Xavier Redois - France
Hi Gerrit,
Thanks very much for your mail, It’s good that your “funny” mail was not a virus…I did received recently some emails from Claude Vuillemot and JF Lalli??? Which were not sending by them so that’s why I was questioning…anyway? I’m really glad to hear from you, and I do feel, still your passion you have about this sport. That’s really great!
I can see as well that Peter and Nico did find their ways out of the BMX very successfully: Congratulation, Bravo! it’s very good in one hand for them because it proves their ability to manage and control their live but on the other hand it raised to some extent the limited opportunities this discipline offers after a BMX career. Anyway I think that for some of us BMX has been a fantastic experience which provide a boost and the necessary push we needed to have to start “in live”, which is already extremely rewarding and positive.
Nevertheless I do feel (as well) that BMX is something which makes me react quite a lot, I still love this sport and feel often a bit sensitive about seeing other disciplines (more popular may be?) reinventing My sport under the umbrella MTB; Boarder cross, 4X.
I read your comments regarding the last MTB World Championship, and I’m fully agree or fully supportive to what your say about the 4X. Again we (as “BMX stakeholder”) let other people stealing or reinventing what was the essence of our sport, instead of making this sport bigger, appealing to a more “mature audience”, and or capitalizing on our strengths. After all BMX has been one of the first emerging “Extreme sport” and it looks like, that today BMX is still trying to prove itself?...Shame and shame!
Downhill BMX, Oh Yes! It’s key to be spectacular, fast, and so generate interest, this is what I try to do when I designed the BMX track in Tours for more than 10 years, it was to create an image a strong identity to our sport, a bit extreme but very spectacular…It was also the idea behind “The Open SuperCross” that I launch in Tours in 1994; Extreme and Simple: 1 winner and only one.
It did work and still working but other disciplines make the move in their own interest, fair enough and it’s going to be up to the BMX world to make it happens.
It cannot be my priority now to focus on that, but I wish to have the opportunity soon or later to contribute a bit better if possible to this sport. I’m sure there is many people who could contribute better or more to this sport, the problem is that you need to secure your living (I got 3 children 10, 7,and 5) and this living taking 100% of my time (and energy), I still believe that I will do something in one way or another to help this sport. Easy to talk more difficult to do and to act but it’s a start…
All the best Gerrit to you and your family, hope to talk you soon!
Cheers,
Xavier Redois - France