BMX your first inroduction into brand snobbery??

[dwain dibbly]

while ive been scouring the t'nternet for just the right
parts for my next build it occurred to me the amount of
snobbery in bmx  and i think its always been like that.

as a small child i had no concept whats so ever about marketing
or branding until i got into bmx in about 82 then all of a sudden
you had to have a certain f+f or the "right" parts fitted to your
bike to be considered "cool".
if for some reason you turned up at the track with a catalogue bike
you were ridiculed and embarrassed.
our local track was no means a hot bed for top bikes
i only ever remember seeing a couple of rippers haro's skways.
the majority were burners but even among these there was a snobbery
the kids with super tuffs were cooler than the kids on the standard red burners
my point is bmx changed my view on thing. from then on i was more aware
that i needed that Nike jacket and  Adidas samba trainers that everyone else
was wearing

was it just me? or is this hobby most peoples first taste of branding?? ?? ??

[DIRTBIKER250F]

MMM Has to be close with football shirts for me  dunno what was first ?? I remember the first Torker i saw though, it really was fookin lush. I had a Ultra and me bruv had a chromo, my sisters mate's bruv had it  shit am still fooked i think 

Paul

[Lazarou]

I think you're right Dwain i'll wear any old tat and usually get mistaken for a homeless dude but I am a collossal snob when it comes to bikes and parts!

[snav69]

In the village i live in most of us had Redlines , Burners  , Haro's and the like , Then one day one of our mates turned up on a PK Ripper (in 1984) and we all thought he was a tw*t and fooked him off  so the snobbery works both ways really as he thought he was gonna be coolest kid on the block but instead he was left with no mates     

 

[highrisedrifter]

was it just me? or is this hobby most peoples first taste of branding?? ?? ??

I have to admit I never considered that before. My first BMX was a Super Tuff Burner. Although this afforded me a certain level of 'coolness' because of the wheels, it wasn't until I got my T/A that I was allowed to hang with the 'cool kids'. That was the point when my friends started to get Pro Performers, Quads, Haros etc.

I think my little group got better BMXes round about the same time and this elevated us somewhat. No longer were we ridiculed at the local park / track.

[gt0733]

i don't remember snobbery as such BITD
i think there's probably more of it going on now amongst the "adults" on the different forums around the world 

for all i know i may be a snob without realizing it, but i did vote for burner king's bike in BOTY 

[JT71]

I think there's two kinds of folk who are into old school bmx. the ones who BITD were good riders/racers/freestylers and they may well have been riding Redlines, TA's, etc etc with loads of nice bits, MX900/1000s andnice dia compe levers, new bars, stems seats etc and then there were the casual riders like myself. a few jumps, but mainly my mki burner was just transport, changed tyres when needed, seat when it bust, brake cables when they bust but that was about it.

now it seems some parts are "desirable". I'm wondering if a lot of these parts are what we really wanted to fit BITD but didn't, so now we hunt them out and have to have them. It's not like going and paying £100 for a set brakes even makes you stop better does it? yeah they are ok, but if you want to stop there are better brakes than mx1000's...just they aren't quite era specific.

Even as a kid on our council estate there was some brand snobbery, we all had raleighs and the kid with a Piranha got the p1ss ripped out of him. I knew a few rich kids who had Kuwharas, Redlines and Diamond Backs, but on my estate, the Burner was king.

Brand snobbery is always going to exist, which is why those Coyote bikes might struggle to break into the new school scene seriously. I wonder if they marketed their top of the range models with no stickers and called them "un-branded" put the snafu bits on that dibly mentions in his post and got some decent riders to ride them, got some press then revealed they were "Coyote" bikes might get them accepted more easily. That said you'd hope that a good product at a good price will sell it's self but it doesn't always work.

I imagine loads of bike shops weren't interested in brand snobbery when they skipped all that dia compe old school "sh1te" they had clogging up  their store rooms back in the 90's. 

[dibly]

i think that is a wicked idea!!!! but saying that we have sold over 1000 (more of the higher models too)in 5 months which is well more than i expected  but i could play around with that idea a little. thanks man 

[jackel]

so true bike snobbery was a very big thing but it was all burners around our hang outs think chris smith had the coolest (he got an aero pro one christmas ) i started off with a tough burner blue and yellow swapped parts with people saved money off paper round for other bits and ended up with a mt racing silverfox frame and forks off a friend which ive reproed now
i remember buying some cw copy bars that had a bend in the middle (think they where graham reads specials) and seeing a lad go over the wall at the folk house bmx track in mansfield lol they where the days

[Shings]

Dwain


BMX snobbery for me in the early 90's when I was 10- 14 ish went along the lines of...

If you had an oval tube bike with an SR stem that was Hard as nails... ie Raliegh burner.

If you had tyres with tread on- that was wicked.

Mag wheels.. were coolist despite not being able to get brake blocks that worked.. Skyways and you were king of the street.

MX brakes... and other kids would bow as you rode.. front and back and they would wave too.

Anything with a double frame was like Jordan in your bed constantly...

Stunt pegs where rocking horse shite...



This is because it had pretty much died.. I keep saying it to the rad lot at meets- but when I got my TRM and started riding the streets we survived on bits and pieces and scraps - you couldn't buy anything anywhere- halfords did motorbikes and I came from a poor family anyway...



So you can imagine- my TRM when I was young got me respect.. Skyways, MX Brakes, Tyres with Tread, Double frame and stunt pegs....

Only things it lacked was double handle bars and a gyro..... which some people occasionaly saw- but gyro's never worked anyway.


Jake

PS- when you get banned from Novice nights for being to good will you be snobish or elitist?? lol

[Bob_Acid]

For me it was Crombie coats and the right brogues 

Secondry school in general.


 before that it was all Racers with cow horns, Star Wars and Dogtanion. I can't remember when 'stress' became part of my vocabulary?