What happened to dirt?

Since the mid/late 90's skate/bike parks have been popping up like starbucks. They're everywhere, thats why. Just more parks, less of a reason to go spend a few weeks to a months digging in the dirt to get a dirt line going. Not to mention maintaining dirt.

We tend to call it trails now too. instead of having a few jumps dotted about, you'd have long lines of doubles with berms and stuff connecting them. It usually takes a team of locals to build and maintain them. Which is too much hard work for kids. Especially if they've got a nice concrete park just down the road that we would've given our internal organs for.
It's certainly not dead though, there's trails dotted about all over the place. It just means more travelling and helping the locals so they let you ride them.
Bmx definitely isn't dead either. In all my time riding, I'd say it's the biggest it's ever been. But there's so many online specialist shops, your averag high street store can't compete

I love dirt but got sick of my town plowing my trails , look on the bright side though
You can't mow down scooter kids at the trails

Grumpysteve, I am familiar with "trails" and ride the few we have left around here. Perhaps in GBR the scene is pumping, but on Long Island it is not. Like you said, in the late 90's (my era) it was huge.

I thought about the emergence of skateparks. That seems to make sense. I guess I was always too much of a wuss and preferred the more forgiving nature of dirt than concrete.

johnduff86 wrote:

Grumpysteve, I am familiar with "trails" and ride the few we have left around here. Perhaps in GBR the scene is pumping, but ...more

johnduff86 wrote:

Grumpysteve, I am familiar with "trails" and ride the few we have left around here. Perhaps in GBR the scene is pumping, but on Long Island it is not. Like you said, in the late 90's (my era) it was huge.

I thought about the emergence of skateparks. That seems to make sense. I guess I was always too much of a wuss and preferred the more forgiving nature of dirt than concrete.

...more

http://www.vitalbmx.com/forums/New-England,7/Long-Island-Brookhaven-Hospital-Trails,1283698

johnduff86 wrote:

Grumpysteve, I am familiar with "trails" and ride the few we have left around here. Perhaps in GBR the scene is pumping, but ...more

johnduff86 wrote:

Grumpysteve, I am familiar with "trails" and ride the few we have left around here. Perhaps in GBR the scene is pumping, but on Long Island it is not. Like you said, in the late 90's (my era) it was huge.

I thought about the emergence of skateparks. That seems to make sense. I guess I was always too much of a wuss and preferred the more forgiving nature of dirt than concrete.

...more

I wouldn't go as far as to say it's pumping! But there are some good trails, and it's a small country so I guess we have that in our favour!

It's building season though, so if you really want some, grab a shovel!

I always prefered trails in the late 90's, but now they're massive and scary. I'm supposed to be helping a friend get our old local trails built back up, but I'm struggling to find the time

grumpySteve wrote:

I wouldn't go as far as to say it's pumping! But there are some good trails, and it's a small country so I guess we have that ...more

grumpySteve wrote:

I wouldn't go as far as to say it's pumping! But there are some good trails, and it's a small country so I guess we have that in our favour!

It's building season though, so if you really want some, grab a shovel!

I always prefered trails in the late 90's, but now they're massive and scary. I'm supposed to be helping a friend get our old local trails built back up, but I'm struggling to find the time

...more

its ice and snowing here in NY so it is far from building season, we're in winter.

I think it is mostly do to the fact people don't want to dig, and a lot of trail "bosses" are fucking douche bags. I went to some local trails years ago and they wanted you to dig for 2 days before you could ride...and then if you clipped a lip or pissed in the wrong spot the dudes would flip the fuck out. If I'm riding my little kids bike I wanna go out, relax and have a good time. I don't need some butthole, who does not even own the property, to be policing my every move.

I preferred those era of trails too. You had time in between jumps. There were rhythm sections (I really dislike it when people call these pump tracks. It's probably just me though) but these rhythm sections were a collection of rollers that people either manualed or jumped. Now, every jump is in a rhythm section. The landings are as thin and steep as the lips and there is not a lot of space in between, and no pedaling.

Anyway, I am just hoping that if/when the town approved trails start, people will use them, since judging by all the bmx videos online, it's all about street and skateparks.

bobPA wrote:

I think it is mostly do to the fact people don't want to dig, and a lot of trail "bosses" are fucking douche bags. I went to ...more

bobPA wrote:

I think it is mostly do to the fact people don't want to dig, and a lot of trail "bosses" are fucking douche bags. I went to some local trails years ago and they wanted you to dig for 2 days before you could ride...and then if you clipped a lip or pissed in the wrong spot the dudes would flip the fuck out. If I'm riding my little kids bike I wanna go out, relax and have a good time. I don't need some butthole, who does not even own the property, to be policing my every move.

