The historical mediatization of BMX-freestyle cycling

Abstract

This paper traces the mediatization of BMX-freestyle cycling over the past four decades through an examination of the centrality of particular media of communication and particular texts within this sport. It is argued that the history of BMX is inseparable from the history of the activity's mediation. Indeed, the historic rise and fall of the sport with regard to industrial success can be correlated with the appearance and disappearance of disseminating institutions such as particular special-interest magazines. Furthermore, these magazines have been the site of introductions to, and negotiations with, other competing media throughout the history of the activity. In the early twenty-first century, digital media have increasingly challenged the dominance of older media that have served/exploited this sport. It is probable that this particular activity, and the media that serve and exploit it, will continue to have a complex, co-dependent relationship.

Acknowledgements

This work emerges from a larger project (my doctoral dissertation) completed at McGill University under the supervision of Dr Will Straw. I am grateful to Dr Belinda Wheaton, Dr Jonathan Sterne, Dr Darin Barney and Dr Charles Acland for continuing support.

Notes

¹ As the ‘B’ in BMX stands for ‘bicycle’, I will avoid redundancy and refer to the activity that is the focus of this paper as ‘BMX freestyle’, sans ‘cycling’.

² I use the word ‘culture’ with regard to BMX-freestyle as an umbrella term to encompass not only the recreational activity of stunt cycling, but also the consumption of such activities (i.e., fans), the BMX-freestyle industry, and the BMX-freestyle media.

³ Wernick, Promotional Culture, 17.

⁴ For example, historical articles in Ride (UK) BMX Magazine (‘The In-Complete History of BMX Magazines’, Ride (UK), December 1993, 51–52; Daily, Mike, ‘A History Lesson’, February/March 2001, 106; Hollywood, Mike, ‘History of BMX part 1: 1970–1975: The Plastic Petrol Tank and Fender Years’, Ride (UK), October/November 2001, 153) and the online BMX history source 23 mag.com (http://www.23 mag.com/).

⁵ Nelson, ‘Reading Cycles’.

⁶ As is often the case with particular disposable commodities such as special-interest magazines (‘cultural waste’), this resource is not available in libraries, and one must rely on the collections of fans. ‘The sites in which unwanted cultural commodities (old records, books, etc.) accumulate are, at one level, museums of failure, but by collecting failure in one place they endow it with a monumentality and historical solidity’ (Straw, ‘Exhausted Commodities’). Although Straw is referring to locations such as second-hand record stores, the closet within which my 26 boxes of BMX magazines are kept might also qualify as such a site.

⁷ In the preface to the English edition of Homo Academicus, Pierre Bourdieu asserts that ‘[o]nly a sociological self-analysis …can really help to place the scholar in a position where he is able to bring to bear on his familiar world…detached scrutiny’ (xii). In the 25 plus years that I have been involved in BMX culture, I have worked in several ‘intermediary’ positions ranging from bicycle-shop employee to ‘Action Sports Consultant’ to large corporate clients seeking to get in on (i.e., exploit) the latest, hottest, youth culture. I was hired as the local BMX expert and buyer for a bicycle shop at 15 years old. I have attended and worked at several tradeshows. I have been a grassroots events manager and promoter for several years. I have been a featured performer within ‘shows’ or demonstrations. I have served as a master of ceremonies/host for several events. In addition to having been sponsored by or ‘on flow’ from several companies (having received free product in exchange for brand exposure), I have also worked as a team manager (co-ordinating sponsored groups of riders and ensuring that they receive their respective photo contingency cheques). With regard to BMX magazines, I have appeared in a few advertisements, been interviewed, been mentioned in the news columns, and have written several articles. I have also authored three separate BMX-related weblogs.

⁸ I prefer the term ‘action sport’ to ‘extreme sport’ or ‘lifestyle sport’ with regard to BMX-freestyle, as this positions the culture within a specific group of activities. Beal and Wilson (‘Chicks Dig Scars’, 51) list BMX as part of an exclusive group of action or alternative sports (along with skateboarding, snowboarding, surfing, motocross and freestyle skiing).

⁹ Thornton, ‘Moral Panic,’ 2–3.

