Kids’ bikes in boom sport
From : The SUN , February, 1981.
LONDON. —
With tense faces and crash helmets strapped
tightly under their chins, the dirt track riders strode towards
the starting line.... they were all five years old.
They were
taking part in the newest
craze to cross the Atlantic.
After hula hoops, frisbees, skateboards and the revival
of roller skates, a new fashion
is about to hit Britain.
You may not have heard
of it yet, but It's a fair bet that your kids will.
So be warned. . . it could
easily cost you hundreds of dollars.
Called BMX — standing for Bicycle Motocross— it consists
of a series of races for age groups ranging from 5 to 16
and
then, for oldsters, a class
of 17 and over.
It has its own private jargon too, Radpads, gooseneck bracing, knobly
tyres, alloy
rims and gear ratios are all part of
the
mystique.
An official organisation,
UKBMX, has
been set up and the rules are strict,
Parents are kept in their place.
After a race, protests must be lodged by the rider,
and parents must keep out of the argument.
Cycles must not have a gear change and earnest discussion
take place on the best sized ratchet
for the weather.
When racing, there must be no unecessarily
hard braking, ramming, cutting in or using arms and legs
off the bike.
The races are normally on
dirt tracks, which means a patch of open ground with
the track marked out with old car tyres.
Along the truck — usually about long — there are ramps placed
some 3 ft. high.
The cyclists storm up these, along
the flat at the top and, if they ate going fast enough, down with a leap through
the air
on to the ground.
If the weather is bad they move on to a tarmac
circuit. Races can also be held Indoors.
Depending on conditions,speeds range up to about 40 kph.
But on one track near Ipswich
which winds downhill in an S-shape, 60 kph
can be reached.
The machines—dubbed to "fly”—
are purpose-built. “The bikes that
are built and reinforced to take
a bashing as they up
the ramps and down the other side".
They have stainless steel handlebars,
molybdenum
or manganese alloy frames "lugged
and gussetted at all critical
stress
points”, according to one dealer.
But don’t think that these reinforcements
limit the bikes’ use to the track.
In fact, many
children have persuaded their
parents to buy one by mentioning
how useful they are for paper rounds — one way to help pay
for the overall cost.
Last year in the U.S. where it started in 1974, 4 million BMX cycles a were sold,
and professional sponsored riders
can
earn between $50,000 and $70,000 a year.
