a scruffy ruffian
I guess it’s been spring for a while but I’ve been too busy to notice. The weather is appalling though.
Had a BBQ at the weekend in semi-arctic conditions. Oh England! Didn’t remember to use the camera either.
Went to the Peak District a month or so ago, but only put the pictures up last week. You can see them on flickr.
When we found the new house we were actually looking at a different house, but it was a long walk to the station, so we decided to walk it to see how far it was. We ended up walking to the wrong station, and on the way we got a bit lost and I saw a bike abandoned in some bushes. Then we carried on looking for the station, and on the way we saw another house, which ended up being the house we went for.
This house is much better as it is right by the station. The only down side is that it’s a bit of a slow line, and there is a much fast line just a couple of miles away.
Last week I went to see if the bike was still there. It looked untouched, so i moved it to a slightly different position to see if anyone ever used it.
So last night I went back to see if the bike was still there. It was in a bit of a state, and looked like no-one had ridden it for a long time (handlebars all twisted, brakes locked up, flat tyres), but only took about an hour to sort out and now I have a bike to get to the fast station on. I might be home in under an hour tonight.
A free bike is a good bike. Some pictures…
This is really good. Some really creative tricks in there.
I am having a clear out and have just come across some classic BMX videos on VHS which I want to get rid of. There is
Take them before they go in the bin!
Wow I didn’t do an update at all in March. That’s rubbish. I don’t like to use a computer when I am at home as I use them too much at work. Also I went away for a bit. Should have some photos up from that soon.
Really not much else is going on. Playing lots of music at the moment, and I even braved one song on last.fm if you know where to look.
A while back I was taken out with work to a posh restaurant in Camden when the new site went live. Saw Samantha Fox. She is funny looking.
Also I bought a ukulele and lost it again almost straight away. It made it all the way across Europe and back and then I left it on the train. What a plonker.
For people that like trees this is a really cool slideshow:
I really like this one:
Another site I make is bmxnews.info. Last month it had over 3000 visitors, which is pretty high for a site I have made (between 100 and 200 visits a day I think). If you use the site and you have any feedback then let me know – any improvements, or sites which need to be taken off or added?
This article prompted me to write down something which has been going round in my head ever since I saw Ruben Alcantara riding a competition a year or so ago. I realised that while Ruben wasn’t doing anything that hard (compared with everyone else I mean, not compared to me!) I enjoyed watching him a lot more than anyone else.
I think there is a growing concern amongst some riders that BMX Freestyle is becoming too competitive – it seems to be simply a matter of who can do the most rotations, or whip the most time. This has always been one of the most controvertial questions in BMX – tricks or style? Riders have been trying to find the right balance since the inception of Freestyle BMX, and this has led to different ways of presenting it.
Part of riding is sharing your skills with others who can enjoy watching and learning from each other. We have competitions, jams, demonstrations and videos, which are all different ways of trying to make riding accessible to people.
Personally I don’t much like competitions – it’s the scoring that gets me down. Scoring is such a subjective and personal thing. This isn’t only true in BMX but in any which is measured subjectivly.
This is what concerns me about Freestyle BMX being in the olympics. Races are different. In a race there is a clear winner. That is true for most olymics sports – who can throw the furthest, who can jump the highest etc. However they aren’t all like this. Gymnastics is much more subjective. There’s a lot of technique in there, but it’s still a personal things. This has meant that in order to make a fair scoring system, there has to be a whole list of rules about what is good and what isn’t.
Imagine if BMX became like that. “No that x-up gets marks taken off, the front wheel hit your toe”. “No that table top is not up to scratch, your knee was in contact with the top tube”.
Some people might think this is a good thing. Some people like rigidity and rules, and that is totally fine, but I don’t. For me BMX Freestyle is not a sport and it’s not a competition. However pompus it sounds, it’s a form of personal expression, a form of performance art, like music, dancing, sculpture and (in my opinion gymnastics).
I think BMX Freestyle should be split in two: Sport BMX and Performance BMX (those names might not be very good!) Then the people who want to do triple 1080 flip-whips can be happy and go and win gold medals at the olympics, and I can go and watch Ruben and people who make riding a bike look fun without worrying about what score he should get.
I’d be interested to know other people’s opinions…
I have been tidying up the site a bit. Simplifying things and moving things round a bit. Also been working on this: .
Hope you’ve been enjoyin the snow.
scruffian 