Day One

So I just made it through Day One. I'm a little bummed. The bike is not at all what I expected. I got on the BMX and it felt totally foreign. I could barely ride the thing. That was not expected. I thought it would feel like going home. Instead, it felt awful.

At first.

I tried some bunny hops on the flat pavement. Ouch. Apparently, at some point over the past 20 years that I was away from BMX, some freakin genius decided that everyone should be running 120 PSI in their tires. I could feel the landings in my ears. It was beyond jarring. I am used to a mountain bike with 8" of travel at each end and 35 PSI in the tires. This was absolutely bone rattling. But, I kept at it and tried to figure out how not to get hurt while attempting tiny bunny hops.

I decided to move on to the dirt track. The dirt should be a lot softer than pavement right? As it turns out, not much really. It was a little bit softer, but you still get rattled around when you land.

The bike I bought is really, really whippy. It has 13.22" chain stays. That means that it likes to spin and it likes to loop out. I hit up the smaller of the table tops at slow speed and tried to bunny hop at the lip. Before I knew it, I was standing superman style with the bike suspended up in the air in my outstretched arms. Then I tried to not loop the bike away from me and totally nose-dived. I was starting to get really depressed. I just spent a lot of money on a bike that I could not even ride. Argh. Why do I ride a kid's bike?

So, with my kids racing around and egging me on, I tried to bunny hop again and managed to get the bike level in the air.



I did this a few more times and it very, very slowly started to feel somewhat like something that I might be able to do. Again, roll into the little table with not much speed and pop up.



Okay, it's not going to impress anyone. Well, it sort of impressed my two youngest kids. My oldest gave me some polite encouragement. I think he felt a little bit sorry for me. Maybe even for himself. "C'mon Dad! That one wasn't too bad!"

So, I kept at it on and off for most of the afternoon and actually managed to get some little table-tops. I swear that one was fully flat but not filmed. I know, without footage it's fiction, but I swear it was clicked.

Keep in mind that I'm not carrying much speed and the height that I'm getting is just from the pop/bunny hop that I'm pulling. Still, it's kind of fun.

Here's a neat little one.



Not totally flat, but not totally crap. I guess it's okay for Day One. I really have to work on my facial expressions though.



I decided to get all old-school and go for a cross-up. I got the click, but not much height. Still, I would like to point out to the jury that the bars are fully crossed. Note the brand new Capital BMX shirt. Maybe it has good karma?



The last jump of the day was not pretty. I did another table top attempt at a higher rate of speed and actually got a bit more air. The picture sucks because my brother tried to do some sort of light/angle experiment that didn't work and it was taken a little early before I got the bike flat.



But because I went a bit higher, the bike dug into the dirt when I landed. It's still only April. The ground is still drying out. I pitched over the bars and as I rolled commando style down the tranny, the bike landed right on top of me. I caught it on the second bounce and stood up. That would be enough fun for Day One.



Here's the bike after one full day of backyard action. It's all nice and dusty and happy. Bikes like dirt.