Bikes according to Moe

 I've been asking my friends that if they wanted to write anything for the blog I would post it up and I got a few people working on some stuff they wanted to say about bikes. The first was last week with Justin Gamache and now we got my friend Moe Lopes, you may remember him from riding for the right reason's articles I did back in the early Spring. He is gonna break his up into three parts I'll be posting them as I get them from him. Before you read what he had to write just know that Moe, like myself has been around since the very early days of BMX which means he's seen alot of things (trends) come and go. I respect his opinion, and with that said I'll leave the rest up to him:

Moe grinding in New Bedford

Lately I've been thinking a lot about riding and where it came from and where it's at now. I've broken it into three sections that have their own pros and cons. Not to say I'm bashing anyone or their style or why they ride is up to debate because I'm too old to care what you think of me! This is somewhat a summary of my thoughts on some of the aspects of riding.
First there is the riding aspect. I fail to understand how kids or older guys can tailwhip,barspin, or flip the hell out a park or street course but they can't manual!!! Really... So there's no more bike control just huck and hope for the best!!! After watching the Xgames I came away pretty disappointed to say the least. Every run(excluding Chase Hawk) had someone spinning wildly to wow the crowd and all I could think was am I watching a circus!! No originality or flow,just back and forth monster trucking everywhere. No one saw that chase was boosting just as high as everyone else but because he wasn't  doing 3whips or flair whips so people could care less,prime example is some one like Dave Osato back in the day that did 270 toothpicks to barpin out and people didn't even clap!! So basically a flip got more applause than that(a trick at the time that was more technical).  My perspective is that the Xgames have ruined BMX, the soccer mom mentality is in full effect and parents are grooming kids to be the next super spin master. I remember watching an old Powell video and Steve caballero had a part called the perfect line and basically all he did was link grinds and lip tricks together into one continuous run. I thought that was the raddest thing and if I could do a run like that on a bike I'd be psyched!!!  Apparently that's not good enough anymore, don't get me wrong I love progression and I do have a few favorite riders that are pretty amazing . I'm just think the true aspect of riding has been lost and a lot of the new breed have no clue why they ride, not to say some don't cause I see the ones that appreciate it for what it is. We all got into this for the same reason. Self accomplishment,freedom (no coaches!!) and most of all FUN!! Go ride your bike!