You know what I’m sick of in BMX? Fun. So sick of fun. Keep reading, I promise I’m going somewhere with this.
I used to have this friend when I was in 8th grade. And when I was in 8th grade, I was still a virgin. But this dude wasn’t, this guy had a girlfriend and he banged her. A lot. How do I know? Because the dude would talk about doing her all the time. And it was weird, because who the fuck wants to hear about that? Like don’t get me wrong, talking about sex is often funny, entertaining, amusing, etc. But this dude took it way too far and would just talk about it too much. It’d be one thing if he was telling funny stories about weird stuff that happened during sex, but that wasn’t the case, he was just talking about how much he enjoyed banging her. To me, the fact that you enjoy having sex with your girlfriend is obvious. If you didn’t enjoy having sex with your girlfriend, that would give you pretty solid grounds to no longer be dating her. It’s the kind of thing that just doesn’t really need to be said.
How does this relate to BMX? It barely does, but I’m always reminded of that dude in 8th grade when I hear BMXers talk about “fun” all the time. There are a bunch of companies out there that put the word “fun” on their shirts, talk about it all the time, etc. And that just seems so fucking stupid to me. Like, do you really need to remind yourself all the time that BMX is about having fun? What the fuck else would it be about? Less than 1 percent of the people reading this will ever make money from bike riding. Only slightly more will ever get a photo in a magazine or have a video part in a video. For the vast majority of people who ride BMX, fun is all you’re ever going to get out of BMX, so what reason is there to ride besides fun?
My Dad plays golf. And the way he tells it, he sucks at golf. He’s 57 and he’s never been good at golf, but given his age I’m sure he’s not planning on getting any better at golf. But regardless when the weather’s decent he’ll usually go play with his friends once or twice a month. They’ll drive to some golf course early in the morning, play golf for a few hours, talk shit to each other, crack jokes, etc. Then when they’re done they’ll go get some food, drink some beers and hang out for a while longer, then they’ll drive home and that’s that.
That whole experience I just described is pretty similar to what riding is like for a lot of people. You meet up on a Saturday morning, you ride all day, get some food, hang out, then you go home. Granted most people who ride BMX go riding more than my Dad and his friends go golfing, but you get the idea. But I don’t think it’s ever occured to my Dad or any of his friends to discuss whether golf is fun or not. Because if it wasn’t fun, why the fuck would they be doing it? There’s a lot of stuff they could be doing besides golfing. He could go put in some extra hours at his job, do some lawn work, hang out with my Mom. He’d save money too, because I’m pretty sure golf is fairly expensive (by this point you might have realized that I’ve never been golfing).
There are kids out there that take BMX really seriously, which is the reason I’m guessing companies have felt the need to incorporate the word “fun” into their marketing. To kind of remind everyone that they started riding BMX to have a good time and that they shouldn’t forget that. But come on man, those kids are fucking fags and I’m not really into the idea of pandering to the absolute bottom of the BMX barrel. If you even find yourself wanting to take the time or energy to acknowledge kids like that, then you’re pretty much admitting that you’re not 100% confident in your own reasons for riding.