...more

You're in PA, is that the sort of thing that goes on at trails like Posh/Catty? I have heard of this sort of thing though I have never encountered it. Now, it seems (like at 250 trails JohnnyGanja referenced) people are just happy to have someone to ride with. I also noticed, since I am 36, there is a greater level of respect from the youngsters at the trails.

bobPA wrote:

I think it is mostly do to the fact people don't want to dig, and a lot of trail "bosses" are fucking douche bags. I went to ...more

bobPA wrote:

I think it is mostly do to the fact people don't want to dig, and a lot of trail "bosses" are fucking douche bags. I went to some local trails years ago and they wanted you to dig for 2 days before you could ride...and then if you clipped a lip or pissed in the wrong spot the dudes would flip the fuck out. If I'm riding my little kids bike I wanna go out, relax and have a good time. I don't need some butthole, who does not even own the property, to be policing my every move.

...more

i personally would have just rode them and if someone gave me an issue knock em out then they tend not to start anything with you because they dont want to get knocked out again.


but for johnduff i never had parks up here we had small amount of dirtjumps nothing crazy just like i said couple of small ones but for most part all i had was street and its kind of what i stick with. i can honestly say ive never ridden some real trails.

i was offered to ride at some trails years ago this is mid 2000's on long island the band obnoxious gas was doing a show in some trails and i believe one of the band members also rode trails name was like cecil brown

My crew used to have a nice 8 pack of wooden lips and landings was fast and big it was nice no maintenance and we were down for anyone to come ride them

bobPA wrote:

I think it is mostly do to the fact people don't want to dig, and a lot of trail "bosses" are fucking douche bags. I went to ...more

bobPA wrote:

I think it is mostly do to the fact people don't want to dig, and a lot of trail "bosses" are fucking douche bags. I went to some local trails years ago and they wanted you to dig for 2 days before you could ride...and then if you clipped a lip or pissed in the wrong spot the dudes would flip the fuck out. If I'm riding my little kids bike I wanna go out, relax and have a good time. I don't need some butthole, who does not even own the property, to be policing my every move.

...more

JonnyGanja wrote:

i personally would have just rode them and if someone gave me an issue knock em out then they tend not to start anything with ...more

JonnyGanja wrote:

i personally would have just rode them and if someone gave me an issue knock em out then they tend not to start anything with you because they dont want to get knocked out again.


but for johnduff i never had parks up here we had small amount of dirtjumps nothing crazy just like i said couple of small ones but for most part all i had was street and its kind of what i stick with. i can honestly say ive never ridden some real trails.

i was offered to ride at some trails years ago this is mid 2000's on long island the band obnoxious gas was doing a show in some trails and i believe one of the band members also rode trails name was like cecil brown

...more

hmmm mid 2000. Back then Sevs in Farmingville might have been around. Oak Park in Bellport. Hewlet off Hospital road was the newest. Very big. Those are all gone now. Panamoka was after that, now plowed. Other than 250 trails and Keyko (i have no idea) Boondocks are probably the biggest LI has right now. Difficult to find and you really have to know someone there since it's all tarped up. I have been working on getting directions/access myself......

The videos on YT look pretty sick. I hear there is a noob/old guy section too. More my style.

bobPA wrote:

I think it is mostly do to the fact people don't want to dig, and a lot of trail "bosses" are fucking douche bags. I went to ...more

bobPA wrote:

I think it is mostly do to the fact people don't want to dig, and a lot of trail "bosses" are fucking douche bags. I went to some local trails years ago and they wanted you to dig for 2 days before you could ride...and then if you clipped a lip or pissed in the wrong spot the dudes would flip the fuck out. If I'm riding my little kids bike I wanna go out, relax and have a good time. I don't need some butthole, who does not even own the property, to be policing my every move.

...more

Think of it from their side, you came to their place, their sanctuary if you will. They want you to PROVE YOURSELF to ride it. Why? I'm sure you understand good trails take a TON of work. We built some here, spent countless hours digging to get them up and running, and within a few weeks the spot was BLOWN UP by a ton of randoms showing up and telling their friends about it. NONE of them helped out. They would blow up landings and trash lips and do nothing to repair them, THEN they would complain when we stopped working on them. It got to the point where these kids were stealing beer from their parents, getting trashed (they were like 13-17) and bringing old couches and trash in there and burning stuff. We even found needles out there.

That's an extreme case, BUT the point is valid. If you spent days and weeks building a line, you wouldn't want some random showing up, trashing the lips/landings etc and leaving without helping fix it. Just like if you built a box or a rail, and some kid came and put a peg through the side of the box or dented the rail doing an over ice. You'd be pissed.

