CsHoSi

Just wanted to share my story of renewed enthusiasm riding BMX.

I got the bike new in 2007 and found out I suck at trick riding. Then I tried flatland tricks on it because I like games of balance, but I'm not cut out for that either it seems. I can do half of a fire hydrant and rolling tail whip, lol. I just can't get back on the pedals.

The bikes been hardly ridden the last few years. I don't want to sell it at a loss.

The last two months though I've put in more time on it than all the previous years combined.

What have I been doing on it then? Pedaling! Lots of pedaling! I started out riding it every other day for the first month and this last month I've been riding every day making the most out of the warm weather.

I'm feeling a lot stronger on it now. I used to really feel it in my thighs. Standing, I don't get knee pains on it like when I ride my hard-tail MTB on the street too much. I have the MTB setup for touring with front and rear racks, had a bike shop owner I trust check my fitment, but it still gives me fits.

Anyways, I've been riding 6-10 miles per day and it is lots of fun. I've even been taking it shopping with a backpack and I can reach any store across town. The furthest I rode it so far is 20 miles RT to visit some friends the next town over. They were surprised to see me on the BMX! My knees didn't bother me at all but my feet were kind of sore from standing on the pedals.

I've been riding it for fitness and fun. It handles like a champ and is just another style to keep biking fun. It's like interval training maybe, high-intensity pedaling on inclines, coast down the other side and do it all over again and again.

I thought about taking the pegs off for weight, but I like sitting down and stretching my legs out on the front pegs after a big climb and flying downhill. It's fun to steer with the pegs at speed too, like counter-steering on a motorcycle. Super responsive.

Great fun!

Toxinic

I agree with you, riding a BMX is very fun. I just take my MTB for the longer rides.

CsHoSi

Hi, glad to see my post seems to have prompted you to register on BikeForums.

Admittedly, I've been riding my MTB the last week since I'm down at the lake with huge Ozark hills and a long river-rock road to get to the (rough) pavement. But I've been riding 15 miles at a time. My knees only slightly aggravated when I rode back-to-back days even though I could feel it start to flare up at the end of the first ride.

Back to BMX, when I return to the city I'm ready to zip around on it again.

I wanted to mention how I carry things on my BMX.

When I'm just riding around, I have a small nylon bag that just has cordage for shoulder straps which also cinches the top closed. I fit in it my water bottle, a small hex key multi-tool and my keys. I don't like anything in my pockets. I'll also throw in my cable lock if I'm going to stop anywhere but don't plan on buying anything. I like riding with this little pack because my back stays a lot cooler than with a backpack.

If I'm going to bring stuff home though, I'll stuff everything in my big backpack. I've fit 15 lbs of stuff in there before, not near as fun riding, but certainly doable. You just want to get straight home instead of playing around.

Street rider

If your knees hurt, theres something off about your saddle height/fore or aft placement. And 15 lbs is nothing. I don't do laundry very often, so my laundry bag ends up being somewhere between 30 and 40 pounds when its fully loaded. Throw in the constant and powerful wind that is ever present where I live, and that **** sucks.

CsHoSi

How in the world do you fit all that laundry on your back? Is your laundry bag a military duffel bag? I sewed up a large laundry bag out of mosquito netting which holds 3 weeks worth of laundry and it is huge. It's a little bigger size than the US military duffel.

Regarding my knees on the mountain bike, I believe my height is correct, knees just barely don't lock straight. I had to buy the longest Thompson seat post to replace my stock one. I've played with the fore/aft quite a bit. I had the bike shop owner check me with a plumb bob. I think I'm going to ditch the clipless pedals next.

Street rider

You should definitely lower your saddle. Its too high. Your knee should barely not lock straight with your heel on the pedal, and the crank arm making the longest possible line from your body. The knee should be bent a little bit while pedaling, even at the longest motion of the revolution.

CsHoSi

Hi Street Rider, I do appreciate your responses regarding my knees. I did mean my knees don't lock when testing with heel on pedal. I'm not sure what you mean by the crank arm making the longest possible line from your body? I believe they are at 6 o'clock when I check.

I was thinking about it last night while falling asleep, and I probably haven't given the fore/aft enough of a chance. My knees are usually already flared up when I make adjustments for one. But I think I don't give the adjustments a chance because it alters my upper body stance in relation to the handlebars. I haven't changed the stem or bars on the bike.

I don't know, my hands go numb if I don't shift my weight off them now and again. I should get taller bars, my fork tube doesn't have any spacers. My feet get hot spots too which is another reason I'm thinking of putting platforms back on.

So, were you speaking of hauling your laundry on your back? Wow!

CsHoSi

OK, BMX post.

I don't carry tire-changing gear with me. I've accepted that I will walk home if something happens. With the pegs on I need a 19mm deep socket to loosen axle nuts, and the only one I have is an even heavier impact socket. Along with a sliding T-bar, spare tube and levers. I don't really want to carry all that riding around town. It sucks walking a bike but 5 miles isn't that far. Just takes a whole lot longer!

I carry the little hex key tool in case my cranks start creaking so I can loosen both compression bolts and re-tighten them. I've had to adjust my brakes too, without a wrench I tried to load the spring with my fingers but eventually left it loose for the rest of the ride.

I also I find I never wear a helmet when pedaling the BMX, whereas I always wear it when pedaling the MTB. Don't have a valid reason why, image I guess. If I go to a skate park though, I'm not ashamed to wear a full face. So, I don't know what my problem is there.

Street rider

I meant more of like a 7-7:30 position, really, so your leg is straight. And yea, I would take that laundry on my back. My bag is sort of like a military duffel, with backpack straps. It was only like two miles or so to get to my girlfriends apartment (had her own washer/dryer), so it wasn't awful.

Tulok

Try sliding your seat all the way forward, and make sure it's level or slightly nose up.

CsHoSi

Thanks for your suggestion, I just looked at my seat post and it's at 8 degrees up, though the saddle looks level. I need to get another stem before I try adjusting my saddle anymore forward. I will keep this in mind, though I haven't had much problems with my knees lately. I've been building back up slowly. Not up to my 25 mile fitness rides in 2 hours circa 2006, but I've been riding 13 miles in a few minutes under an hour recently on the MTB.

Now that it's winter I am going to put platforms back on it. I run Crankbrothers 50/50 pedals on the BMX and like them.

Something I find interesting, I scripted a database app to record my rides and pull metrics. I bought a Garmin Edge 500 GPS unit back in late October to record my rides since I didn't want a cyclometer on the BMX. Now, running the GPS on the MTB along with cyclometer it reports avg. speed at least .5 Mph less than cyclometer.

Since I started recording, I have 19 rides on the BMX and 25 on the MTB. My mean avg. speed on the BMX is 13.61 Mph, on the MTB 12.53 Mph for commuting and fitness rides. For fitness rides only, 13.79 Mph on BMX and 12.59 Mph on MTB. My max avg. speed on BMX is 14.5 Mph and 13.9 Mph on MTB.

Anyways, though my avg. distance on BMX is only 6.22 mi vs. 11.45 mi on MTB, I am faster on the BMX. I record the cyclometer values for MTB so the GPS values recorded for BMX are understated.

In the end, my mileage is all that matters to me, but it's fun to have the data to compute.

On another note, I'm getting a little better at manuals. We got a new city skate park and it's a lot better than the old one, of course it is still posted no bikes!