blog
Out of context: Reply #74856
- Started
- Last post
- 76,751 Responses
- Horp2
BMX then.
I went into lockdown at the end of a two decade classic car restoration hobby. I had a 77 El Camino at the time and I'd spent two years with it in pieces in a shared workshop that belonged to my friend.
It was a driving car when I bought it but the bodywork was badly rusted in places and needed a full strip down and rebuild.
Then my friend told me he needed his workshop to store furniture while he knocked his house down (which I helped him do. So much fun) so I had to finish the bodywork, reassemble it and drive it out of there, for about a year.
A couple of weeks after getting it back home, lockdown struck, and the Elky just sat there outside being pretty fucking useless. It did 8 miles to the gallon and all of my work for the year had been cancelled as it was all overseas. So I had nowhere to go and couldn't afford to throw petrol down it's throat just to drive it around for leisure. Not at UK petrol prices with no income.
So I sold it, and I realised when I sold it that I had got to the end of that hobby. It didn't interest me anymore. I'd rebuilt engines, done panel work from raw sheet metal, welding... I'd stripped and rebuild every possible thing at least five times on at least five cars. I was bored of it all, completely.
So I sold all my equipment too, and told my friend I wouldn't be coming back to the workshop, and I got out of that hobby completely.
... and straight into BMX. So small! So quick! So Easy! So Cheap! So much fun!
I started buying BMXs with my El Camino money. Realised people sold them "cheap cuz broken". I fixed them, cleaned them up, made them look box fresh and sold them. During lockdown I averaged around £20 to buy, £50 maximum for any minor new parts needed (inner tubes, bearings, tires etc), and I'd sell them again for around £250, often with a nice new paint job.
Then I got a really old Cult. Maybe a 2014. It had been rusting away in a dad's garage after the son had gone off to Uni. I paid £10 for it.
It was in a realy bad way but it was my first Cult and even though it was an old one, I really like the Cult brand and I wanted it for myself.
Stripped it down, stripped the frame, borrowed my (workshop) friend's professionally fitted out spray room and sprayed the frame and forks gloss black.
Slowly over time I indulged (like a kid) in all the fancy components for it. Totally stupid but when you're hearing about a new kind of crank set or the latest this and that, it gets addictive. So I had state of the art 2020/21 components on what was really a very out of date frame with really long geometry when everyone else was going short.
Then I tried signwriting on it in gold, and it failed, and I discovered a spectacular new effect. A gold wash over gloss black. It looked the nuts.
So I'm down on Brighton seafront every day during lockdown, 51 years old, doing tricks with all the BMXers who range from 15 to 25 years old. They're all going nuts for my "goldwash" vintage Cult.
This one guy really wants to own it.
I keep telling him it's a really old frame, but he's insistent. He offers me £350. For a £10 bike.
So I tell him I'll sell it for £350 but with a less fancy crank and some cheaper, heavier pegs. He agrees.
I wave goodbye to my much loved Cult, never to be seen again.
I buy a WeThe People Trust and start hitting a disused set of concrete quarterpipes in a shitty park near my house. Horribly designed place but I have it all to myself all day every day.
Pic of the ramps here...
https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/…
Then I bought a Kink Williams frame because it had insanely short geometry and you know, that means easier to manual and more whippy and all that guff.
The local skate ramps have a spine. I'd never been over a spine before. I'm a fairly mild rider. At 50+ years old I get the fear. A bad break could really fuck my life up for a considerable time. So I don't get too ambitious.
BUT
The spine. It's there, every day, and I know eventually I'm going to go over it.
I start off going up, hooking the spine behind my front wheel, then kind of clambering over. Getting a feel for it.
I'm doing that faster and faster every day but I have the fear and I can't make myself just go for it.
Then one day I'm sat on the platform opposite and something comes over me and I drop in and go directly over the spine. I didn't give it any thought at all, I just got the urge and went.
But somehow, I did something wrong, like I pulled up when I should have pushed down... I don't know... but I was essentially heading into a somersault which ended with me trying to slice myself in two by landing back first on the spine with my bike above me.
Talk about pain. Fuck, I have NEVER felt anything like it.
I was winded and could not breathe at all. That took an insane amount of time to get better. I honestly thought I was going to die from lack of oxygen.
Once I started breathing again, I moved on to the fact that I couldn't feel my legs, Sarge. Nothing. Not a fucking thing. They were as good as somebody else's legs. They were kind of folded over me, buckled awkwardly, but I could not move them. I had slid down the spine head first on the side I had launched from, and I was just a rag doll now at the base. I had the bike on my face.
I was terrified. This is a park that people don't go to. The ramps are hidden behind bushes and trees in a corner that nobody ever goes to. I'd been there every day for weeks and seen literally no other person in there.
My phone was about 30ft away at the top of the ramps, where I would never reach it.
So I started shouting and screaming.
After maybe 25 minutes a local came to investigate, saw me there, and walked off again.
About half an hour after that, a police car pulled in and a police woman came over. I begged her to call an ambulance, and she did.
About 20 minutes later an ambulance arrived but they wouldn't move me due to the danger of permanently severing my spine.
They did various tests and had devices sent over and scanned me and did all sorts.
Then they said they were going to try and move me without moving my body parts at all.
Which was crazy because I was like a human pretzel on my back with my legs kind of next to me.
Anyway, got to hospital, my spine was okay but really badly beaten up and I was bed ridden for weeks until I could feel a metal point being scraped along the soles of my feet.
It was about three months before I could move properly again. About two more months of low level pain after that.
So now I just buy BMXs, paint the damn things, ride them around a little, get a little bit of air on the ramps, and then sell them on to fund my next one.
I am too old for this shit.