¹⁰ See Richard Johnson with regard to approaching a research problem from multiple angles: ‘What if existing theories – and the modes of research associated with them – actually express different sides of the same complex process? What if they are all true, but only as far as they go, true for those parts of the process which they have most clearly in view?’. Johnson, ‘What is Cultural Studies Anyway?’ 83.

¹¹ Muggleton, Inside Subculture, 14.

¹² Only a few studies have been published on the subject of the BMX-freestyle culture (notably Kusz, ‘BMX, Extreme Sports’; and Rinehart and Grenfell, ‘BMX Spaces’), and as a cultural participant who is also a scholar, I must say that this work has not always reflected my experience.

¹³ Rinehart and Grenfell, ‘BMX Spaces’, 308.

¹⁴ Stunt or artistic cycling was, from the advent of the practice, documented in various media. Indeed, one of the earliest Thomas Edison films featured stunt cyclists. Predating this by some years was a set of trading cards that documented the manoeuvres being performed by such daredevil cyclists. Of course, neither the tricks featured nor the cards themselves were truly the products offered for consumption: ‘[t]he American Tobacco Company issued this set of 25 tobacco insert cards in the early 1890s to advertise chewing and smoking tobacco’. These cards ‘were designed to appeal to men by showing scantily clad show girls riding various types of bicycles popular during that period’. Ben Crane, ‘Bicycle and Trick Riders’, http://www.tradecards.com/articles/tr/ (accessed 16 June 2009).

¹⁵ BMX racing, which is not the focus of this paper, has recently enjoyed its first significant boost since the 1980s with its inclusion in the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. While this activity has existed for almost 40 years, the mass-mediation that has been afforded to this ‘new’ Olympic sport should increase the awareness of the activity substantially. It should be noted that the mediatization of BMX racing is contained within this paper as well. That is, the two share similar paths until the mid-1980s (when BMX-freestyle usurps its older sibling). Other than some sporadic television coverage since that time, coverage of BMX racing's appearance in the 2008 Olympic Games was its next significant mass mediation.

¹⁶ Bob Osborn, ‘The History of BMX’. This information was retrieved from the homepage of vintagebmx.com (accessed 24 April 2005). The document features the following clarification by Bob Osborn: ‘This being a compilation of information published by this writer years and years ago, with a few authenticated modifications. Anyone interested in ripping off this article please note that much of it was copyrighted in 1982 (in BMX Action magazine) by Wizard Publications and in 1984 (in The Complete Book of BMX) by Wizard Publications, and that all of it in its present form was copyrighted in 2005 by Bob Osborn’.

¹⁷ Appropriately, Mark Eaton's 2005 documentary film concerning BMX is entitled Joe Kid on a Stingray .

¹⁸ Osborn lists the date of birth of BMX racing as 10 July 1969. On this day, it is said that some young Sting-Ray riders convinced park attendant Ron Mackler to help them organize some ‘pedal-cross’ races at Palms Park in Santa Monica, California. Scott Breithaupt's B.U.M.S. track is another important site. Bob Osborn, ‘The History of BMX’, http://www.vintagebmx.com/.

¹⁹ See Ride (UK), October/November 2001, 153.

²⁰ ‘Yamaha Moto Bike’, Bicycle Motocross News 1, no. 1, June 1974.

²¹ Bicycle Motocross News 2, no. 11, December 1975.

²² Barrette, Craig, ‘The Beginning of BMX Action’, BMX Action, December 1986, 70–3.

²³ ‘The In-Complete History of BMX Magazines’, Ride (UK), December 1993, 51–52.

²⁴ Hollywood, Mike, ‘History of BMX part 2, 1975–1980: The Mag Years', Ride (UK)’, 165.

²⁵ ‘Unsung 53: Scott Macdonald’, Dig BMX Magazine, July/August 2006, 32–3.

²⁶ Osborn, Bob, ‘Dear Wiz’, BMX Action, August 1982, 8, 10.

²⁷ ‘BMX Goes Hollywood’, BMX Action, October 1982, 30.

²⁸ BMX Action, January 1986, 60.

²⁹ BMX Action, April 1984, 5, 15–6.

³⁰ BMX Action, April 1984, 5, 12.

³¹ BMX Action, June 1984, 86.

³² ‘Trick Riding…A Whole New Thing’, BMX Action, January/February 1979.

³³ ‘Introducing: Freestylin' A New Magazine from Wizard Publications’, BMX Action, April 1984, 93.

