BMX Rated, For Your Pleasure, With Color Pictures!

This past Saturday was exciting. I did laundry. Then I went and bought cat treats and eggs at a local grocer. After polishing off the cat treats (just kidding, they were for my cat Mimi, and by "cat" I mean a docile hobo I captured last year and keep in a cage. He is well behaved and kind to all. I will release him into the wild... soon), I remembered there was some sweet BMX action at the new Lexington track. It was "Nationals" so that meant Pros racing alongside the kids. No pros were spied on Saturday but there was still plenty of action, action, action! The average length of a race was around 38 seconds. That meant you could cram in about 70 motos in an hour. Good lord! It was almost too much as I approached sensory overload. As one age group would round turn 2, the starting gate would release another age group, like waves of X-Wing fighters hurtling through space to confront a giant space orb that destroys planets. No giant space orbs that destroy planets showed up (apparently, I can't use "Death Star" as stupid-head George Lucas is quite litigious) but there were plenty of jeans and even some purple cords on the race track. As a mountain bike racer, it still perplexes me as to why you would want to wear jeans in a race. Of course cut-offs that hide my thunder are obvious for race day kit choices (a tip of the hat to Tobias Funke) but full length jeans are a head scratcher. Oh well, that's BMX fashion for you. As for the races, there was much styling and profiling. Smooth does not begin to describe some of the riders through the rhythm sections. A wreck here and there, but most riders had their situations in control, Janet Jackson style. As BMX is the true,original single speed, I marveled at the rainbow of chain ring colors on display. Blue, purple, red, gold, pink, and green were all seen (usually with matching hubs and sometimes with matching handlebars!). I love my Truvativ chainring, but dang it, why can't they make something a little jazzier than matte black? So in conclusion, we mountain bike riders can't hold a candle to the BMX crowd. I'm sorry, it's true. They wear jeans. They have mustaches (even the children). They don't care about bike weight. They only have to race for 38 seconds. They have bands like Lucero on their DVDs (sorry, had to put in a plug for good buddy John Stubblefield's outfit). They have Sandy Emmanuel (Hawley purchaser and BMX ragamuffin) in their corner. They saved E.T....
(late edit. As we left the track, we saw Jeff "Cash-Splash Stache That never Leaves a Rash unless You're Eatin' Barbeque Hash" Rickard walking confidently through the teeming hordes of mustachioed child-racers. Who is Jeff? Well gentle reader, he is the man who warps time and space in order to find room in our cramped warehouse for the water bottle cages and arm warmers your local dealer stocks in their shelves. So the next time you walk into whatever shop you frequent, or if you're a shop owner, think of Jeff Rickard... and his mustache, taunting you.

They planned this maneuver:

One of the jazzier bikes out there:

Three years old:
Three year old versus five year old:

Best death/concentration face of the day:
9 year old girls obliterate the course:
Joshie's favorite part: The Wrecks!!!