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.

Personally, I prefer a big back yard.

Since we live in 'the sticks', (within city limits, but just barely), I have 2.5 acres on which to play around with. The BMX track will be inside our treeline and will weave in and out of the trees. It also has a nice little downslope which will help. The only major problem is that there is a lot of poison ivy. I've been getting rid of the poison ivy by digging it up and making jumps out of it. If you have a better idea, I'd like to hear it.
I started digging the track back in 2006 when my oldest was only 3. It didn't see much use and I pretty much only had a double jump and table started. The best comment so far was when one of my new neighbours asked me point blank "Don't you have anything better to do?" Thanks neighbour. Go mow your lawn.

Here's what it looked like:


My 3 year old son makes them look a little bigger than they are. The jumps are about 3.5' tall.



Last summer, I decided to get the shovel out again and start digging. Here is the current state of 'the dirt track':

No more double jumps. Too hard for kids. There are now two table-tops and a few twisty berms.


The second table top is around 8' wide and has two separate take-offs with a shared landing. Note the 'coping' on the smaller lip. It seems to really help my 7 year old learn when to pull up.


Here is a little berm that is just beginning to be built up. All that grass in the middle will be shovelled out and piled into the berm.



I've pretty much exhausted the 'dig and move' approach as I started to hit some rock patches. This summer, I will order up some dumptruck loads of dirt and build it proper.



I'll keep posting up pics of the progression of the jumps/dirt track. If you have any cool ideas, let me know. I am toying with the idea of building up a big dirt spine jump or maybe even a dirt bowl?