When I was a kid I would get so sick of old guys always talking about the “old days” and it seemed to me that they were just past their prime and stuck in the past. Now that I am an old guy (by most of my readers calendars anyway) I tend to find myself doing the same thing, but now I think its because in some weird way I hope to impart some sort of wisdom that took me so long to learn. Information I wish I had back when I was younger.  

Like, how to make a Joe Rich Special. Does anyone remember what that is? I think back in Terrible One zine #1 there was a illustrated diagram of how to make a Joe Rich special. Its one of my guilty pleasures actually and involves eating at Taco Bell. That’s outright sacrilege in a town like Austin where there is so much great and cheap Mexican food so I usually keep this to myself.

Why would I eat such processed crap food? For some reason I like it. Take a tostada, flip it upside down, plop a side of rice on top of the over turned tostada and then break it apart with your spork. Delicious. Takes me back to the days of living in Bethlehem, PA riding trails all day and starving for some decent salsa.

Sandy Carson took me to the newish pump track up in North Austin for the first time. What a good time. The whole pump track concept is amazing. I love the idea of dirt jumps that every skill level can ride an enjoy. Most everything is rollable or table tops, and lots of berms. So cool. I got to ride with some of Austin’s OG riders there. Old men on kids bikes. But there was also some new kids, just learning and then Sandy and I had a great time too trying to link together lines and racing through berms. I recommend anyone starting out building trails to start with one of these. They are easy to build (since everything is smaller) and you will help create a scene of riders because anyone can have fun there. 

I stole this photo of Jeff Pearce from 9th st BMX. I’m sure you guys can sue Transworld/TimeWarnerAOL for like a zillion dollars thanks to my illegal usage of your image.  

Jeff Pearce was there and he’s been riding longer then anyone I know. Its so inspiring seeing people still enjoying riding after so long. Seeing Pearce reminded me about Austin’s original cruiser scene. Back when I moved here in the early 90’s there were as many riders on 24″ BMX cruisers as on 20″s. Maybe I’ll have to get cruisin’ myself soon as old age approaches. Bigger wheels do make things a lot smoother. 

It got me thinking of old Austin in general. This place was so mellow. Most of the riders didn’t read magazines or watch videos. The internet hadn’t even been invented yet. I think thats why so many of the dudes were on cruisers. They just didn’t even know they were abnormal in the BMX world on their big bikes. Everyone was just riding because they enjoyed it. Thats probably more or less true about anyone on a bike from any time or place, but the magical part about Austin was how laid back everyone was (in all walks of life).

Austin is still remarkably chill. I could do with out the new group of trail nazis that are starting to show up, but overall I think most of the people on bikes here have a true love of riding and still want to share it with everyone else. Take it from an old guy, don’t mix salt and BMX, its too fun to spoil.