BMX racing is a type of off-road bicycle racing. The format of BMX was derived from motocross racing. BMX bicycle races are sprint races on purpose-built off-road single-lap race tracks. The track usually consists of a starting gate for up to eight racers, a groomed, serpentine, dirt race course made of various jumps and rollers and a finish line. The course is usually flat, about 15-foot (4.6 m) wide and has large banked corners that help the riders maintain speed. The sport of BMX racing is facilitated by a number of regional and international sanctioning bodies. They provide rules for governing the conduct of the races, specify age group and skill-level classifications among the racers, and maintain some kind of points-accumulation system over the racing season. The sport is very family oriented and largely participant-driven, with riders ranging in age from 3 to 60, and over. Professional ranks exist for both men and women, where the age ranges from 15 to 40 years.
A BMX "Class" bike is a strong, quick-handling, lightweight derivative of the standard 20-inch (510 mm)-wheel, single-speed youth bicycle. Variations include a larger 24-inch (610 mm)-wheel "cruiser" class. Cruisers were originally made for adults who couldn't fit the 20-inch (510 mm)-wheel bikes, but now is raced by all age groups.
While BMX racing is an individual sport, teams are often formed from racers in different classifications for camaraderie and often for business exposure of a sponsoring organization or company. BMX racing rewards strength, quickness, and bike handling. Many successful BMX racers have gone on to leverage their skills in other forms of bicycle and motorcycle competitions.
There are all types of BMX jumps, ranging from small rollers to massive step-up doubles. There are pro staights which are for junior and elite men. They are all doubles which range from about 6 m to 12 m, while "Class" straights have more flow and have many more range of jumps.
BMX racing became a medal sport at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing under the UCI sanctioning body. Sanctioning bodies in the United States are the American Bicycle Association (ABA) and the National Bicycle League (NBL). The ABA is certified under the UCI (International Cycling Union), which is recognized by the Olympic Committee.
Sanctioning bodies
A sanctioning body is the private (in the United States and most Western Nations) governing establishment of a sport or branch of a sport. There could be several sanctioning bodies in the same sport or only one. They make and enforce the rules. They decide the qualifications of the participants, including the players, owners, and operators of facilities. They also make rules for the liability of the participants, medical insurance, awards and pensions. In legal terms, they are an intermediary between the participants and governments. They set safety requirements. They also mete out discipline and punishments, like suspensions, banishments or monetary fines. But they also make rules for awards like bonuses, winnings, and prizes like cars and other vehicles.
In the Bicycle Motocross context, sanctioning bodies decide clothing requirements, the need for helmets, the age and sex requirements for various divisions and classes such as Novice, Intermediate, Expert, and Pro. The labels of the classifications may differ from organization to organization and over time.
They decide how the racers advance from class to class, using points and event-wins formulas, what requirements are needed to be declared the year-end champion in a division, and so forth. They decide how to punish those who commit rule infractions like unsportsmanlike conduct or fraud. They decide standards of track conditions that track owners and operators must meet. They make agreements with the media for event coverage. They outline the obligations of both professionals and amateurs.
Bicycle Motocross has had many sanctioning bodies over its history of more than 25 years, going back to the original Bicycle United Motocross Society (B.U.M.S) created in the early 1970s (see below). There have been regional, national, and international sanctioning bodies, some of them associated with or owned by another. Many are defunct or have been merged into larger, more successful organizations, but many still exist in their original forms and are prospering.
American sanctioning bodies
On July 10, 1969, a group of boys riding their Schwinn Stingray bicycles in Palms Park in West Los Angeles wanted to race. A park attendant, Ronald Mackler, who was a teenager with motorcycle motocross (MX) experience helped them organize. Palms Park became to BMX as Elysian Fields is to American baseball, for at that moment Bicycle Motocross racing was born. By 1973, entrance fees of US$4.50 (which included a US$1.00 insurance fee for the year) for a 10-week season of Thursday-night racing was charged, and the top three racers in the season were given trophies. Then a new season of 10 weeks would start the following Thursday.
The track operated well into the 1980s largely unchanged, including the lack of a modern starting gate.
Bicycle United Motocross Society (B.U.M.S)
The first BMX proto sanctioning body was the Bicycle United Motocross Society (B.U.M.S) founded by Scot Breithaupt in Long Beach, California on November 14, 1970, when he was fourteen years old. On that day he put on his first ad hoc BMX race. At first BUMS simply referred to the transients that congregated in the field around 7th and Bellflower Streets where the track was located, but later Scot turned it into the acronym B.U.M.S. The first race had 35 participants, who paid Scot a quarter (US25 cents) each for the privilege. At the next race 150 kids showed up.
Since he was a motorcycle racer he knew even at thirteen the importance of a sanctioning body and how races were run and organized. He used his personal trophies that he won racing motocross motorcycles as awards for the winning competitors. He gave out membership cards, wrote the rulebook and had a points system for scoring and proficiency level promotion. He ran the first state championship in 1972, when he was all of 16 years old. Also due to his racing experience, he knew how to lay out a particularly exciting course. The track was about 1,350 feet (410 m) long and much more demanding than today's typical BMX course. It was more akin to what the professionals race on in special Pro sections of track at large events today, including water holes and high dropoffs. Indeed, this early track resembled more closely a shortened mountain biking course than today's comparatively well groomed BMX tracks. With the aforementioned exception of pro sections, today's tracks for the most part are pretty tame by comparison due to insurance concerns by the sanctioning bodies. The National Bicycle League even went so far as to ban double jumps in 1988.
This first structured sanctioning body would eventually grow to seven tracks in California. This is what made him different from other track operators at the time: he did not just start one track but several others under a single jurisdiction of rules and regulations, all the requirements of a sanctioning body.
Among the firsts credited to BUMS was the first professional race in 1975 at Saddleback Park with a US$200 purse. Breithaupt also promoted in a joint venture with the new National Bicycle Association (NBA) (which was established the year before) what would later be called "Nationals" with the Yamaha Bicycle Gold Cup series in 1974. They were three separate qualifying races held at three separate tacks in California sponsored and heavily promoted by Yamaha Motor Company Ltd. to decide the very first "National" No. 1 racer at a fourth and final race at the Los Angeles Coliseum. It was an achievement of import in the infancy of BMX, but it wasn't a true national since virtually all the events were held in California and almost all racers were Californians. It would be left for other innovators to create a true national event.
National Bicycle Association (NBA)
Many followed Ronald Mackler, Rich Lee and Scot Breithaupt, opening impromptu often short-lived tracks sometimes within preexisting Motorcycle Motocross tracks; but with the exception of Breithaupt, the operators were independent "organizations" that operated individual tracks without any cohesion. What was needed was a governing body that would standardize and give direction and purpose to the grab bag of these amateur-run (in that these operators did not have this enterprise as the main concern of their lives) tracks.
The first official BMX sanctioning body was the National Bicycle Association (NBA) started by Ernie Alexander in 1972. Like Scot Breithaupt, he had motorcycle motocross in his background, and like Scot he was a promoter but a professional one with his American Cycle Enterprises (ACE). He was also a former Hollywood stunt man who promoted races at the famous Indian Dunes, built and managed by Walt James, where many movies and TV shows were filmed. In 1970 he noticed a group of kids trying to organize a bicycle race with their Schwinn Stingrays. Being familiar with motorcycle racing, he lent the kids a hand. He later opened the Yarnell track, a steep downhill course every bit as treacherous by today's standards as Scot Breithaupt's BUMS track—if not more so. In 1972 he created the National Bicycle Association, modeled on the existing American Motorcycle Association (AMA). It was Mr. Alexander
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