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BMX General => BMX Chat => Topic started by: darkersomeday on November 24, 2007, 09:28 PM
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can anyone who rode bmx bitd tell me what happened after bmx in the late eighties went all light weights and fluro colours?
just out of interest?
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Chris Moeller happened!
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what laz said the new breed was hatched on the world.
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am i right in thinking it did definitely fall out of "commercial favour"
i always had a feeling alot of it being down to the lightweight parts breaking all the time and kids just not being able to keep up financially?
and like you said moeller/moliterno/hoff etc seemed to keep its pulse alive but there whole approach was "stronger bikes" which further backs up the idea,
i've never heard it talked about and i could be wrong so tell me if i am like!!
why did bmx seem to die for a while? any views on it?
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why did bmx seem to die for a while? any views on it?
Cos all you lot stopped riding!!! :LolLolLolLol: :LolLolLolLol:
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why did bmx seem to die for a while? any views on it?
Cos all you lot stopped riding!!! :LolLolLolLol: :LolLolLolLol:
dont be including me in that! :LolLolLolLol:
why did bmx die though? was it the parts problems or did it just go out of fashion?
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birds, booze ,cars and work .it just had its day ,then some carried on in the background
and it stayed on simmer for a while until the touch paper got lit .much rnd was done in this time thou.hooorar
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because all the kids from the original boom started to grow hair in funny places and interests swayed towards the flange!
and unfortunately for this country the big name raleigh, in the early nineties made a commercial push to get kids riding the raleigh activator mtb with its radical front suspension and if you could afford it the m trax range so they stopped making the burner and it all became about the mountain bike until good old channel 5 started showing espn at 2 a.m. in 96, you know the rest....
dunno about stateside. i grew up in engerland
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why did bmx die though? was it the parts problems or did it just go out of fashion?
The parts just kept getting better, it was pure fashion. "oh, you STILL ride a BMX?"
Part got heavy and over engineered cos everyone was jumping off roofs for much of the 90s (go watch an early backyard video for proof), but they were still better parts, being made for the riding at the time.
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skateboarding crossed over
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Poilitics, thats why riders started to go anti establishment and burn their freestyle licences, and it was politics that ruined racing too, and will do again if it gets popular again :(
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all spot on like, what i'm getting at is,
whats the chances of it happening again?
is bmx too "established" for it to happen a second time?
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Also for the kids that should have been the new wave, Nintendo happened. All the kids wanted consoles and so the xmas lists didn't have BMX in them anymore.
All the money went and a lot of the pro's stopped riding because they couldn't make a living at it. Contests went from giving away a truck and a cheque to t-shirts and shoes. Companies went bust as they were giving so much product away to riders (to replace the broken stuff and keep their bikes shiny for the photo's) that they ended up not being able to promote themselves anymore.
Mat Hoffman says in his book he almost gave up riding because he played so much Mario when he was injured one time. Added to that a lot of the kids that had been into it for a while were at the car buying, drinking and jobs stage. So it's no surprise that all the less dedicated people (I'd probably include myself in that) took the easier option.
And now we're all fat ! :LolLolLolLol:
It could happen again, in many ways it's more established now. But if no one watches stuff like the x-games anymore and the mainstream media interest goes, then it'll go underground again. The olympics will be good promotion but only for racing, I wonder if kids don't see the link between racing and what they think of as BMX (street, dirt, etc).
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whats the chances of it happening again?
is bmx too "established" for it to happen a second time?
Probably, everything comes and goes. Its bound not to drop as hard next time, but it will come and go from the main streem like everything does.
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It already has got too establishished imho, give it another two years and all it will need is the x games to become less popular and all the sponsors will go, and it`ll go under ground again, then there will be a few years in the wilderness and it`ll be back :daumenhoch:
Recession and stuff will also have an effect imho, but it`ll go in cycles of every 7 years or so of boom and bust, it`s just the way it is I`m afraid :(
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for me i rode through the dark days which were cool as you knew everyone as lack of riders left and got the chance to ride without loads of peeps so learnt more and you wore what you wanted as no trend statement ,what killed bmx around me was skateboard as everyone got a board in 87 and i was the only bmxer and then mountain bikes appeared and most kids that were my ages got it to music ,drugs and beer and rave arrived and so on
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2 things
skateboarding crossed over
personally i think that skateboarding was quiet for even longer, it was never as quiet, but again didn't get big again until the espn/channel 5 coverage and then, and i can pin point this for the midlands, fred fookin durst with his 'skateboard, spray can for my tagging' line saw a massive influx in skateboard and red stussy hat sales and from that council/bendcrete skateparks were popping up all over the country. (about 98/99)
i think i see where your coming from joe, that fact that things are going full circle with super light frames and parts that are strong, and the bright colours, is the industry heading down the same path as it did nearly 20 years ago?
in some ways i hope it will, just to get rid of the fashion riders, but the do keep the skateparks earning money! the biggest help that we have now is a better worldwide t.v. network that keeps the coverage on screen, computer games, the olympics are on their way, and in my own opinion i think, if anything we're heading for another boom. my mates bike shop is currently selling about six bmx's a day on the build up to christmas, and they're not just cheap things either
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I don't like the way its going. Not one bit.
