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@NurseHolliday
Ben Lewis is amazing. Half that video is shot at Liverpool uni where I'm studying. That red rail with the knob he toothpicks down at the start is the entrance to the building I have half my lectures in. I've been wanting to see him do that rail for 5 years! I've ridden with him quite a few times, saw him last week while I was on my fixed and he was ribbing me a bit because he hasn't seen me on my BMX for a few months. When someone like Ben says that you just have to go home and dust it off don't you!
BMX has been swayed by fashion for a long long time because it's primarily kids that buy parts all the time. I know when I first started riding I wanted to be just like Luc-E and Rick Moliterno, then Scott Malyon, a regular at my local park (Rom) got hooked up on T1 and I would pay £4 a session just to go see him ride. By that time I had lost the urge to copy my favourite 'pro', but I could see all the wannabe Scott Malyons with their all black T1s, and Bicycle Union attire. I've ridden brakeless for 9 years now, to begin with I'd get shit from the gyro mob, then I'd get shit from the straight cable to the rear brake mob, then all of a sudden everyone was brakeless and 15 year old kids who had no clue about bike control were riding into me at the skatepark because they couldn't stop in time.
I think the perfect example right now is Odyssey Twisted pedals.
Go back 10 years and see what the magazines and what the kids used to say about plastic pedals. Shit, go back 3 years and see what they used to say about plastic pedals. Now all the kids are using them. Kids riding street, doing pedal grinds on plastic pedals. Now if that isn't fashion over function I don't know what the fuck is.