Getting Back To My Roots
A few years ago I promised myself I would accomplish a list of things that I would accomplish before I turn 40. Things like buy a new condo, get (yet another) tattoo, start racing bikes again.... Basically things I wouldn't regret later on in life once I was strapped to a wheelchair pissing in a diaper. Well I've completed them all with the exception of thing that is just going to happen when I feel inspired.
One of the more important items on the list was to start racing bikes again. See when I was just a little guy and my balls were dropping, my face was riddled with acne, tall, skinny and akward I used to race BMX out at a track in Taylorsville called Riverview Raceway which then became Mountainview Raceway. From about 1985-1987 I tore it up and retired having just turned Expert. Basically, I turned 16 and got my driver's license.
Since 1991 I've been riding mountain bikes to varying degrees. Not so much right at the start as going to school full time and working full time didn't leave much room for a hobby other than drinking a lot of coffee. When I put my list of 'to do before I die' things, racing BMX was no where in my thoughts. I wanted to race mountain bikes. Period.
For some reason BMX has been haunting me for about the past year but I never acted on it until a couple of weeks ago when I found out Utah once again has a huge BMX scene, including a sweet indoor track. What a lot of people don't realize is how much BMX technique plays into mountain biking. If you've never ridden, jumped or raced a BMX bike a kid you wouldn't understand any of this, but if you did you see it in your and others technique.
So, long story short, I bought myself a custom 24" Staats BMX cruiser in an extra long frame to cater to my lanky ass. Staats are handmade down in my old hood, Sandy, and are some of the sweetest frames on the market. Having a pang of buyers remorse I took it out to Rad Canyon's indoor track last Friday and delved into this bizarre world once again. After a couple of practice laps, I bought a year license and entered the open cruiser class. Saturday rolls around and I manage to qualify which was a feat in and of itself considering the cruiser class is open and I was lined up against a few pro mtb DH racers who've also been racing BMX for a number of years. It was a bit unnerving being in lane 2 next to Justin Alvey with his #3 ranked number plate in my first moto in twenty some odd years. I came in dead last in the Main, but having just barely qualified against a stacked and experienced cruiser class was a victory in my book.