³⁴ Rinehart, ‘Dropping into Sight’, 30.

³⁵ Wheaton and Beal, ‘Keeping It Real’, 163.

³⁶ ‘The In-Complete History of BMX Magazines’, Ride (UK), December 1993, 51–52.

³⁷ Bourdieu. Distinction. Recent work on cultural intermediaries was inspired by Pierre Bourdieu's discussion of the ‘new cultural intermediaries’. Also see the special issue of Cultural Studies on cultural intermediaries featuring articles by Liz McFall (‘What About the Old’), Keith Negus (‘Work of Cultural Intermediaries’) and Sean Nixon and Paul du Gay (‘Who Needs Cultural Intermediaries?’).

³⁸ The editorial content in Freestylin' promoted the idea of being ‘dual’; that is, riding both BMX-freestyle and skateboards. Although this opened up the magazine to skateboard advertising, many have seen this move by the editors as having contributed to the ‘death of freestyle’ in the late 1980s. Indeed, in an article entitled ‘The Ten Worst Moments in Freestyle’ that appeared in the June 1993 issue of Ride (US) magazine, the second such event was listed as ‘2. Lew, Spike, and Andy get skateboards. Freestylin' puts skating in the mag every month. You didn't need to be Nostrodomus [sic] to see what happened next. Jacked’ (page 38). Jenkins would later admit his crime in a subsequent issue of Ride (US): ‘I'm not sure BMX would take me back after the heinous violation Lew, Spike, and I committed against it – killing off its brother, Freestyle, the sport’ (‘Letters’, Ride (US), October/November 1995, 6).

³⁹ Daily, Mike. ‘A History Lesson’, Ride (UK), February/March 2001, 106.

⁴⁰ Ride (UK), February/March 2001, 105.

⁴¹ There were several 'zines floating amongst the more committed members of the culture throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. However, very few of these got international attention. A notable exception is that of Fat BMX 'Zine, published by Bart de Jong of Holland, who made the switch to a web-based version (fatbmx.com) in the 1990s.

⁴² ‘The In-Complete History of BMX Magazines’, Ride (UK), December 1993, 51–52.

⁴³ Ride (UK), December 1993

⁴⁴ BMX Plus! (Hi-Torque Publications) is currently the longest running BMX periodical publication, having appeared regularly since November 1978. Ride (UK) recently summarized the general feeling about the periodical: ‘[n]ot quite as cutting edge as BMX Action, Plus! was for a more mainstream market’ (Hollywood, Mike, ‘History of BMX part 2, 1975–1980: The Mag Years', June/July 2002, Ride (UK)’, 165). BMX Plus! has always seemingly focused on the young teenage reader, and stays away from anything too controversial. A (Hi-Torque Published) monthly freestyle-focused magazine, initially called Freestyle Spectacular (1986–1987) before its rechristening as American Freestyler in August 1987, lasted until October 1988.

⁴⁵ Joe Kid on a Stingray, 2005.

⁴⁶ Mihelich, Taj, ‘Ten Years by Taj’, Ride (US), December 2002, 87.

⁴⁷ Eddie Roman's 1992 BMX-freestyle video, Ride On , featured a mock funeral of a BMX bicycle. The film began with the following superimposed prologue: ‘America 1992. BMX is dead. BMX bicycle sales have reached an all time low. Large factory teams are a thing of the past. Only a very small number of professional riders remain. Of these riders, only a few receive money from sponsors. A sport that once had five monthly magazines now has one. Contest arenas that were once crowded with spectators are now made up of only the most dedicated riders. Professional freestyle exhibitions are nearly non-existent. Many bike shops no longer carry 20 inch bikes and accessories because in their eyes, “BMX is dead”.’ (Roman, Ride On, 1992).

⁴⁸ ‘The Man Behind The Curtain: An Interview with Brad McDonald’, Ride (US), September 2004, 116.

⁴⁹ Again, although BMX Plus! has been published continuously since 1978, this magazine has never had the clout of magazines such as BMX Action, Freestylin', or Ride BMX Magazine (US).

⁵⁰ ‘The expansion of lifestyle sport programming has also been expansive outside North America’, (Extreme Sport channel in Europe in May 1999). Wheaton, ‘Introduction’, 8.