While those dudes were extreme with how they ran their trails, it is in NO WAY bad to expect new folks to dig and help out to earn their session on all that hard work those dudes put in. I would (and did) expect the same exact thing with my trails. I expected some help with them when people came to my place to "earn a session"-either dig then ride, OR dig at the end of the session to get them back to how they were before they were ridden that day, because I spent hours building my own at my parents place, and everyone just expected me to put in the insane amount of hours so they could just show up, do whatever and leave. It's a crap position to be in as the trail builders because you want people to come enjoy them, but you also want them to pitch in and help out-especially when or if they wreck something.

If you don't want to dig, then go to publicly maintained trails, or the skatepark.

To the original point, kids are lazy and expect others to put in the work so they can reap the benefits. That's all. Most kids refuse to do anything for themselves, so spending hours upon hours working, ain't gonna happen with your average kid.

dave lawrence wrote:

To the original point, kids are lazy and expect others to put in the work so they can reap the benefits. That's all. Most kids ...more

dave lawrence wrote:

To the original point, kids are lazy and expect others to put in the work so they can reap the benefits. That's all. Most kids refuse to do anything for themselves, so spending hours upon hours working, ain't gonna happen with your average kid.

...more

Also, trails...good ones, are usually off the beaten path. You gotta know someone who knows about it. You can't google dirtparks and get an address to ride there. They're out there, sometimes they gotta find you.

I know about quite a few in washington state where I'm from. And one in new york city, the land of concrete. I usually just keep the info to myself, unless I see your not an asshat. Then I might invite you. Them shits take alot of time to make and no time to break.

At our spot (which I really should be helping out with) we're building a main line in the middle that goes into a berm to the right, down a hill, and into a couple of huge jumps. And a much smaller rollerble (not a real word....) line on the left for the younger riders to piss about on. My plan is to build a mid line on the right that hips into the end of the main line, uses the same berm to the right with a couple more mid sized jumps next to the big ones. The main and mid lines will be tarped and chained, and the little line will hopefully be enough to keep everyone else preoccupied so the don't wreck anything else.
These trails have been around for as long as I can remember, and have been trashed almost every season. People got sick of having to put the work in to maintain them a fair few times. And the council used to stick their nose in. But the land is privately owned now and the owner doesn't mind us digging. Hopefully he'll give us permission to fence it all off too.
It's a ball ache having to rebuild jumps when they get trashed. Any other rider should have the respect to chip in if they want to ride them. If not, we won't be taking the tarp or chains off. Unless they give us beer or money.....

Kids today feel like digging takes too much time and too much work.

I mean, who wants to see videos of you and your mates digging?

Time is better spent making videos about your trip to the skatepark in a van or pranking each other than digging.

one try kid wrote:

Kids today feel like digging takes too much time and too much work.

I mean, who wants to see videos of you and your mates ...more

one try kid wrote:

Kids today feel like digging takes too much time and too much work.

I mean, who wants to see videos of you and your mates digging?

Time is better spent making videos about your trip to the skatepark in a van or pranking each other than digging.

...more

I think image has something to do with it. Looking "street" or whatever in the woods is silly. Your homies can't see you out there, and you aren't "sticking it to the man" by re-landscaping. A lot of kids like street because it is "edgy" and "rebellious" and you can be recognized for it easier than being that dude with a shovel in the woods.

one try kid wrote:

Kids today feel like digging takes too much time and too much work.

I mean, who wants to see videos of you and your mates ...more

one try kid wrote:

Kids today feel like digging takes too much time and too much work.

I mean, who wants to see videos of you and your mates digging?

Time is better spent making videos about your trip to the skatepark in a van or pranking each other than digging.

...more

dave lawrence wrote:

I think image has something to do with it. Looking "street" or whatever in the woods is silly. Your homies can't see you out ...more

dave lawrence wrote:

I think image has something to do with it. Looking "street" or whatever in the woods is silly. Your homies can't see you out there, and you aren't "sticking it to the man" by re-landscaping. A lot of kids like street because it is "edgy" and "rebellious" and you can be recognized for it easier than being that dude with a shovel in the woods.

...more

*Cough* BMX NEEDS TO BE PUNK AGAIN *Cough*

Heard that one-million times from og's.

Bmx in itself is just an image for some people. Not even fun or anything. They start doing it for the image.

johnduff86 wrote:

hmmm mid 2000. Back then Sevs in Farmingville might have been around. Oak Park in Bellport. Hewlet off Hospital road was the ...more

johnduff86 wrote:

hmmm mid 2000. Back then Sevs in Farmingville might have been around. Oak Park in Bellport. Hewlet off Hospital road was the newest. Very big. Those are all gone now. Panamoka was after that, now plowed. Other than 250 trails and Keyko (i have no idea) Boondocks are probably the biggest LI has right now. Difficult to find and you really have to know someone there since it's all tarped up. I have been working on getting directions/access myself......

