BMX Update November 18, 2009

I’ve got the BMX racing bug.

It’s fun. It’s fast (well, sometimes). It’s competitive. It’s great for skill transference to the MTB. And BMX racing is strangely addictive.

With all that in mind, I decided to look into getting a race BMX. Now, my Giant BMX was a great bike, bought to see if I would actually enjoy BMXing (with the added bonus that it was pink), but it’s really designed for street/park/jump-style riding – and being made of chromoly steel, it was insanely heavy.

Armed with money from the sale of my Giant BMX and my Santa Cruz Chameleon frame (I had given up my dreams of singlespeeding some months ago after all the trouble it’s caused with my knee), the search for a race BMX began. Race BMXs tend to be lighter (alloy frames.. and that’s about as far as my research into them went). Unfortunately, they are kind of hard to come by in Dunedin. In fact, as it turns out, not many of the major bike companies bring race BMXs into the country, or even make them. However, I managed to get my hands on a 2010 Haro Pro race BMX:

And of course, with a new BMX, I just had to get some new BMX racing kit. So an order was placed with Sports Pro for a Fox MX top..

and matching MX pants..

Armed with a new bike and new riding kit, I headed to my fourth BMX club race last Thursday. I was feeling slightly self-conscious with all my new kit, but I needn’t have worried. The first thing one of the kids said to me was “oh! you finally got your own kit!”. Huh. Guess I was more conspicuous when I didn’t have the “right kit” on!

The new bike behaved well, and accelerated a lot faster than the Giant. In the past few weeks of BMXing, I’d been moving between A, B, and C grades, with my best being a 3rd in A grade, my worst being a 4th in C grade. Last week was no different really. It was quite a good confidence-booster winning my first moto of the night though! Go the new bikey!! I can’t wait to take it out tomorrow for the next BMX club night.

So my weeks of riding are getting into a bit of a pattern: Monday night womens ride, Tuesday night MBO Club ride, Wednesday morning gym rehab session, Thursday night BMX, Friday morning gym rehab session, and a ride (or two) in the weekend, with another gym session on Sunday. It’s nice having a wee bit of structure to the week, but it’s also fantastic that quite a lot of the riding I do nowadays is quite social. It sure makes a change from the last couple of seasons. From the race last weekend, I realised that to get to the fitness and endurance levels that I would like to be at, I have a bit of work ahead of me. What I don’t want to lose however, is the motivation to ride. So the emphasis this summer is going to be on fun. And if I happen to get fitter, faster, and stronger while I’m out there doing that, then that’s just a bonus.