Ryan's Back!

I hope everyone likes reading what Ryan has to say as much as I do. Let him know what you think in the comments.


"Today while taking a drive I was reflecting on how glad I am to have had BMX a part of my life. It seems like I’ve ran into a lot of people here lately who have gotten pretty far off a sustainable path in life. Most of the time, these individuals never had anything positive in their life. One way BMX has influenced me (and probably thousands others) is that it forced me to think individually – to think for myself. I grew up in a town with two options: 1) play baseball, and 2) play football. Of course, not everyone choose those activities, so they ran in the opposite direction of ball-sports and started a culture for another option in my town, 3) party your brains out. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve consumed a fair share of Anheuser Busch in my day. But the point is, BMX forced me to be independent in a way. A way of doing something that wasn’t the three typical options in my town of 20,000. I loved riding, and so I rode, despite what anybody said. Nobody thought it was “cool” or some fad, back then, except for my friends that rode. Later on in high school, it seemed like I had reached a level that genuinely impressed some people, and so they begin to think it was pretty neat (Close friends that didn’t ride anyways). I’ve always kept that think for myself attitude with me, ever since then. I think that’s a pretty good trait since studies show nearly 75% of people are conformist to some extent. And anyone who has seen my 44tooth sprocket could tell you that, or just laugh at my bike. Besides all that, there are probably 20 other lessons I’ve learned because I rode a bike with 20-inch wheels. I don’t have the time to type them all, and I’m sure your attention span wouldn’t be interested, anyways. I seriously have no freaking idea what I would be like now, had I not started riding bikes. I probably would have kept playing ball sports, became a jock, and contracted multiple sexually transmitted diseases… who knows...

The point is... BMX can teach you so many more things in life than just how to do tricks if you just take time to think about them."

-Ryan