Without looking, do you know what "BMX" stands for?
 

Just wondering if there is any guru (or anybody else reading this) who does not know what "BMX" is short for...
No peeking.
Thanks.

I've always understood it to be bicycle motocross, even though under any degree of analysis that doesn't make any sense. No moto.

That's the whole point. It's motocross (an existing sport), but with bikes.

Back in the 1970's it was just bike motocross because it was for the kids who were racing the events. The NBA and the ABA were the sanctioning bodies and every kid registered and rode with a number plate. It was the wild time of the sport where new stuff came out every week and we spent hours every week getting the kids ready for the next event, I learned how to blow grips on and off with ease and even how to true a wheel using the bleachers at the ABA races in Indy. Smiles, MH

Of course the similarities end at the gate start. BMX has basically become a mass-start pump track event. Motocross-- or supercross-- has only increased in amplitude as the years have passed.

You don't have to convince me that they're not exactly the same thing. It was dubbed that because they were similar activities, riding two-wheeled vehicles around bumpy dirt tracks.

I think people were a lot less anal-retentive in the 1970s...

People had better grasp of the language then, too. Most would have recognized that anal-retentive is not applicable to anything posted anywhere in this thread. If you want to call me something, pedantic would be more fitting.

That works. Cheers. :)

I remember Steve McQueen in the Great Escape being a big influence on us to go out in the dirt and do things that broke our bikes. We were all pulling the banana seats and high bars off our bikes. By the time sanctioned BMX came along our driveways were littered with 20 inch bike parts from all the broken rides. I went to a race at Merritt College in the Oakland hills in the early 70's and I really envied the bikes those kids were riding. Groomed course, berms, jumps.. not to mention the helmets and gloves. It was bicycle moto-cross.

Without looking, do you know what "BMX" stands for?
 

Yes, and that's why it always seemed a little odd to me that the term BMX is used when referring to stunt riding and tricks in parks and on city streets.

How about a plastic container being called a "glass"...