Grow Old Not Up: B&M
It goes without saying that anything with Olly Wilkins and Ben Deakin is going to be good. The infamous ‘just roll it’ incident was pure gold, but Focus has pulled it out the bag with this mini documentary about how they grew up riding.Â
They touch on some great points in this, showing the pure fun of riding your bike with you friends, and dug into what I believe to be my main motivation to ride. That is, the feeling I got when I rode your bike as a kid.
I returned to the spot I grew up riding recently after quite a few years away and it really made me quite nostalgic. I can remember vividly spending both days of every weekend there, rain or shine, crashing, jumping and generally idolising the older riders who seemed to be able to do things beyond my comprehension.
It was great riding as a kid, nothing really seemed to matter that much. No one cared how much travel your bike had (none in my case), or if you had the latest clothing, or if you chain fell of every other run. We simply loved hurtling down a hill on a bike, and would do it as much a we could (which usually involved pushing 45lb downhill bikes back up – ahhh the Ironhorse Sunday era).
I’m sure the rose tinted glasses of hindsight are somewhat to blame for how fondly I remember it, but I find myself now trying to replicate that feeling. It’s by no means been lost but sometimes I lose sight of it, worrying that I’m not as fast as i’d like to be, or that my bikes making an odd noise yet again.Â
It’s good to remind yourself that none of these things matter, what matters is having fun on a bike. And this video did just that.
HG
