what do yall think?
from http://sprfls.blogspot.com/. . . .
Progression? The bashguard didn't represent progression. It was a mere mutation in the gene pool, like standing platforms or Z-Rims. A BMX appendix. Bashguard bikes were heavy and unwieldly, yet they were still weak enough that your average 13-year-old could destroy one in a summer. When they passed on in the mid-'90s, I don't recall a single rider shedding a tear. Around 1993 I replaced my broken 1991 GT Aggressor with a 1985 Haro Sport and considered it an upgrade.
If anything, bashguard bikes represented the Hot Topicification of BMXbig companies finding a way to profit from a legitimate movement. Only riders were slowly waking to the fact that they didn't NEED these companies to tell them what was cool. The time period that followed has been dubbed the "dark days" of BMX, as bike sales dropped precipitously, pro riders were forced to get real jobs, and magazines went out of business. But BMX never died, it just re-focused. Those may have been dark days financially, yes, but they also birthed rider-owned companies like S&M, Hoffman and Standard, not to mention Ride magazine and Props. Dark days? No way. That was the period of enlightenment, as riders realized how much power they really had. What followed was the Renaissance. Bashguard bikes were an end, not a beginning.
from http://sprfls.blogspot.com/. . . .
Progression? The bashguard didn't represent progression. It was a mere mutation in the gene pool, like standing platforms or Z-Rims. A BMX appendix. Bashguard bikes were heavy and unwieldly, yet they were still weak enough that your average 13-year-old could destroy one in a summer. When they passed on in the mid-'90s, I don't recall a single rider shedding a tear. Around 1993 I replaced my broken 1991 GT Aggressor with a 1985 Haro Sport and considered it an upgrade.
If anything, bashguard bikes represented the Hot Topicification of BMXbig companies finding a way to profit from a legitimate movement. Only riders were slowly waking to the fact that they didn't NEED these companies to tell them what was cool. The time period that followed has been dubbed the "dark days" of BMX, as bike sales dropped precipitously, pro riders were forced to get real jobs, and magazines went out of business. But BMX never died, it just re-focused. Those may have been dark days financially, yes, but they also birthed rider-owned companies like S&M, Hoffman and Standard, not to mention Ride magazine and Props. Dark days? No way. That was the period of enlightenment, as riders realized how much power they really had. What followed was the Renaissance. Bashguard bikes were an end, not a beginning.
