves recognition for what he really was - not the best ever, but simply less injury-prone, and better supported financially, than his competition. Given the strong support and focus GT gave Ellis, nearly any of the sport's top Pros could have done the same.

  Furthermore, the sport has changed too constantly for us to fairly compare Pros from different eras. David Clinton, for example, invented the BMX "tabletop" or "pancake" (in 1977) and jumped huge gaps on bikes with 16" top tubes. What could he have done with a modern bike? We'll never know. What we do know is that any number of the sport's pros have been better riders than Ellis, up to and including some modern riders.

  Undoubtedly, this push to canonize Mr. Ellis has something to do with GT's plans to capitalize on his name for a long time to come. In the same way that Greg Hill is inexplicably pushing gimmick forks, perhaps GT will have Ellis endorse wave after wave of dubious technology, relying on his media-certified title of "best ever" to sell. Don't fall for it.




• Fib #2: Racing is tougher today than ever before. This seems true on its face, since modern tracks are fairly difficult. However, the wooden-jump stadium tracks of the late seventies were far more dangerous than anything we have now. We won't even talk about the mass-start, all-ages races that happened on six-foot-wide dirt tracks well before the NBL and ABA were formed.

  In addition, as I mentioned in last month's column, today's Nationals don't feature anything like the openly physical, bump-n-thump slugfests the NBL had during its "no doubles" period. Anyone who has ever been T-boned right off a sweeper turn knows what I'm talking about here. Once upon a time, the other riders were your main concern. Today's races are much more like time trials than ever before, with little contact and continually maintained high speed. Fifteen years ago, many tracks had a one-eighty flat turn right in the middle of the track, to "let the kids mix it up".

  Claiming that modern racing is the toughest ever fits in well with the sanctioning bodies' earnest desire to turn BMX into another mindless "extreme sport", but it isn't true. Modern racing is extremely difficult, but BMX has never been easy.




• Fib #3: The media made a difference. Lost somewhere in the out-of-control praise being heaped on people like Gork, Steve Buddendeck, and Keith Mulligan is the simple fact that the BMX media is absolutely worthless. Take Steve Buddendeck, (please). Never a competitive rider, and no longer a rider at all, this guy has still managed to ingratiate himself all the way to the NBL's Board of Directors and to a cushy job with DK. What kind of life would it be forever kissing up to racers, but never racing yourself? Apparently, it is a fairly profitable one.

  It was long ago proven that the BMX magazines have been bought and paid for by the major companies and sanctioning bodies. Not since Chris Moeller left GO! has there been anything approaching an independent voice in the color mags. To make matters worse, many would-be riders are irrevocably put off by the way BMX is presented in SNAP!, et al. In the long run, these people are more Benedict Arnold than Bob Woodward or Bob Osborn (the founder of BMX Action!, and perhaps the only legitimate BMX color journalist ever). It's not the media that drives BMX, it's the riders. Which brings me to my last big fib:




• Fib #4: They could do it without you. The unspoken subtext of all these historical revisions is that the average rider and parent are simply cogs in the big wheel that is BMX. Nothing could be further from the truth. It isn't corporate involvement or sanctioning body micro-management that makes BMX great - were that the case, 1993 would have been the sport's best year, not one of its worst.

  Riders make the sport what it is. All of the top-heavy, ponderous, corrupt, and impossibly complex machinery of the BMX world is dependent on us getting up Saturday mornings and deciding to go ride. Without us, there's no super-profitable Schwinn buyout of GT. Without us, there are no big houses and free vans for the sanctioning body's employees. Without us, there is nothing but a bunch of sound and fury, signifying nothing (wink). Next time you are dismayed by the enormous hype machine that has grown up around BMX, remember that it all boils down to people like us deciding to go ride.

The funny thing about the last sentence above is that it has always been that way. BMX began because a bunch of kids wanted to have fun on their bikes. It continued because more kids got involved. It remains today because new riders sign up every weekend at local tracks. Everything else is subordinate to that central fact, the idea of having fun on a bike. That is the true history of BMX, and nothing is likely to replace it, no matter what the "official" history says. Got it? Good. See you next year.