With all this crazy talk about poseurs I decided to get a little spontaneous and head out the door in less than two minutes from Slowtwitch to wheels rolling. Wearing my khaki shorts, white tee, and Old Navy style button-up shirt I was going to go for a short ride. I put on my helmet, shoes, and glasses then grabbed a waterbottle and was out the door.
I am on a military base so there is a relatively large housing area full of kids and nice families with hardly any traffic. After about ten minutes of cruising around I came across some kids with the old “brick and plywood” ramp set up in front of the house. I was welcomed with a “Hey Dude” by what looked like the “leader” of this group. Not being able to afford ($$$$$ or pain tolerance) the consequences, I turned down the offer to “take that thing off this ramp.” Staring at my “crazy bars” and “pointy shoes” they asked me if I was a “racer.” I chuckled as I answered them with, “Nope, but I pretend to be sometimes.” That gave me the perfect in.
“I bet you can’t beat me on that BMX bike,” I challenged. A couple minutes later we are all racing around the block. Leading the pack of rugrats for a bit I slowed back and let about 2/3’s of them beat me (as much as it hurt). Cruising back around to where I met them I see this older looking guy standing out on the street by the ramp. At this point I am thinking, “Crap…all the kids around here and I probably pick the Commanding General’s son…” Rolling past him slowly he is giving me the eye and asked sarcasticly if I was having fun. “Yes, and so are they,” I answered. He just smiled, shook his head and walked back up towards his house. I am not stationed here (only TDY) so of course I had the quick cover story for who I “really” was if asked.
I rode back past the “leader” kid and told him he is pretty quick and that I was going to need to practice more. He asked me my name and I told him it was Lance. I thought they would call BS on that one but I guess they were a little young for current events. Anyway, I blamed his speed on the fact that his bike was chrome and told them to have fun on the ramp and keep wearing their helmets.
I am still smiling now and on my way home I was thinking about the days of making my own dirt trails, jumps, ramps, “ghost riding” my bike, and so on. I was thinking it might be cool to buy a beater BMX but they would probably call me a poseur if I did that.
That’s an awesome story…mde me smile just readinig it…I did all that stuff…me an a freind called ourselve “hell riders” and did all sorts of crap like that…keep it fun, man, keep it fun.
You have a lot of class. I would have beat them all by the hugest margin I could muster, then call each and every one of them a “loser” as they crossed the finish line.
called ourselve “hell riders” and did all sorts of crap like that
Another one I just remembered…“Rock Kickin’ Contests” where we would ride our bikes to school (Elementary) and start with one of the decorative rocks from a neighbors yard. We would take turns kicking it while we rode (like bike polo if you have heard of that) and try to get it all the way to school. Or go riding around and see who can keep there eyes closed the longest.
beat them…then call each and every one of them a “loser”
You have NO idea how hard it was…but I think the fast one is on EPO. At least that is the talk in the neighborhood.
“Cruising back around to where I met them I see this older looking guy standing out on the street by the ramp. At this point I am thinking, 'Crap…all the kids around here and I probably pick the Commanding General’s son…”
“…so of course I had the quick cover story for who I “really” was if asked.”
“Cruising back around to where I met them I see this older looking guy standing out on the street by the ramp. At this point I am thinking, 'Crap…all the kids around here and I probably pick the Commanding General’s son…”
“…so of course I had the quick cover story for who I “really” was if asked.”
Don’t really understand this part of the story.
To be totally honest I was ready to lie to the guy if he came at me with some BS military “I bet I outrank you” attitude. Not being from here I would have just spit out some bogus name or unit and rode off into the sunset. I don’t have time for that kind of crap. If you aren’t doing anything wrong and are just the target of some misdirected anger I think it is go time. Some on here (military most likely) may disagree but whatever.
Similar story happend at my home station once. We were out running on the LEFT side of the road. Well, I guess the “Blue Book” (book of magical rules that ALL must follow) says you have to run on the right when you are in a group on post. We were a group but I and a couple others were way out ahead and spaced out quite a bit (so individuals at that point). I was second and I saw the guy ahead of me talking to two people running towards him. Didn’t think anything of it and as they got closer one of the two ran ahead to meet me first. “The Chief of Staff is behind me,” he said. “Great,” I replied. “You better cross the street and run on the other side,” I was told. As the CofS comes running up I was answering, “You have got to be kidding me!” (This is the CofS for our post…not the army or anything like that.)
CofS: “WHO IS YOUR COMMANDER?”
Me still running: “CPT Pa…mumbled and trailing off” as I picked up the pace
I was thinking Holy Crap and started to try and catch my buddy way up ahead. Anyway, after our run our Captain came walking up…looking pretty beat down…and asked softly just what it was that we said to the CofS. Oops. Guess the endorphin high was a bit much.
Seems my buddy up front told him to “Read your Blue Book Sir” and just sprinted off…that, followed by my smartass and who knows what else behind me got him fired up good for when he got to our boss.
trifolk- he was ready to feed the guy some BS about who he was(he was gonna telll a white lie if the guy was a jerk and gave him crap). as a Marine, i’ve done this many a time
loved your story! my husband claims (in jest of course–he’s a real comedian, you have to understand) that he could beat the pants off of most triathletes on his beater BMX bike that he has from 8th grade. every time i ask him out to ride he says, “ok, but I’m taking my BMX bike…and you’ll have to eat my dust”. he’s too funny.
one of these days i really am going to buy him a banana seat and then make him ride with me. something tells me he would get a huge kick out this…lol.
Its a good thing he didn’t try that when you were dating…it might not have gotten him to far!
Wasn’t there some guy that did a race in NYC on his BMX bike and ended up all over the news?
I have some friends from PA that are “grown-up” now and ride freestyle quite a bit. They were approached by MTV a few years ago and ended up doing a “Made” episode where they converted a girl who could barely ride a bike into a backflipping freestyle girl after only a few weeks. Some of them compete and some just do it for fun. It is deffinately its own world just like road racing or triathlon. Here is their site www.rampupthejawn.net - it is a good place to check them out as well as see some old school and vintage bmx bikes that people here may remember.
Michael
By the way…that’s me working at the bottom of the home page.
Great story. And I’m glad you resisted the urge to take it off the ramp. If you’re like most guys, my guess is that it was more tempting than you let on.
…glad you resisted the urge to take it off the ramp…more tempting than you let on.
You are 100% correct. Potential for major cool point win or loss on that one!
