Why I started riding bmx
So… I saw Terminator 2 when I was 11 years old.
When I saw the scenes with John Connor on the dirt bike ripping around town… holy shit, I wanted a dirt bike so god damn bad.
I begged my parents to buy me a dirt bike.
My mom was a librarian. I would often go to her library that summer and look at all the dirt bike related books they had. This is before the age of internet, so looking at dirt bikes in books was about as good as you could get.
I still remember some of those books. Most of them were published in the early 80’s and had mostly 70’s dirt bikes in them. California enduro racing. Most of the books were cheezy instructional dirt bike books.
I thought it was the coolest thing I had ever seen, and continued to beg my parent to buy me a dirt bike. Since we lived in the average suburbs, I was denied a dirt bike.
Instead, my parent bought me a bmx bike, which was still pretty cool, and a good compromise. That’s how I started riding bmx. And I rode bmx for the better part of two decades. This was 12 years ago.
So… I guess Terminator 2 really shaped my life in a round-about type of way.
Looks like I’ll be living out my 11 year old fantasy soon enough once I get a 70’s enduro.
Watch these 2 vids below. Still pretty badass.
9 responses to “Why I started riding bmx”
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Published - Aug 16, 2014
PA trip – day 7
Destination – duncannon It was a bummer to leave raystown lake since we had so much fun there, but it was time to move on. Just for reference… I could’ve easily spent 5 days there exploring. Anyway, we headed out and Nates bike shit out. It started not properly charging. He doesn’t have a kick […]
I had a close call this weekend when a car pulled out in front of me (fucker) on Rock Hill Rd. I got on the brakes too hard and my back wheel locked up. I fished out a little, but I controlled it to a stop like it was nothing. It got me thinking about how doing all that stupid shit on purpose on my BMX years ago has probably saved me a handful of times on my bike now. Next time I’m in Ohio, I’m going to pull my old Redline out of my mom’s shed and get that bad boy back on the road.
@Adam K
Yea man… riding bmx is still overall the most fun hobby I’ve ever had.
Definitely gives you bike control with anything on two wheels.
@Adam K
What parts did you use in your cl450 engine?
Did you do an aftermarket piston kit or anything else?
Or, is it all OEM.
@ed, I ended up getting the 2-over Wiseco kit. I got NOS valves and guides off ebay. Had the work done at Powerseal and MAR. Powerseal were kinda dicks, but MAR is the best. The dude there (Jeff?) is super nice and helped me out when I was having valve clearance issues.
That chase scene rules.
I think he’s riding a xr80 or something close to that
The sound effects in that chase are about as bad as the wild police chase videos. 2 Stroke noises on clearly a 4 stroke bike. Thats like when you watch tv and they are welding with a tig torch and they play the mig sound. Who approves that shit?
Anyway…I do think that this movie kinda had the same effect on me. It kinda defined what a dirtbike is to me…and apparently the noises were all a lie. For some reason, my earliest memories of dirtbikes all had gold rims. gold rims are the shit.
also, when are we doing a bmx-on-the-back thursday ride?
Not sure about bmx-on-the-back but we are definitely doing some off-road Thursday rides now that a bunch of us have dirt bikes.
That’s funny cuz I was 11 when the first terminator came out, and I begged my mom for an Uzi 9mm.