Safety Gear for Doing BMX Tricks

Series Summary

Bicycle motocross, or BMX, is a style of competitive cycling that is performed on earthen tracks and performance of tricks or “freestyle.” Internationally, BMX freestyle has become increasingly popular, even more so than BMX racing. BMX biking became popular in the 1970s in California. Today, the Union Cycliste Internationale, or UCI, sponsors the BMX World Championships where riders compete amongst other riders on a manmade track. Freestyle riders can participate in various disciplines including street, park, vert, trails and flatland. Street riding is performed on public streets; park riding is performed in public parks (usually skate parks); vert riding is performed on a ramp that has two quarter pipes facing one another; trails riding is performed on trails that have ramps and jumps made of dirt or mud; flatland riders perform on smooth or flat surfaces such as parking lots and basketball courts.

In this series of expert video clips, you will learn more about the style of BMX freestyle. Get tips on stunts or tricks from an expert freestyle rider. Learn how to perform carving tricks and drop-ins as well as double peg stalls. See how our expert can pull a feeble stall or a smith stall. Watch instructional videos for the Bunny Hop or the Fufanu. Also see BMX tricks like the abubaca, bar spin, ice pick, manual, 180, and X Jump. Start your BMX experience with an introduction to the safety equipment that is necessary for riders of all types.

Video Transcript

"Hi, this is Mike, and on behalf of ExpertVillage.com, we are going to go over some basic BMX safety because BMX is a dangerous sport. You definitely want to make sure that you are wearing your safety gear. And first and foremost is your helmet. There are various different styles of helmets; this one right here is more of a BMX skate helmet, which is most popular today. And you want to make sure when you have your helmet on that your chin strap is not too loose so your helmet cannot fly off when you are doing a trick because then that defeats the purpose of wearing a helmet. Something else a lot of people do not think about is gloves, and not only are your gloves going to help your grip on your bike, but also if you fall and you put your hands into the pavement, it is going to rip up your hands. So wearing gloves is always a good thing. Then probably the other important thing besides the gloves you can wear is kneepads. There are various different styles of kneepads, these ones go underneath your pants, and then they do also have some ones with hard shells that you can wear above your pants. These ones are not as protective as the hard shells, but they are a lot more comfortable to wear and like I said, BMX is a very dangerous sport, so make sure that you do wear your safety gear at all times."