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30 Signs That You Were A Mid-School BMXer

If you don't understand then you just weren't there

4 Dec 2016

Midguyslider2

Words by Joey Spinoza

Was BMX better back in the mid-school era? Print was thriving, videos showed more of the fun side of BMX, the web was ‘emerging’ and you could land with your foot off the pedal and still have it counted (even if your name is Joe Rich). Social media hadn’t formed enough of a bubble to completely engulf us and FBM were happily proving that fire, beer and BMX were simply meant to be. However - we need to face up to the fact that time has moved on and that most of us never really adjusted to a wider set of bars.  Here’s 30 signs to remind yourself you were really there.

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1.  You had a pair of Primo V Monsters and you thought they were indestructible. So did we.

2.  Your blood boils when you see a new BMX video featuring an old school trick. It’s like no one asked if it was okay to re-use it.

3.  Your back hurts, all the fucking time.

4.  You are consistently un-happy with the rising price of BMX tires.

5.  In your world, a bar spin involves the complete removal of both hands from the bars. Otherwise it’s a bus driver but only YOU use that term so it’s sort of redundant to anyone 30 or younger.

6.  A curb or a flat rail is considered a practice area and never would you film a legit clip on either.

7.  “Everything’s a bit flatland, isn’t it?” is something you've said more than once recently.

8.  You still shake your head irritably when you see a pair of yellow tires.

9.  You’re posting more #TBT's on Instagram than new riding posts. 

10.  The last time you went riding you didn’t land a single trick and spent 80% of the time talking about getting the heads cleaned on your old VX.

11.  There was a time when you feared the coming of DVD’s. You remember it well.

12.  Van Homan means everything to you. You feel that he embodies similar attributes to a Supreme Being or God; you wish he still had a 44-tooth chain ring though.

13.  Facebook becomes your ‘complaining zone’ and you find consolation and comfort from your older friends who agree that BMX has lost its way.

14.  You think Jamie Bestwick still rides for KHE.

15.  You remember when your trousers were wider than your bars.

16.  You had a Poor Boy backpack and it was terrible at doing the job it was designed for.

17.  You have a large collection of Props on VHS.

18.  You remember how those Ells Bells videos were really weird and they lasted forever.

19.  The words Lengthy and Shorty make you feel warm inside.

20.  You felt sad when the bash guard made way for the grind disk.

21.  You owned a pair of beige cargo pants. Do not argue this one.

22.  You often reminisce when Joe Rich and Taj Mihelich started T-1, stating that it felt like a tectonic plate had shifted and created a brand new era in BMX - it was called the glory days.

23.  You remember the birth of finger bikes. You bought one for your kid but they hate it because it’s not an app. You often play with it. Alone.

24.  You were (just) too old and a bit fat to wear girls jeans, yet you still tried.

25.  You cut out bits of plastic bottles and inserted them down your rims to stop the inner tube forcing its way out of the holes in your tires.

26.  You still own some Little Devil stickers but you can’t see yourself ever sticking them anywhere. Instead they remain in a box. Your girlfriend thinks you are odd because of this box.

27. You wore a peaked beanie.

28. The Backyard Jam was to you what Woodstock was to your parents, without the sex (well, for most of us anyway).

29.  Every time you fix a light bulb you think of Lou Bickel.

30.  When they removed the flanges on hubs, they removed a little piece of your heart.

Woah there I hear you shouting, trucker cap on backwards, chain wallet dangling in the wind… “How did you define mid-school?” Well, this is what we think. A lot of people used to say that old school died around 1990 and mid-school took over, then the new school came around 2000. We think that’s shifting and mid-school is spreading out from around 1990-2005. Feel free to add your comments, memories, and thoughts below. We love to read constructive feedback whether it's good or bad. Alternatively you could just leave a turd emoticon and go eat avocado bark in a miserable parking lot.

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