Extreme sports have gotten a little, well, extreme as of late. Video games showed a hyper-reality that's now being duplicated in the real world. With the advent of foam pits and foam resi ramps to try new tricks safely, trick progression in skateboard and bmx is moving very fast. While foam practice areas let riders do some pretty amazing stuff, when things go wrong over plywood, they're going really wrong. Witness a double-backflip crash that resulted in broken bones and teeth, Stephen Murray's crash that resulted in paralysis from the neck down, or last night's incredible X games freefall from fifty feet up to flat ground (Jake Brown walked away and only suffered minor internal injuries).
posted by mathowie on Aug 3, 2007 - 72 comments

More than a BMX - The StreetSurfer is a patented pedal-driven vehicle (think BMX) that you ride like a surfboard in an urban setting. It consists of a normal bike frame, a rear wheel (duh) and four mini wheels on the front. These littler front wheels apparently track the surface of the ground better than a traditional bicycle and therefore give the rider a smoother, more controlled ride. More info via the StreetSurfer's awfully designed website (ugly Flash warning), although there's two chunky videos to download that also help to explain the product in further detail. Via Beyond Tomorrow. …
posted by sjvilla79 on Nov 9, 2005 - 48 comments

BMX Backflips. BMX Star. BMX Park. Enjoy.
posted by brownpau on Jul 1, 2005 - 12 comments

Statesman or Skatesman "Last Christmas my Dad and me had a big argument. He'd found a picture of Enoch Powell on a pogo stick and claimed that politicians weren't as interesting as that any more ... " Jason Whiley disagreed and wrote to as many politicians as he could asking them if they'd ever used similar transport, such as skateboards, gokarts, BMX bikes and Space Hoppers. Over Eighty responded including "three Prime Ministers, five Chancellors, six Foreign Secretaries, four Home Secretaries, and three Speakers of the House of Commons. " [via B3ta]
posted by feelinglistless on Aug 15, 2003 - 5 comments