My First BMX

I was 6 years old. It was Christmas of 1984 and all I ever wanted was a cool BMX. All my friends had one. I had a boring old road bike, I cant even remember the name, but it was popular at the time. My brother and I woke up on Christmas morning and ran outside to find my grandmother had pulled into the driveway. In the back of her station wagon were two BMX's all wrapped up, a blue one for my brother and the above red one for myself. We have never been so exited in all our lives! She also had wrapped up helmets and pad sets all matching of course.

Our font yard was a kind of hill that went down from the top side of the house to the bottom. It was the perfect dusty dirty mound type terrain for a first go on a BMX. We pushed our bikes up to the top and were off before you could say go. The race was on! At the tender age of six, I wasn't exactly accustom to the idea of front and back breaks.

We were half way down our exhilarating first run when I came face to face with a pot hill and slammed on the first brake that came to mind. It just so happened to by the front break. I did a full forward somersault over the pot hill and landed on my back. A little shaken, but surprisingly not injured other than a little scrape here and there. This was the begging to a fantastic childhood. We made all kinds jumps and tracks in the front yard and before we knew it, we were at the race track with other BMX enthusiasts. It's a fantastic age, where fear is an afterthought and the present is everything. What a marvelous feeling.

My first race was a brilliant experience. The other kids were quite a bit older, but I didn't even notice. The race began as per usual with a steep decline to build up your speed and the then some bumps, jumps and turns. I was going for gold, and madly fearlessly so. I was loving it. Speed, competition and  a mouth full of dust. It didn't take long before I hit an unforeseen ditch, half way through the track and went head over heels. The other kids took no notice and just rode over me lying in the dirt. When the last one had gone through, there were tyre marks everywhere including my face. I could see my dad rushing down to the track and I threw my hand up to give the 'I'm okay' signal and jumped back onto my bike. I came last that day in my first race but I was the happiest kid in the world.