Taking a BMX off road.

The street I grew up on was fairly flat and straight which meant that we could ride our bikes up and down it safely. As we got older we were allowed to go round the 'corner' in the road and eventually down to the next street which was a cul-de-sac. 

Eventually we were allowed all of the way around the block. Which was exciting. 

All of this was on tarmac, none was on grass - we had a park although that was a place to ride too, not a place to ride at. 

Often we would race each other up and down the street however the bikes very much stayed on pavement/tarmac. When we got too big for our kiddie bikes and got 'mountain bikes' the closest they ever got to off road was country lanes, fire road and the occasional canal towpath. 

All of which means actively searching for off road is still fairly new too me. As in I have been 'proper' mountain biking (with actual mountains) for just over a year now. 

As such when I reminisced about my BMX - for paper round purposes - recently I got a lot of replies on forums about how people learnt to ride off road on one. People also talked about their development of skills that are useful/required/additional (depending on preference) to good off road cycling. 

So when I saw an advert on Gumtree for a BMX at a reasonable price I went for it. £20, happy days, turns out it was an ex student selling it which is very odd/weird. 

Yours for the cost of an round!

Naturally I was keen to get out and try the BMX off road properly but like all things in life I had to wait. 

And wait.

And wait.

Now during this time the p7 was in the bike shop being repaired. Coincidentally on the Saturday that I had planned to ride the BMX the p7 was fixed. 

So finally after picking up the p7 I headed out on the BMX. 

The ride can be viewed almost in its entirety here. Now the ride itself lasted a mammoth 25 minutes. 

Not deliberately but mostly due to the broken brake lever.

I LOVE fixing bikes...

However once I have sorted the brake lever and made the bike slightly safe again I intend to take it out once more. 

Not to practice jumps and manuals etc because I am just not skillful enough to do that, in fact the video footage always shows my 'epic' attempts at being nothing more than riding like it is a drop and surviving (must book a skills session). 

No the reason I will be going back out on the BMX again was because, even with the big crash, it was so much fun. When I got home and reviewed the GoPro footage all I could hear was myself giggling away.

Yes I still have to work on selfies!

So even if I look ridiculous, even if the crashes are surprisingly painful, I will be back out trundling along on the BMX off road, Giggling away and loving every second of it.

Which is totally narwhal! (Did I use that right?)