Figuring it out: Half a Lifetime on a BMX, by Conor.
BMX has been part of me for literally half my life. I started on my 15th birthday, when I received a beginner complete from Mongoose: loose ball bearing hubs, three-piece cranks, and a sprocket smaller than what was usual at the time. I reckon it lasted about a year and a half before one of the welds finally gave out. Within that time, the bike went through a lot of changes, and it taught me even more. Tricks and bike control, of course, but also lessons about sizing, compatibility, what’s worth investing in, and what you can cheap out on just to keep rolling.
But two moments stand out above the rest: pulling the brakes off for the first time, and giving it my first rattle-can paint job. Both carried the same mix of excitement and nerves, feeling a little bit naughty, while also asking myself, “What if I don’t do it right? What if I mess up?” The paint job was mostly cosmetic, so not much to lose there. Riding brakeless however, can be much more catastrophic, but the benefits in bike control soon shine through.
Back then, I thought I’d be riding as much as possible until I was on death’s door. But gradually, my relationship with BMX has shifted. And it’s only recently that I’ve realised just how much. Now, I’m trying to process and make sense of this change, and maybe even justify to my younger self why it’s okay that things turned out this way.
As I mentioned, I started riding at 15, and from then until about 18 I was at my most passionate about BMX. I rode every single day I possibly could. Even if I was sick, I’d still head to the skatepark. If I was sore, I’d push through it. We’d ride to school and back, grab a quick bite, change, and then ride until it got dark. On weekends, from 10 a.m. until sundown. Summer holidays? Same thing. And when winter came, even the rain didn’t stop us, we’d just find somewhere undercover.
One of our rainy-day spots had cones and safety tape, so we just used to practice bunny hops and 180’s over the tape. At first, the cones were close together so the tape sat low. We’d take turns hopping it, then dragged the cones further apart so the tape stretched higher and higher. By the second winter, we were stacking cones on top of each other just to squeeze out a little more height.
And when I wasn’t riding? You can bet I was watching BMX videos, probably to the detriment of my school grades. I watched so many that I even started a Tumblr account where I’d post my favorite video of the day. That period was without a doubt my most progressive, though most of it was spent at skateparks. My local one was more street-oriented but limited in size, which pushed me to stay creative and willing to ride almost anything (except the really big ramps). We did venture into the city center a few times, but not nearly as much as I would have liked, Because in the end, street riding was what inspired me the most.
New York street riding, specifically. Mid-2000s videos like Animal’s Can I Eat?, or anything from Skapegoat, Skavenger, Chocolate Truck, and Zoo York, those were just so gritty and raw. Mark Gralla and Matt Miller really stood out. Wallrides out of cellar doors, wallrides into cellar doors, gaps from one cellar door to another, stalls on window sills above a cellar door… you get the idea. You really have to watch it to fully understand.
That’s exactly how I wanted to ride. Unfortunately, the UK doesn’t have many cellar doors to offer, especially when your only spots are the ones your local crew knows around the skatepark, and you’re about to move to a small university town. So that style of riding had to be put on pause.
It’s also worth noting that somewhere during this phase, I picked up skateboarding and aggressive inline. I’d mess around with those whenever my bike was broken, and I couldn’t afford to fix it yet. Those sports ended up feeding back into BMX, they helped me with bike control and trick mechanics. For example, learning to boardslide on a skateboard somehow translated into figuring out crankarm grinds on my bike.
The next phase started when I went to uni. Looking back, this is when things began to slow down. At first, I was still riding three to four times a week, but by the end of those four years it had dropped to just a handful of sessions a month. Life got in the way: new friends, studying, a job. I remember working long bar shifts, getting messages in the group chat about everyone going riding, while I was stuck inside watching the sun rise on one side of the building and set on the other. Not exactly ideal for someone who craved sunlight and being outdoors, but I had to make money somehow.
Another factor was the local skatepark. It leaned heavily toward park riding, lots of jump boxes, spines, volcanoes. They can be fun, but I was never great at riding them. I’d usually just bail off the side to flat, or repurpose them as makeshift fun boxes (two banks with a flat in the middle). The saving grace, though, was the pair of long square rails. That’s where I spent most of my time.