⁵¹ Hollywood, Mike, ‘History of BMX part 2, 1975–1980: The Mag Years’, Ride (UK), June/July 2002, 165.

⁵² Dig magazine was first released in Northern Ireland in 1993 (its offices are now based in Scotland).

⁵³ Twenty-Inch Video Magazine and 411 BMX were not able to find an audience and folded after a few issues.

⁵⁴ With regard to the importance the punctual appearance of mediating texts for the formation and maintenance of a public, please see Warner, ‘Publics and Counterpublics’. The periodic appearance of particular special-interest publications such as magazines can be seen to serve a ritual function. According to Eric Rothenbuhler, ‘[r]itual is seen as an expression of social order that has the power to constitute it, and therefore functions in creating, maintaining, and adapting it’. Rothenbuhler, Ritual Communication, 55.

⁵⁵ Beal and Wilson, ‘Chicks Dig Scars’, 34.

⁵⁶ Beal and Wilson, ‘Chicks Dig Scars’, 35.

⁵⁷ There were, however, some notable televised moments. These include episodes of That's Incredible (R.L. Osborn raced a horse), and CHiPs. With regard to the latter, Ride (UK) reports that ‘one of the main characters was Jon played by Larry Wilcox. He really got into BMX as a result and even had his own cheesy BMX clothing line’ (Hollywood, Mike, ‘History of BMX Part 2, 1975–1980: The Mag Years’ Ride (UK), June/July 2002, 165). In fact, Wilcox was even featured on the cover of the August 1983 issue of Super BMX Magazine.

⁵⁸ ‘Deep Seat’, Ride (US), December 1994, 53.

⁵⁹ Kusz, ‘Extreme America’, 198 (drawing from a 1994 article in The Economist).

⁶⁰ ‘In the eyes of the mass audience, freestyle BMX was a fringe sport: It didn't yet have the cachet or high profile of skateboarding or snowboarding, and no one seemed to speculate, as they always did with skating, whether freestyle would eventually be incorporated into the Olympics. When the International Olympics Committee announced in 2003 that BMX would be a part of the 2008 summer games, few were surprised that it was the racing contingent, not the freestylers, who were invited.’ Browne, Amped, 25.

⁶¹ Mihelich, Taj, ‘Espn Extreme Games’, Ride (US), October/November 1995, 25.

⁶² Rinehart, ‘Dropping into Sight’, 28.

⁶³ BMX riders Hal Brindley and Steve Buddendeck had run the BMX-freestyle events at the 1995 Extreme Games.

⁶⁴ Browne, Amped, 251.

⁶⁵ Downs, ‘Small Bikes, Big Men’, 149.

⁶⁶ Browne, Amped, 251.

⁶⁷ See Rinehart, ‘Dropping into Sight’; Humphreys, ‘Selling Out Snowboarding’; Wheaton and Beal, ‘Keeping It Real’.

⁶⁸ For a discussion of the notion of subcultural capital, see Sarah Thornton. Club Cultures. Thornton builds on the work of Bourdieu's notion of ‘cultural capital’ in his book Distinction.

⁶⁹ ‘It's good news then that while the BPSA statistics for BMX/Freestyle bikes for 2005 continued to show a decrease, it did so at a substantially lower percentage than the previous three years’. Hawk, Joe, ‘Guest Editorial: Brand Preferences or Brand Promises’, BMX Business News, August 2006, 4.

⁷⁰ ‘Brad McDonald Leaves Transworld; Starts Vital Media Network’, BMX Business News, May 2006, 3.

⁷¹ Wheaton and Beal, ‘Keeping It Real’, 160.

⁷² thecomeupbmx.net

⁷³ Shane Neville's backlashbmx.com may have been the first such site; bmxfeed.com (http://www.bmxfeed.com/) serves specific companies by listing their updates without editorializing.

⁷⁴ Paul Hirsch (‘Processing Fads’) famously adapted the figure of ‘the gatekeeper’ as an editor that embodied a ‘filter’ through which the messages of production had to flow to reach consumers.

⁷⁵ Russ Bengston, SPRFLS (blog), http://www.sprfls.blogspot.com/.

⁷⁶ Wheaton, ‘Introduction’, 14.

⁷⁷ ‘Cultural production often involves public-ation, the making public of private forms’. Johnson, ‘What is Cultural Studies Anyway?’, 88.