I was mad for it 94-00, I subscribed to Ride and Ride US, bought every Props as soon as it was out. I was completely engrossed in the whole thing. I worked as a rampbuilder through those years and in 99 opened my own shop. I went a bit sour in 00 and decided to have another break. But since I've been back riding (late 04), I've not bought a magazine, or a Props. Nor do I want to.
I can't really explain it, but I just don't like what i'm seeing. I'm concerned that we're about to see a death in freestyle riding, i'm concerned that kids are starting to ride just because they can make money from it. I'm concerned that all these concrete council parks that are popping up will be shut down just as quick.
Don't know what I'm trying to say really. Ride for yourselves, no one else. Maybe its as simple as that ;)
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totally agree with you rob.
i stopped buying ride because it just got to repetitive and i remember buying an issue around the 40-50 mark that i think had 60 pages of adverts before i got to the contents page!
i don't like where the sports heading, it's not fun when to get noticed you've got to nearly kill yourself (stepen murray case in point blank range) can't beat the days of meeting up with your mates on a sunday afternoon, pulling a few manuals on some walls and doing a few feeble grinds. sharing some laughs then going home for tea
all this thats happening in the industry now is exactly why i ride on my own so i don't get salted with the sport that governs my life and makes me who i am
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all these great posts and spot on for sure,
i like the idea of bmx standing on its own two feet regardless of current fashions, like a self supporting industry,
i'm almost 100% positive that skateboarding would,they have there own shoes,clothes,boards, media, etc
so which companies are in it for the long run? be totally honest too, its all theoretical anyway eh?
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meet up with your mates on a sunday afternoon, pull a few manuals on some walls and do a few feeble grinds. share some laughs then go home for tea
F-ing brill! BMX in a nutshell!
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i think clothing and shoe companies are too intertwined with other sports such as skateboarding, surfing, motocross, mtb, that they'll always be around feeding off extreme sports in some shape or form, the smaller ones come and go year by year!
as for bike companies i think the big ones will survive. the more modern brands will fade away. basically because there's so many rider owned companies that at the moment are probably turning a pretty profit but when then dip in the industry happens they won't be able to survive,
america will and always will have a huge following in the sport purely due to the amount of people in its country,
europe though is dictated too much by fashion, when they start dropping, all these european companies will disapear with them
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The companies that are in it for the long run are the ones that HAVE already been in it for the long run..... Some good, some not so good. The ones that just had a bundle of money chucked at em have/will disappear.
There is no doubt in my mind that those original rider owned companies will survive in some shape or form for a very long time to come. After all, what else could they go and do? They live and breathe it.
Just to clarify something from my earlier post; when I mentioned an impending death in freestyle riding, I didn't mean anyone specific or currently hurt, I meant that I feel like we're going to see it in our local park, or at a small jam....
Hope I'm wrong....
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Rider owned companies usually have the flexibility to cope with a downturn, mainly cos they don't report to shareholders and can downsize a lot easier. If the market can't support them though, they be the first to go the way of the dodo, unless they group together somehow and share the cost.
Bigger companies can weather it for a different reason, they diversify which is what they did in the 80's, they all got into mountainbikes - some more successfully than others. (e.g. GT, Haro vs Skyway, Redline).
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so if we wanted to seriously support the future of bmx what would be a good way for us "oldies" to contribute ?
how could we help guarantee or at least try to help the way bmx progresses?
would it be possible in any way?
ok we cant go out and pull triple flip whips and make amazing video's but what can we do?
are we bothered?
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This is what I try and do.....
Stay true to the things that are important to me. Help out my fellow riders wherever I can. Don't get bent over things that ultimately aren't really that important - case in point would be fashion. Anything fashion driven will ultimately fail. Anything heart and soul driven will ultimately succeed, as long as we remain true to it.
On a more practical level, we could all contribute to a co-operative society and open our own Woodward style camp. And then we teach.
And yeah, I'm bothered ;)
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Edited due to soberness :crazy2:
Joe, you're asking what can we do? fook knows mate. maybe just being here is enough. The fact that the sport now has a lot more adult support than it ever had has got to have some sort of effect. We're the first generation of adult BMXers i spoze mate. so it's got to be playing a part in the changing of peoples perspectives That said from a personal point of view i could give a fook what everybody else thinks , that's why i did it then and that's why i do it now.
