Wednesday, October 4

Who Says You Can't Go Home?

By Scot McElwaney
BMXonline.com

Josh Pontzer, X-up sprocket stall to fakie on a guard rail in Atlanta, GA.

Photos and text by Scot McElwaney

It was about a year and a half ago when Mark Losey came to Athens, GA to do a scene report. Needless to say we were all stoked, but a little hesitant as well. If you think about it, having a scene report in Ride is usually a pretty big deal, and it had, for the most part, been reserved for scene's that had some notoriety. We were all relative unknowns who just enjoyed being on our bikes. Luckily, it turned out that we were exactly what Mark was wanting. A group of friends who weren't concerned with the drama involved in BMX, instead we just wanted to ride our bikes and have fun. The June, 1999 issue of Ride came out and the BMX world was formally introduced to the "Athens Family." We actually received a lot of good response from the article both in person and through the pages of Ride. Needless to say we were all really happy with the way things turned out.

Dustin, abubaca at Skater's Xtreme, Athens, GA.

After a few months, and a lot of rider's coming through our town, we began to notice a change. Not only was it more difficult to ride street in Athens after an infamous group of Fat Bald Men were arrested at the University of Georgia campus, but things were changing for the group. Graduation time came for many of us and we moved away from our home of many years and our surrogate family. This seemed to have put a damper on riding at times because it's hard to get the same feelings from riding when you don't have all of your friends that you have spent the past five years riding with. I was one of those who moved away. Meeting Mark had managed to pay off for me in a way that I wouldn't have imagined, and I ended up with a job here at the Ride Publishing offices. After a few months of living 3,000 miles from home I was given the opportunity to go back and ride with my old friends. After leaving Athens and my "Family' for a few months it was good to see that my friends were still the same people that I had left. They are still a family and a great bunch of friends. I was also pleased to learn that several of the original members of our group were moving back to Athens, including some of the guys that were there for the article as well as one of Athens' long lost sons, John "Peaches" Davis, who had been living in Austin for quite some time. I had originally planned to write a long account of my trip home, but after I started writing the article I thought, "Why bother?" No one cares that the "Athens Family" is still a family, and no one cares that the Athens riders continue to push their riding to new levels. After all why should anyone care? The only people that should be concerned with the scene in Athens are those that are involved in it. That is the way it should be in all scenes. You should never concern yourself with what others think of you, your riding, or your scene. Just ride for the reasons that are important to you, this is how it is in Athens. Everyone rides for themselves, for the sheer joy of being on a bike, and for the pleasure of hanging with friends. Hopefully this is what your scene is like and hopefully you could leave for a while and then return to the same family that you had left. I know I did.

Fastplant wallride to tailwhip courtesy of Kent Pierson.