Well I finally caved in and bought myself a BMX bike. Jing’s been pushing me to do so for the past week and I’ve been doing hours of research since (going out of my mind).
Initially I thought I’d be able to walk into a shop with $500 and buy a decent “complete” BMX (“complete’s” are ready to ride bikes) but on checking a few completes out I felt that all of them looked a bit try hard. It’s almost like they were trying to look custom.
As a skater back in the day (lol) there wasn’t any such thing as a “complete” skateboard (unless you bought one from Kmart). You bought a deck you liked, then the trucks you liked, wheels and basically personalised your own board. Skate culture rocks and BMX culture is pretty similar so I really wanted to do it right an go custom.
I had a play with adding things to a basket on an online BMX store. Frame $400, cranks $350… that’s already $750!!! By the time I had finished my build it came to $1700+. That quickly put an end to the idea of going custom. I had a little look at some 2nd hand bikes, rattled off a few private messages to sellers on forums and on eBay (to waste their time of-course) but decided I couldn’t trust buying a BMX bike off some 12yr old kid who’s thrashed it harder than I ever would.
So today I went for a drive out to Belrose cycles to check out their 2009 range of We The People (WTP) bikes. When I finally got to the store I saw a few lower end WTP bikes and again, all that paint, colours, skulls… they were just trying way too hard.
I eyed off a simple black BMX in the corner, turns out it the top of the line 2009 model Kink Apex. Kink Bike Co. are a brand that hails from NYC and I got thinking that the black was a good base to start with if I wanted to add some colour to it in future. The bike’s RRP was a whopping $1300 but I walked away with it for $899.00 (thanks Adrian!) so despite being a lot of cash for such a little and simple bike. I’m happy. Now for some pics (the bike will be de-stickered tonight of-course lol!).
