The Story of My Life, Part 3

I'd like to spend a little time discussing my earliest experiences with bicycles, and BMX.

First of all, unlike a lot of people, I didn't initially learn how to ride a bike until I was 7 or 8 years old. Consequently, I never went through the "training wheels" portion of learning, and skipped straight to just riding. Steep learning curve, I guess, but I don't remember having any trouble. My first bike was a black 20" Stingray copy with a big banana seat and ape-hanger bars; it was sweet for back then. I tore that bike up, completely. I did my coaster brake skids for so long that I'd blow out my tubes because the skids would grind all the way through the tire and the tube.

Once that thing was messed up beyond Dad's inclination to repair, They picked me up a real Schwinn Stingray at a yard sale. It was red where it wasn't rusted. I remember doing power wheelies on that thing all the way across the parking lot of what was at that point Nitro High School (the high school in Nitro now was the Junior High when I went there). What I don't remember is what happened to it, other than that it wasn't long before it had to be replaced.

My very first BMX-style bike was a blue Team Murray 2000. I have no clue what happened to that bike... I remember getting it, and I remember my best friend getting to next model up in their line (the 3000, go figure)... it had a freewheel.

By this point, I'd discovered Bill Curry's bike shop, then located in Nitro. I went in there to dream a whole lot, just looking at all these futuristic-looking bikes he had in there. He had a Redline hanging on a wall that I remember looking awfully sweet... Redline had become the standard for quality to me, because I'd heard of them and been told they were good.

I think I was ten or eleven when Mom and Dad brought me home the Open Road from Montgomery Ward. For a department store bike, that things was actually pretty sweet... real Ukai rims, full chromoly frame, my first freewheel hub... just a really high-quality bike for where it came from. I learned to jump and bunnyhop on that thing; at the age of eleven, I was getting about 4'-5' of air flying out of the bank jump to flat ground. I'd hit the jump fast and go straight up, over the boards we'd set up as a barrier/height measurement thing, and come down maybe a foot beyond the barrier. I wasn't jumping right at all; I was basically just bunnyhopping at a high speed at the top of the jump... but, by gum, I could sure as hell get some air like that.

It was on this bike, at this time, that I developed the habit of jumping on my bike and riding as fast as I could all the way from my house on 31st Street East to 2nd Avenue, then all the way down 2nd Avenue to where it ended at 1st Avenue, and then all the way back. At full speed, hopping all the curbs and generally hitting whatever obstacles I could think of. I was still only peripherally aware of BMX as an entity; I sorta knew what kind of a bike I had, and I was keenly aware that this one was actually taking the abuse I dished out, and I knew that the bikes at Curry's shop were pretty high-quality, but it was still just bike riding to me.

Dad had gotten some really serious burns at work at one point, and he got a sizable settlement out of it. I really had no idea what this meant at the time, but Mom and Dad apparently decided they'd get me a good bike from Curry's shop, finally, after I'd spent what seemed like years dragging the two of them in there any chance I got. One day, Dad took me in there and told me to look around and pick one to lay off; I, of course, chose a garish-looking "Laser" by Jamis. Thankfully, Dad was smart enough to talk to the dude selling the bikes, and, when it finally came time to pick up the layaway, I actually walked out of the shop with a blue 1987 Haro Master, and an issue of American Freestyler.

Man I loved that bike. I didn't get nearly enough time with that thing before it got stolen because I was an idiot. I had it for almost the entire summer when I was 13. Then, after school started, it disappeared, never to be seen again. I'd learned how to do a framestand and an endo.

We moved to Sandyville in October of 1987. I'll pick up the story next time with that.