Rise of street riding

Street riding went from a minor category in 1980s freestyle contests to the dominant discipline of BMX in the space of about twenty years. The change was driven by pegs and grinding, by scenes in East Coast American cities, by the influence of skateboarding and by a video culture that rewarded creativity over contest results. Today the bike most people picture when they think of BMX is a street bike.

Sideshow: the 1980s

In the 1980s freestyle boom, "street" meant tricks done on whatever was around: kerb endos, bank airs, wall rides and bunny hops over obstacles. Some contests ran a street class alongside flatland and ramps, but it was not taken seriously. The bikes of the time, with their standing platforms and multiple brakes, were built for flatland and ramps, and skateparks were still the preferred place to ride.

Two developments at the end of the decade set up what followed. Riders began using axle pegs, originally for standing on in flatland, to stall and grind on ramp coping. And skateboarding, which had its own boom in the late 1980s, began moving from ramps to the streets, showing that urban architecture could be a playground in its own right.

Pegs meet the street: the 1990s

When the freestyle industry collapsed around 1989, riders lost their skateparks and their contests but kept their bikes. Street riding grew because it needed nothing. Riders took pegs to kerbs and found they would grind. Kerbs led to ledges, ledges led to rails, and by the mid 1990s grinding handrails was the defining act of BMX street.

The style of the decade was raw. Bikes were heavy, spots were rough and riders were learning as they went. The early Props Video Magazine issues and the Baco videos show street in this formative period: big drops, rail grinds, wallrides and a lot of crashing.

Skateboarding's influence was direct. Skaters had developed a vocabulary of street tricks and, more importantly, a culture of filming them. Street skating's video parts, with each skater's footage cut to one song, became the template for BMX. Riders began filming parts, hunting spots and judging each other by footage. Many BMX street riders of the 1990s had skated first, and the overlap in spots, clothing and attitude was obvious.

Through the 1990s street was also where riders went who did not fit contests. Flatland had its own circuit and vert and dirt had the X Games, but street had no contest to speak of. That made it the home of riders who valued style and originality over scoring, and gave it an anti-establishment identity it has never lost. See BMX in the 1990s.

East Coast scenes: late 1990s to mid 2000s

The scenes that turned street into a movement were on the East Coast of the United States. New York City and Philadelphia had dense architecture, endless ledges and rails, and a rider culture shaped by skateboarding and by the cities themselves.

Animal Bikes was founded in New York around 2000 by Ralph Sinisi and became the brand of East Coast street. Its parts, especially pegs and tyres, were designed for grinding and gaps, and its team was a who's who of the scene. The Animal videos Can I Eat, released in 2004, and All Day are two of the most influential street videos ever made. They presented street as a complete culture: spots, music, clothing, attitude and riding that was fast, aggressive and creative.

Edwin Delarosa from New York became the face of that era. His riding mixed technical ledge tricks with big rails and gaps, and his style, both on the bike and off it, was copied worldwide. In Philadelphia, Van Homan rode big, raw street for Little Devil, whose video Criminal Mischief is another landmark. Homan's willingness to ride huge rails and drops at a time when most riders were going smaller and more technical made him a hero of the scene.

These videos were seen everywhere. By the mid 2000s, riders in Australia, Europe and Japan were riding like New Yorkers, and street had become the default discipline for a new rider buying a bike.

Brakeless, pegless and the technical turn: 2000s

Two trends defined street bikes in the 2000s. The first was going brakeless. Removing the rear brake made barspins and other bar tricks simpler, saved weight and was a statement of commitment. It became common in East Coast scenes and spread through video. By the end of the decade many professional street riders rode with no brakes at all. The guide brakes or brakeless covers the practical side.

The second was the technical turn. Where 1990s street was about big rails and drops, 2000s street became about combinations: grinds into spins, spins into grinds, manuals linking obstacles and bar tricks over everything. Riders in Southern California, often riding schoolyards and skateparks with ledges, led this. The pegless style, built on manuals, hops and spins without any grinding, developed alongside it.

Bikes changed to match. Frames got lighter, top tubes longer, and head angles steeper for quicker spins. Pegs moved from steel to plastic-sleeved designs that slid on rough concrete. Gearing shrank so that sprockets cleared ledges. The 2000s street bike is recognisably the modern BMX.

Street goes mainstream: 2008 onward

The X Games added a street contest in 2008, nearly twenty years after street had become a real discipline. Garrett Reynolds won the first one and most of the next decade's, with riding so far ahead of the field that he redefined what contest street could be. Dennis Enarson and Chad Kerley joined him at the top, and street became a fixture of every major contest, including Simple Session and Dew Tour. See X Games.

Street also began to reach outside BMX. Nigel Sylvester, from New York, built a career on street riding presented as lifestyle, through films shot in cities around the world and partnerships with brands outside the bicycle industry. His work showed that a BMX street rider could be a public figure without contests at all.

Through the 2010s the freecoaster hub, which allows the bike to roll backwards without the cranks turning, became standard in technical street. Tricks done out of fakie exploded in number and complexity. Videos such as Writing on the Wall, Fit Life, Still United and Talk Is Cheap kept the full-length video part alive even as online clips took over daily consumption. See web edit era.

Riders like Dakota Roche, Brandon Begin and a global cast from Europe, Australia, Japan and South America made street the one truly international BMX discipline. Barcelona became its unofficial capital, visited by every filming trip.

Legacy

Street changed what a BMX bike is. The modern 20 inch freestyle bike, with its long top tube, steep head angle, plastic pegs, small sprocket and often no brakes, was shaped by street riders. Almost every freestyle bike sold today is a street bike or a close relative.

Street changed how BMX is judged. The filmed video part, the ender, the NBD and the spot all come from street culture, and they shape how riders in every discipline present themselves.

Street changed where BMX happens. It needs no track, ramp or jump, which makes it the most accessible discipline and the one most new riders start with. It also made the city, rather than the skatepark, the stage for the sport's progression.

Finally, street kept alive the independent, rider-run ethic of the 1990s even as the rest of BMX moved towards the Olympics. The tension between street's culture and contest BMX is one of the defining features of the sport today.

Related

• Street
• BMX in the 1990s
• Web edit era
• Animal Bikes
• Edwin Delarosa
• Van Homan
• Garrett Reynolds
• Pegs
• Brakeless