Mountain biking’s feeble — but recovering — Great Uncle
Originally posted on January 7, 2008 at 21:52 pm
A few weeks ago, I mentioned that BMX would be making its Olympic debut at Beijing this summer — alas, only as an exhibition event. But considering that road-racing, track racing, and even mountain biking have been medal events forever, it’s kind of surprising it took this long.
This article about British BMX sensation Shanaze Reade gives a nice historical summary of how BMX developed in the early 70s, and then got upstaged by a lot of “freestyle” silliness (RAD, the movie — anyone?), and finally buried up to the neck by mountain bikes.
But the X-Games and Dave Mirra brought back BMX streetstyle, and this extended a lifeline back to BMX racing on dirt. Fascinating!
Photo: (cc) Creative Commons by Conductive, http://flickr.com/photos/41992302@N00/