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Rider owned companies who use that term to sell bikes are purely doing so in a false form of propaganda.
there is nothing i disagree more with than a shody product (compared to other brands) which get a coating of "we are only small" or "we are just a new rider owned company".
Haro originally was rider owned and obviously as he got older it was a company owned by an ex rider (until the stock option split)
Hoffman is rider owned but i would say is more corporate than rider owned, same as eastern (jon byers)
what separates a good company from a bad company is not which rider owns it, but who designs for it along with a good business ethics etc.
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Didn't Hoffman sell up last year? One of his employees started a distribution company and then Matt sold him the rest of it. Or something like that....
A thought occured whilst watching an MTB programme on Extreme channel earlier. It was covering the Nissan Freestyle MTB championship.
There's a thing I hadn't paid much attention to - freestyle MTB. I've seen MTB riders in skateparks but didn't know they called it that. Anyhoo, these guys are doing Flip Whips, nose picks, front flips, kick turns, Superman seatgrabs and downside whips to name but a few. So if you're a kid, you can do the same tricks on both, are you going to want to ride a BMX or an MTB?
So far as I see, all kids want to be seen as older than they are and they can do the vast majority of tricks on something they won't be labelled a 'kids bike'.
Also most people are, to some degree, lazy which I think is why Flatland (takes too long to learn) and Vert (takes to long to ride to half-pipe) are minority stuff now and everyone does street because it's right outside their front door. So if that's all you can do on an MTB, then for many kids it's a no brainer. The adults will be happier doing it too. I can see it gaining more acceptance with a wider audience. Although it owes a lot to BMX, I think it will definitely affect our sport if it gets any bigger.
Bit of a worry isn't it? ???
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None of it worries me at all! When there was not a penny in BMX was by far the best time to be a rider.
I hope it dies tomorrow.
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Laz, you old romantic ;)
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Insurance hassles were another major contributing factor to BMX facilities closing and the decline of the sport in the late 80s/early 90s.
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None of it worries me at all! When there was not a penny in BMX was by far the best time to be a rider.
I hope it dies tomorrow.
That reminds me of my old RE teacher at school, back in the 80's. She reckoned she would prefer to be in Soviet Union because then she would be persecuted for her faith and it'd make it seem that much better.
I guess if you've got belief in a certain ideal, an isolationist experience will make it seem better and more worthwhile.
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Insurance hassles were another major contributing factor to BMX facilities closing and the decline of the sport in the late 80s/early 90s.
definately a factor now too! thats why derby closed a few years ago! there insurance went through the roof. the figures were stupid. i think it doubled from 7k (if i remember rightly) for about 4 years on the trot. you do the math!
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as far as i'm concerned, bmx died in the late 80's / early 90's due to everyone "growing up".
it's not like now where seeing riders in their 20's is the norm and as we have it riders in their 30's and even 40's.
when i competed, every age group was packed out with riders in all age groups till the year below me. as each of these age groups reached the 17 year old mark, people started learning to drive, getting into pubs, working all day etc. each year you'd get a big drop in numbers until the age group below me got to 17. then there was no-one left apart from the few dedicated souls.
nintendo also had a big part in this, with all kids wanting a games console for christmas instead of a bmx.
it's less likely to die now as it is commonly acceptable to be still riding a bike after you've left school and got yourself a job.
just my opinion....
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am i right in thinking it did definitely fall out of "commercial favour"
i always had a feeling alot of it being down to the lightweight parts breaking all the time and kids just not being able to keep up financially?
and like you said moeller/moliterno/hoff etc seemed to keep its pulse alive but there whole approach was "stronger bikes" which further backs up the idea,
i've never heard it talked about and i could be wrong so tell me if i am like!!
why did bmx seem to die for a while? any views on it?
Bloke who owns BIG local bikeshop/ framebuilders told me just that...colours changing, all about fashion, kids couldn't keep up with the money for 'the next parts'
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have some respect.
bmx never 'died'.
so, you met a girl/bought a car/took drugs/went raving/started a job/grew up/started drinking/ etc, etc, etc. how self centered are you all to think bmx 'died' when you didnt feel like riding?
sure, no one should be tied to riding a bike every day for ever to be considered a 'bmxer', and yes you can come and go as you please, but don't insult the intelligence of the true riders who rode right throughout the 'lean times'.
if you think it all stopped when you took up other interests, then you're the loser.
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Fair comment :daumenhoch:
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At the time, pub, clubs, fights, cars and girls were a better buzz than bikes, so the bike got put down for a short 20 year break :idiot2:
When I see guys that kept riding right though like Geth and Alex I do wish that I could have stayed on a bmx, but I had a fooking riot with the other things too :crazy2:
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I had a fooking riot with the other things too :crazy2:
WORD
Dave
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you know it.
