2 Mayıs 2013 Perşembe

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

I am a Turkish guy 37 years of age. I live in Istanbul-Turkey. Turkey is between Asia and Europe and Istanbul is its biggest and most crowded city. Istanbul is around 6500 miles away from California, 1400 miles away from Paris and 1600 miles away from London. I was born in Istanbul. I have had many passions in my life, have played many sports, played musical instruments, have had many hobbies. There has been only one passion which has been a lifetime one, which sometimes faded away but suddenly came back, which I could never turn my back to. As if someone or something programmed a microchip and put it under my skin at the age of 9. It just does not let me go. Sometimes it lets me be a sleeper, but suddenly reminds itself. And passion comes back again. This passion of mine is called BMX.

I know I am not alone at all in this planet. Many years after sleeping, I realize how many old school riders woke up, started restoring their survivors or collecting the ones those they could never possess but always wanted to. It is amazing to see how iconic BMX has been, and I am only a simple proof of it - being born 6000 miles away from where freestyle was born and still being infected by this passion. There are thousands of examples like me all over the world. BMX Museum and Facebook is the largest source of evidence that people from all over the world are still into BMX no matter what their ages, religions, races or physical conditions are. Even this humble blog which I started keeping two years ago and which is only and specifically written about Old School BMX is read by people from a long list of countries of several continents.




It reminds me of the movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind". People from different locations suddenly start dreaming about one thing, wanting to be there and do it, they are simply obsessed. A mystic power driving them almost at the same time to the same target. A mystic power that makes these people friends and make them a member of a huge family...

Who would say I would be Facebook friends and exchange personal messages one day with Bob Haro? Who would say Rick Moliterno, Radical Rick Allison, Dave Nourie, Martin Aparijo, Woody Itson, Jose Delgado, Greg Hill, Alain Massaboa, Dave Voelker and many others those were my childhood idols would be my Facebook friends? Who would assume I would be chatting with a great and humble guy like Dominic Phipss on his book about history of freestyle bmx who is also project manager for Haro and I would be exchanging parts between a Serbian rider and a good friend Milos Mihajlovic? This is because BMX family is a humble family. Celebrities of this family are good people and they are friendly. You could be only member of a Holywood star's fan page, that's all. But BMX family members are real people and equal. To me, the magic, the mystical power is in the shared history and feelings of the riders no matter how they good were in freestyle, how famous they were or where they are from. These two wheels connected to each other with some pipes have this magic to bind anyone together who enjoyed it once in their life. I am happy and proud to witness this era and be a part of this family even from thousands of miles away and even I had no chance to have even a decent bike in my childhood. Long live BMX.