Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Session


In the past fifteen months, I've written about 350 blog posts about my days in BMX freestyle. But this whole time, I've just been an old, fat guy pecking at a computer, writing about "the good old days." This has been partly because because I think somebody needs to write this stuff. But's been mostly because after years of homelessness and other assorted craziness, I wound up sleeping on the floor of my parents tiny apartment in a town where I don't have a chance in Hell of ever getting a good paying job. I had time and a computer, so I started writing.
You've all heard me bitch about this whole situation way too much, even though I try to keep it to a minimum. During this time, a bunch of you have written to encourage me to keep writing, Sean Murphy from Standard has become my unofficial promotions guy, spreading news about this blog and the FREESTYLIN' one. I thank you all for the comments and encouragement along the way.
But a guy I never met named Nick Ziegler took this encouragement to a whole 'nother level. He got a bunch of people to donate parts and sent me a bike that I couldn't possibly afford. I'll show some pics and details in the next couple posts. The wheels showed up yesterday, and I spent the evening getting the bike running. I got out on it last night, but the chain was a little too long, so this morning I got the bike actually running. Then I went out for a ride.
I started really getting into BMX jumping in 1982, followed shortly by racing and then freestyle. Like many of you, I rode two or three hours a day for the next ten years. Even after fading out of the industry in the mid '90's, I was still riding some kind of bike every day until I became a taxi driver in 1999. Taxi driving is a lifestyle, not a job, so I sat in a cab and got fat for several months. Then I lost my license for not paying a fine and got back to riding nearly every day until I started driving a cab again in late 2003. Then the daily sessions ended, and I spent the next four years sitting in a car up to 23 hours a day. I ballooned up to 374 pounds at one point, nearly died from cellulitis, a gnarly bacterial infection, three times. As most of you know, this led to a year on the streets, and finally to my parents' apartment in a state I'd never lived in. A state where BMX and freestyle barely exist. Yes, I know a handful of top contest riders live in NC, and Eastern Bikes is here, but there is no scene at all in this part of the state. Being a BMXer and being here is like going back in time 30 years. It's frustrating for a lot of reasons. For a couple of decades, my bike was my main way to relieve frustration. And I didn't have one here. Until yesterday.

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