The videos on YT look pretty sick. I hear there is a noob/old guy section too. More my style.

...more

yea it was in famingville because I remember I was in farmingdale on a mushroom trip

I remember about 10-12 years ago when paved berms on bmx tracks starting popping up.Now there are bmx tracks that are paved all the way around.



Still not quite right with that.

bmx racing is nearly the same as road cycling today. super smooth and easy tracks and everyone is clipped in.

bmx trails is the real deal.

No dig, no ride.

Plenty of folks don't want to put in work when they can just go to the skatepark.

If you want to ride dirt, pick up a shovel.

Long Island has trails. go find them. or, build your own.

We got off topic. Its not that there are no trails left, I was wondering why it seems everyone rides either park or street and it seems that dirt is dying. Browse through the videos on vital. Theres one dirt video for every 10 street/park. Even big productions like Holy fit, theres about 5 seconds of dirt.

canyoudigitbmx.com

johnduff86 wrote:

We got off topic. Its not that there are no trails left, I was wondering why it seems everyone rides either park or street and ...more

johnduff86 wrote:

We got off topic. Its not that there are no trails left, I was wondering why it seems everyone rides either park or street and it seems that dirt is dying. Browse through the videos on vital. Theres one dirt video for every 10 street/park. Even big productions like Holy fit, theres about 5 seconds of dirt.

...more

Because it's hard as balls to start trails nowdays without facing legal problems or asshats, and half the timevwhen you show up to a set of good ones the locals are outrageous pricks. The trails community is the least inviting side of bmx.

biggybuggy wrote:

Because it's hard as balls to start trails nowdays without facing legal problems or asshats, and half the timevwhen you show ...more

biggybuggy wrote:

Because it's hard as balls to start trails nowdays without facing legal problems or asshats, and half the timevwhen you show up to a set of good ones the locals are outrageous pricks. The trails community is the least inviting side of bmx.

...more

I never had a problem throwing a shovel around, but a lot of places I went the locals thought they should be treated like royalty. I mean you made some piles of dirt in the woods...awesome bro.

@JohnnyGanja I'm pretty sure knocking someone out because they bitched at me is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Especially if I was a guest at their place.


Instead of wasting so much time digging we would always throw in for a bobcat...And then when I learned about machines we would rent a mini excavator. Stack as much dirt as you can handle in a few hours and form it with shovels....people do not understand how cheap it is to rent a machine if you have a couple guys to throw in, and the time save is ridiculous.

johnduff86 wrote:

We got off topic. Its not that there are no trails left, I was wondering why it seems everyone rides either park or street and ...more

johnduff86 wrote:

We got off topic. Its not that there are no trails left, I was wondering why it seems everyone rides either park or street and it seems that dirt is dying. Browse through the videos on vital. Theres one dirt video for every 10 street/park. Even big productions like Holy fit, theres about 5 seconds of dirt.

...more

biggybuggy wrote:

Because it's hard as balls to start trails nowdays without facing legal problems or asshats, and half the timevwhen you show ...more

biggybuggy wrote:

Because it's hard as balls to start trails nowdays without facing legal problems or asshats, and half the timevwhen you show up to a set of good ones the locals are outrageous pricks. The trails community is the least inviting side of bmx.

...more

bobPA wrote:

I never had a problem throwing a shovel around, but a lot of places I went the locals thought they should be treated like ...more

bobPA wrote:

I never had a problem throwing a shovel around, but a lot of places I went the locals thought they should be treated like royalty. I mean you made some piles of dirt in the woods...awesome bro.

@JohnnyGanja I'm pretty sure knocking someone out because they bitched at me is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Especially if I was a guest at their place.


Instead of wasting so much time digging we would always throw in for a bobcat...And then when I learned about machines we would rent a mini excavator. Stack as much dirt as you can handle in a few hours and form it with shovels....people do not understand how cheap it is to rent a machine if you have a couple guys to throw in, and the time save is ridiculous.

...more

Out here where most of the dirt is sand, we have wooden take offs and a sand pile with wood and a carpet on it as a landing sometimes. Works like a charm.

a machine is nice. Some places you can't get a machine into though.

myself and two others built a five jump line in six months. digging 3-4 days a night. driving an hour each way to the woods.

and by "five jumps", I mean real, man sized jumps.

you wanna roast, you gotta put in work.


trails rule.