Mountain Biking - Do you have a BMX background???

I've noticed posts here in the MTB forum where members reference their background whether it's a BMX or road bike background. I was just curious as to how many here came from the BMX world, or may have a foot in it still.

Me personally, I come from the old school of BMX freestyle. Back when Eddie Fiola ruled pipeline, and Martin Aparijo and his rat-tail ruled flatland (I have his autograph, along with Josh White from the 1988 GT world tour :D on my old school GT jersey ). Back when the only dirt hucking was done by Cru Jones in the movie RAD which consisted of a backflip and lots of tabletops. I rode until about 1996 when I got married and had kids and my daily schedule blew up. I rode some vert, but mostly park and street.

Although I'm still in to watching Mirra try to keep up (He's my age), I thought it might be cool to try something new and MTB is where I landed. Mostlyl just local trails. But I'm totally hooked and loving riding again, even if it's quite different. Many of the skills I learned back in the day (when I was made fun of in high school for riding a bike) have translated to my MTB skills. One instance that comes to mind is on my second time out on the trails, I was able to hop up on a 1.5' tall bridge and come off of the other side without missing a beat and had to wait on the guys behind me to make their way over (that was a pretty cool feeling).

Anyway, just thought it might be an interesting topic.... Maybe not... :rolleyes:

I'm going to get 2 bikes this winter : Bmx and Trials bikes.

I tried a bmx bike yesterday, and was surprized at how easy they manual! It was fun.

i used to bmx for 4 years on a Haro f4 2003, but now i like mountain biking more than bmxing for some reason

I started racing BMX when I was 11. I'm 37 now. I raced and got into "freestyle" (what we called it back then), riding 1/4 and 1/2 pipes, only a few trips to a skatepark (bikes were not allowed) and a lot of street/urban, which we just called "Riding".

I raced until I was 16, then got into windsurfing and surfing, still kept the 20" and played, but not on a regular basis. In college, I traded a windsurfer for a road bike and started road biking. In '92, I bought a mountain bike (GT Karakorum) and rode with buddies at school. When I graduated, I moved home and was a weekend warrior. Started riding road and mountain. Bought a 24" Cruiser and went back to the track and practiced for awhile, but never raced again.

Still have a cruiser in my stable of bikes.

Trying to get my son and stepson to ride BMX, but the track down here is pretty intimidating. The new layout has HUGE jumps. My 6 year old crashed and doesn't want to go back. After riding the thing, I don't blame him.

I raced bmx '83-'85, did freestyle from '84-'87 or so. I don't really consider late 80's "old school" but, I guess some people do. I went to the vans tour in '84 (Woody Itson, Martin Aparijo, Bob Haro's son on skateboard), the Haro tour in '85 (Ron Wilkerson, Brian Blyther, Dave Nourie), and the Gt tour in '86 (Martin again, and a few newbies). Those were good times.

I've ridden BMX bikes for about 15 or so years (only 23 now). I have a 2004 Haro Nyquist and a '80 something Schwinn Predator in the garage. I'm currently researching for my first MTB purchase. MTB has a lot more appeal to me right now.

I started on a mtb, but after owning a bmx for a few months now, I think i should have started bmx a long time ago. Bmx is amazing for street.

I used to ride around on a BMX all the time. But I never really did much on it besides bunny hops and wheelies...good times though...It was a GT Dyno I got for $20 at a garage sale. Great bike.

Heh, I dabbled in BMX as a kid, from about age 11-14. I was on a cheap Haro. There was no scene by me and no internet back then so I was a real loner jumping berms and stuff like that.

I started mtbiking like 4 years ago...before that I wasn't a 2 wheeler at all :)

My bmx is slowly catching up to my mountian bikes in price.

I've actually stopped mountian biking during the week and just race on the weekends, during the week it's time for the little bike. I've ridden bmx since I was 11, i'm 17 now.

I rode BMX for many years. Selling my final bike a Redline Proline Pro that I built from the ground up. Also selling my conversion bike, A Redline Monocog (oversized BMX bike basically)

Part of me will always love it. I got all my balance and skills from bmx and motocross riding

yeah rode BMX back in the early eighties,had a quarter pipe in my back yard that i would ride everyday after school,dreaming i was Eddie Fiola or Mike Dominguez. stopped riding when i was 18 and joined the Army. got into MTB about 93-94 and then raced motorbikes for a few years. been doing the family thing for the last few years but are about to buy a KONA HOSS and start riding again.

This is pretty cool. About what I expected I guess. But it is interesting to me that we have some guys that started on MTB and are getting in to BMX. That's cool. Some of the names you guys mentioned bring back so many memories to me (Dominguez, Blyther...) of sitting in my room reading my BMX Plus's, saving up for a pair of Pacific Palms because Aparijo wore them. Oh, and in my book, anyhthing having to do with mullets, rat tails and flourescent colored uniforms is old school. :eek: :) At least to me...

You know, I think the thing that made me sort of hesitant to check out mountain biking was the fact that the only mtb I had ever tried felt like it was soooo stretched out in comparison to my freestyle bikes. Obviously, the geometry is totally different. I rode a Dyno Pro Comp for a while that had a super short top tube and was really tight, but then switched to a few GT Pro Freestyle Tours that were much longer, yet still managable. Now that I have my own mtb bike that's fit to me, it's nothing like that. And the more I think about it, it seems like if you are used to riding a MTB and then switch over to a 20"er, it would feel super agile. Sort of like using a brat bat in baseball in the on deck circle and then going to your real bat.

So, would I get made fun of if I stuck some Skyway mags or some Tuff Wheels on my hardtail? Hmmm, might be sort of hard to brake though...:p

no bmx for me. The guys at work keep telling me to get one but I don't really have the time to ride another bike... or do I?

My MXing was all of the non-'B' variety :D

And the more I think about it, it seems like if you are used to riding a MTB and then switch over to a 20"er, it would feel super agile.I was always afraid that after being used to a longer wheelbase, that if I got on a 20-incher, I'd always be looping it out on everything. Maybe not, huh?


So, would I get made fun of if I stuck some Skyway mags or some Tuff Wheels on my hardtail? Hmmm, might be sort of hard to brake though...:pGet ready - - Skyway is exploring the idea of making disc-ready 26" wheels :).