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have some respect.
bmx never 'died'.
so, you met a girl/bought a car/took drugs/went raving/started a job/grew up/started drinking/ etc, etc, etc. how self centered are you all to think bmx 'died' when you didnt feel like riding?
sure, no one should be tied to riding a bike every day for ever to be considered a 'bmxer', and yes you can come and go as you please, but don't insult the intelligence of the true riders who rode right throughout the 'lean times'.
if you think it all stopped when you took up other interests, then you're the loser.
"put the buckfast on the floor and take two steps back"
when i said "bmx died" i meant commercially,
i rode through the dark years too so i do know just how small bmx got in those years,
yes i did all the birds/cars/drugs stuff but alway found time to ride aswell, in the mid 90's when i was at uni in edinburgh my bmx was even my main form of transport,
if you actually bothered to see what i was trying to say from this thread, you see i was "subtley" trying to get folk to support the genuine bmx companies instead of the big "corporates" :daumenhoch:
"real riders" eh? :LolLolLolLol:
whats that "batty riders"?
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;D ;D ;D ;D ;D.................... buckfast............. ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
I didn't stop riding for any of those reasons birds/cars/drugs/whatever. I was already driving for a year, I had been through a couple of girls. I gave up in 84. The very height of bmx in this country. I gave up as a sponsored rider who got paid to do shows. (not very often, I have to admit...)
I gave up because it was corrupt. It was bullshit and I didnt like the way it was going. That and the fact I was going to A&E after every ride to have my knee drained....
I'm a bit older that most on here so I was able to make that decision rationally at 18 years old in 84.
I think it might have been a bit different to have been 15-16 in like 87-88 or something when I can see that you'd have had to be really passionate about it to keep going when it was all about to turn.
I dunno. I wasn't there.
Like I said in another post - I was lucky, I only had 10 years off. Back riding in 94 when things where really fcuking cool. But it was early enough for me to understand who was really supporting the sport and where I should spend my money.
And Gogo was a legend ;)
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"put the buckfast on the floor and take two steps back"
when i said "bmx died" i meant commercially,
i rode through the dark years too so i do know just how small bmx got in those years,
yes i did all the birds/cars/drugs stuff but alway found time to ride aswell, in the mid 90's when i was at uni in edinburgh my bmx was even my main form of transport,
if you actually bothered to see what i was trying to say from this thread, you see i was "subtley" trying to get folk to support the genuine bmx companies instead of the big "corporates" :daumenhoch:
"real riders" eh? :LolLolLolLol:
whats that "batty riders"?
hoho, i wasnt referring to your post in particular, dude. more like this ones like this-
as far as i'm concerned, bmx died in the late 80's / early 90's due to everyone "growing up".
however, he slightly redeemed himself here-
just my opinion....
it only died if it died in your heart.
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my and my big mouth again,
apologies dude. :-[
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Gogo is spot on, BMX never died. Sure the big parent companies pulled a lot of their support to go chasing money in MTBs and other 'next big things', and many of the first generation of UK riders left the scene to do 'grown up' things. I take my hat off to guys like Gogo who kept riding hard all through the 90's. I still rode, after taking a break from 88-91, but my riding was never as frequent as it was in the '80's (i.e. every day for hours on end). I think many people got the idea that bmx died because the media stopped covering it in the same manic way it did in the 80's. Then Ride magazine became the only way some people had of finding out what was happening in the BMX world. Nowadays we have the luxury of the internet so it's a lot easier to find out what's happening, where your nearest park/track is etc. This can only be good for getting people involved. I personally don't see BMX 'dying' anytime soon. People will come and go but in general things seem a lot more stable now and, if anything, the sport is only going to get bigger.
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I was reading on the bike biz site yesterday that for the bike shops, the BMX boom bust in 85 and MTB took over in 87. There's a whole load of things on this page.
http://www.bikebiz.co.uk/statistics.php
I find stats are interesting when you can relate to them otherwise they're the worst thing in the world. I sat through a finance meeting at work today.....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.... :LolLolLolLol:
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"put the buckfast on the floor and take two steps back"
when i said "bmx died" i meant commercially,
i rode through the dark years too so i do know just how small bmx got in those years,
yes i did all the birds/cars/drugs stuff but alway found time to ride aswell, in the mid 90's when i was at uni in edinburgh my bmx was even my main form of transport,
if you actually bothered to see what i was trying to say from this thread, you see i was "subtley" trying to get folk to support the genuine bmx companies instead of the big "corporates" :daumenhoch:
"real riders" eh? :LolLolLolLol:
whats that "batty riders"?
hoho, i wasnt referring to your post in particular, dude. more like this ones like this-
as far as i'm concerned, bmx died in the late 80's / early 90's due to everyone "growing up".
however, he slightly redeemed himself here-
just my opinion....
it only died if it died in your heart.
probably a bad choice of words on my behalf. bmx itself didn't die, but the big scene it was did, which is what i was implying.