This was the point where my riding style shifted again. I moved away from doing lots of “tricks” and into more technical grinds, hopping over rails into grinds, spinning into and out of them, sometimes even linking the two. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized this style takes a real toll on your body. You’re landing on pegs, not tires, so there’s no cushion. Since pegs slide instead of roll, they fight against you, and with no spring from tires, every movement becomes exaggerated. It’s all about balance and precision, and setting up properly before the next move can eat up a lot of time.
There are pros and cons. On the plus side, it’s incredibly rewarding when you finally pull something off, and all that jolting and yanking definitely builds strength. On the downside, it’s exhausting, time-consuming, and leaves you sore for days, especially when you’re riding less often. In the end, I dropped certain tricks altogether. It still wasn’t the exact type of riding I wanted to be doing, but it was at least more street-oriented, a step closer to the style that had always inspired me.
Seven years down the line, I felt like my BMX journey had been a bit constrained, unconventional, and lacking in travel. Even though my riding was street-oriented, I wouldn’t have called myself a “street rider” at that point, since most of my sessions were still confined to skateparks. We used to film clips, but they were mostly for smaller day edits, I’d never really worked toward a bigger project.
In many ways, this was probably the purest half of my riding journey. I was riding purely for myself, learning a wide spectrum of skills and tricks without worrying about what anyone else thought. The downside, though, was that most of it looked pretty sketchy and unpolished. Lots of correction hops, very little style. If I had to sum it up, I’d say my riding just looked… unfinished.
Queue the move back to my hometown. Most of the people that I rode with before had quit, so motivation for riding had dipped even more. Weirdly, although BMX is something that you do mainly on your own, the environment is a very social one. You find your people and stick with them, egg each other on and support everyone. A lot of these little groups turn into “crews”. Luckily I had found one in Shweng, a group from the midlands with ties country wide who were filming longer length street videos… CONSTANTLY.
When I moved back home, I worked in another bar, to the detriment of my mental health. I had lost motivation to do anything. I was nocturnal, and if I did make my way out of my room before having to go back to work, I was a zombie. Thankfully, and I doubt they know this, the guys at Shweng gave me something to work towards and get excited about, and when we finished one video, we started filming for the next. It was a huge help and through this, BMX had become a bit of a coping mechanism.
A couple of the guys helped me become more polished with my tricks too. Where before I would have counted a trick with a correction hop, now because it was being filmed for something more serious, I would try again until it was landed (subjectively) perfectly. Tricks were now fully rotated and properly extended. We also travelled round a bit more, venturing further out than just the city centre. They knew where all the good street spots were, not just small stair sets and manuel pads. Proper ledges, rails, quirky transitions and wallrides were now thrown into the mix, which is exactly where I wanted to be.
The last stage, which takes us up to the present, began during Covid quarantine. I’d gone down south to visit my girlfriend, and the very next day the UK went into lockdown. No trains, no coaches, no car, I was “stuck.” I say “stuck” because, in reality, it was the best place I could have been for my mental health. The only issue was that I didn’t have any of my things, most frustratingly, no bike.
The solution? Facebook Marketplace, of course. £200 later I had a full build. It was a bit dated, with tiny dropouts that meant no pegs for the time being, but that turned out to be a blessing in disguise. It forced me to get creative, sharpen my bike control, and think about riding differently.
When quarantine ended, I decided to stay in the south. I landed a new job outdoors, creative, with regular hours, so I wasn’t stuck in a dimly lit bar anymore, and for the first time in years I had some structure. I met a couple of new friends, and together we formed our crew, Dogeth. Some of you might know the name from the last couple of LLT zines, where my photos were based around the filming of our video.
These filming trips were where my riding finally shaped into what I’d always wanted it to be. The other guys in Dogeth were into the same style of spots I’d been chasing for years, so together we actively went looking for them. We covered most of the mid–south coast towns, from Portsmouth to Eastbourne, a 75-mile stretch as the crow flies.
