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Changing your bike
A lad in Dundee asked me about a year ago if I ever get bored
of BMX , and I said no, because there are so many facets of BMX
that, if you’re tired of one, you can just go and do another.
One way that always helps to keep me motivated is
changing my bike set-up. At the beginning of last summer I was getting
well irritated, feeling that I wasn’t pushing myself enough.
I’d go out with good intentions to try something new, but always
end up doing the same crappy grind on the same ledge. To solve this
I took my pegs off and this immediately forced me to look at things
differently. I learnt to hop higher, ride faster and also do those
funny, skidding tailwhip jobbies that Vic Murphey does.
After a few months though, I started seeing
ledges all over the shop that were crying out to be grinded, so
I whopped my pegs back on and started making sparks again. As a
bonus, the added weight also made my bike feel much more stable
and I was so pleased that I stuck another set on and learnt opposite
grinds, which are class.
Later, I decided that my brakes needed tuning, so
one rainy evening, I took them to pieces to sort them out. It took
ages, I was knackered, and at the last minute, one of the inner
cables kinked and then refused to go back into the housing. I was
upset. After I’d torn off the whole dirty mess, I reflected
that I’d been wanting to go brakeless for a while anyway, but
had been looking for an excuse, so things weren’t all that
bad.
I’ve been riding with four pegs and no brakes for a while now
and I still really like it. I can do opposite stuff nearly as well
as regular and my bike feels much less cluttered (quieter too).
Having said that, I do quite fancy having a shot at running a back
brake with no gyro and no pegs (a la Garret Burns), so I may do
that soon.
My point is that there are tons of things that you
can do on a BMX but sometimes it helps to take away or add something
to your bike in order to make you try something new. I think that
this is a good thing and helps to keep everything nice and fresh.
Nothing is written in stone (metaphorically speaking) and if you
don’t like your new set-up, just change it back, it’s
no big deal. But you’ll never know unless you try.
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