Living with the baggage of 80s BMX
“I don’t know you but I think I hate you..”
When I look back at photos or video of “bmx freestyle” (as it was known) in the 80s I feel nothing.
Likewise, when I see a re-issue, tribute release, or collectors build of any 80’s bmx I’m utterly unmoved.
Nothing. Not even the slightest flicker of emotion.
I guess there’s a cold, dark, and empty place where my bmx soul should be.
Now don’t get me wrong. I rode through the 80s. It was fun, but then everything that’s new is fun.
But for me, the legacy left by 80’s bmx was something that isn’t haloed in rose tinted nostalgia. In fact it’s shrouded in bitterness and the impact that it’s aftermath had on me as a teenager changed me as a person forever.
Melodramatic? Maybe..but hear me out.
When the 80’s bmx circus left town it left behind an image of the “sport” and the people who were part of it that was very hard to shift. It was seen by the general public as “last years children’s fashion”, it was silly, it showed off, and it certainly didn’t fit the vibe of the early 90s. The 80s were a tumultuous decade in the UK, and the general mood of the country as we entered the 90s was “what happened in the 80s stays in the 80’s”. And this was definitely the case when it came to bmx.
But let’s be honest here, the lasting image of bmx created by its 80’s forefathers can’t really claim that it was the hapless misunderstood victim of a cynical public.
When it came to cultivating its own image 80’s bmx was in it up to its neck.
The way 80’s bmx had presented itself to the world 80s had a huge impact on how the subsequent riders of the 90s were perceived by anyone outside of the bmx scene.
80’s BMX had partied long into the night with every slutty sponsor, commercial opportunity, or cheese fest endorsement that it could lay its sticky dyno gloves on!
It had been complicit on cultivating it’s own image and had freely allowed itself to be exploited, manipulated, and cynically exploited by outside entities purely for commercial gain.
As a result it’s integrity was non existent. And it’s for this reason that I can’t really forgive it.
The publics perception of bmx was so poisoned by the 80s mirage of day glow clothing, goofy bikes and waving pogo bellends that when the grim reaper rocked up to call time on the first bmx boom they soundly applauded its demise and waved it off into oblivion.
Now, I freely admit that LOTS of things that were popular during the 80’s decade were tinged with a layer of cheese that was hard to remove. But as the world moved into a new decade with the dawn of the 90s, BMX seemed to be especially singled out as something that firmly belonged in the past (ie the 80s).
People genuinely felt you shouldn’t be riding a bmx in 1990….at any age. Full stop.
So this left anyone who really believed in the sport and wanting to continue riding Bmx into the 90s in a very isolated spot.
The existence of a bmx rider in the early 90s was a lonely one. You weren’t cool (thanks to 80s bmx) . And EVERY member of the public you rode past in the street would ensure they let you know that. And that’s if you were lucky. Because it was very common to experience physical violence from complete strangers just for riding a bmx.
As Jarvis cocker once sang
“you might end up with a smack in the mouth, just for standing out”
The hatred directed towards bmx meant that riders took to heading out to ride their local town centres (cause that’s really all there was to ride) under the cover off darkness like some secret cult of urban explorers.
Finding riding homes in multi storey car parks and empty 70’s office quadrants. Anywhere really where Joe public couldn’t see them (or harass them).
You may think that the riders left holding the bmx baby in the early 90s yearned for some kind of validation, or respect, or even for our chosen sport to be taken seriously.
But to be honest…all many of us left riding wanted was to left the hell alone to do our thing. We didn’t want our sport to be any part of the wider society. In fact we didn’t even know that it was supposed to be sport back then.
So, (thanks to the shit show that was 80s bmx) the subculture of riding sank into the suburban shadows and hid from the world. The hostility that many riders faced from total strangers resulted in many becoming resentful of the wider society outside and the world that permitted such bellends to thrive, yet kept us underground.
The Punk underbelly of bmx had already started to emerge in the late 80’s as a backlash to the organised/day glo nonsense that mainstream bmx had become.
Our dress sense, music taste, and general outlook became part of the emerging subculture, moulded by us (the riders) and our determination not to be like “them”…the townies (or pretty much anybody who represented popular culture during the following decade).
Living with the baggage that was left behind when 80’s bmx moved out was miserable and at times lonely so please forgive me if I curl my lip at the thought of our freestyle forefathers and their double bend downtubes.
Thankfully BMX and the general perception of BMX has advanced beyond recognition. In fact its more acceptable to be a mid 40s dude riding a bmx down the street today than it was to be a teenager riding a bmx down the same street in the early 90’s.
But 80’s Bmx should be held accountable for its crimes.
And BMX should never forget the mistakes it made in the past and always guard the door against any new waves of corporate raiders or pogo’ing bell ends who inadvertently have the power to destroy the thing we love.