Wherever we ended up, the formula was the same: start at the local skatepark to warm up, then pedal around the town centre and surrounding streets, and finish in the industrial estates if there were any. That routine seemed to produce the best spots. And it worked. In fact, it worked so well that we had to consciously film extra grind tricks just to keep the video balanced, otherwise it would have been wallrides and janky transitions from start to finish.
We were riding every weekend, and at least once or twice during the week as well until something started to shift.
The combination of living with my girlfriend, a job that I actually enjoy with more structured weeks, very close friends and much better mental health caused me to stop riding as much. Essentially, the happier I got, the less I was riding, I wasn’t using it as a distraction anymore. BMX just kind of started to take a back seat, and it wasn’t because I don’t enjoy it as much as I did before.
When I worked in bars, my weekly rota was sometimes released the day before the next week started. Obviously the busiest times are the weekend so I would work all weekend. My days off were in the week, but I would only have a couple of days notice, subsequently, I could never make any plans, therefore riding my bike was the easiest thing to do. And because I worked evenings, I could ride throughout the day. This is great for the amount of riding I could do, but terrible for the social aspect as everyone else was at work when I wasn’t and vice versa. Now I have weekends free, EVERY weekend, I can actually make plans in the future. More plans mean less riding.
That is kind of a double edged sword, on one hand it gives enough time between learning something for it to settle into muscle memory and when I do get to ride I get that nervous excitement. On the other hand my body can’t take the beating as well. I’m sore for a couple of days after. My new job is landscaping, which means I’m all tuckered out by the time I get home so that’s one reason. And if I’m injured, I can’t work, which obviously I need to do to make a living.
I’m also a man of many hobbies. I take photos so some weekends I’m busy being out with a camra, and my uncle just started skating again after 36 years, so I’ve also been doing that with him sometimes.
I ride fixed gear bikes too, and that naturally takes up a certain amount of time. Days when I might have just fancied a quick skatepark session often get replaced by a longer ride on the track bike, or a car park session doing flat-ground tricks on the trick track setup. Then there are trips back up to the Midlands to see family.
All of these things add up to less time spent on something that, at one point, I thought would always be the most important outlet in my life. But none of them are negative. Each one has a positive impact, it’s just that, together, they outweigh the role BMX once held. And that’s why it’s okay that it has taken a backseat. It served its purpose and taught me more than I could have imagined. I am who I am because of it.
The different people you meet growing up at the skatepark teach you that everyone is equal. The situations you face in new and unfamiliar areas teach you how to deal with discomfort and make the best decisions at the moment. The countless hours spent trying a trick over and over teach you discipline, persistence, and also when it’s okay to walk away, knowing you can come back later. And the more tricks you learn, the easier it becomes to approach new ones. That lesson translates beyond BMX into life itself: experience stacks up, and things that once felt impossible eventually become achievable.
Without BMX, I wouldn’t be here writing this article, literally. It’s because of BMX that I started riding fixed gear. Because of that, I met Paul at the Slow Spin trick jam. If I hadn’t borrowed a BMX that day to kill time before the jam, Corentin (one of the guys behind Love Letter Turbo) wouldn’t have asked me to do a zine based around BMX. And without that, Paul wouldn’t have asked me to write this piece.
One last thing before I go: above all else, BMX teaches you about community and friendship. You learn something from everyone you meet along the way, and it’s always easier to do the thing you love when you’ve got the right people cheering you on. I’ve sat next to professional riders hyping up a 13-year-old kid trying to land their first 180. What other sport offers that kind of camaraderie between complete beginners and pros, without money or status getting in the way? So, to my younger self: sometimes life gets in the way. As you get older, new things come along and take up space. But that doesn’t mean you have to love any of them any less. They’re all just building blocks shaping the future you. And trust me, you’re doing alright.
✍️: @clarkestreet
📸: @clarkestreet
🎞: Kodak UltraMax 400/ Kentmere 400
📷: Leica M3/ 35mm Half frame/ 35mm Point and Shoot
📍: United Kingdom
