Freestyle BMX riders participate in several well-established disciplines. As in the other forms of freestyle riding, there are no specific rules; style/aesthetics, skills, and creativity are emphasised.
Street Street riders make use of urban and public spaces to perform tricks. These tricks can be performed on curbs, handrails, stairs, ledges, banks, and other obstacles. Styles among street riders vary, as riders often depend upon their urban surroundings. BMX street rose to prominence as an increasingly defined discipline in the late 1980s. In modern BMX, the progression of more technical tricks on street obstacles has led to this discipline becoming more divided from other freestyle disciplines. BMX bikes aimed at street riding typically have steeper angles and shorter wheelbases, making them easier to maneuver, but less stable at the higher speeds associated with ramp and dirt riding. Within street BMX there are a handful of competitions, however, the majority of professional street riders tend to focus on making videos for DVDs and
YouTube videos on behalf of their sponsors. Only a handful of riders tend to focus on both, with competition courses and corporate sponsorships not considered 'core' street riding by many riders. One rider who has succeeded in both competitions and video projects is Garret Reynolds. Garret has won 13
X Games medals, as well as Ride BMX Nora Cup Awards for Video Part of The Year and Street Rider of the Year, and is largely considered one of the best BMX Street riders ever.
BMX Park Park denotes the BMX discipline of exclusively riding skateparks, often with an emphasis on riding bowl transitions or jump boxes.
Skateparks are used by BMX riders as well as skateboarders, inline skaters and freestyle scooter-riders. Skateparks themselves can be made of
wood,
concrete or
metal. Styles of riding will depend on the style of the parks. Wood is more suited to a flowing style, with riders searching for gaps and aiming to get the highest airs from the
coping. Concrete parks usually tend to contain bowls and pools. However, it is not unusual for riders to merge the two styles in either type of park. Concrete parks are commonly built outdoors due to their ability to withstand years of exposure to the elements of conditions. Concrete parks are also often publicly funded due to their permanent and low-cost nature in comparison to wood parks. Parks made from wood are popular with commercial skateparks, but harder to maintain, as the wood can start to decompose over time, or the features can be damaged through extensive use. Wooden parks are often considered safer than concrete, as during an impact, the wooden surface deflects by a small amount, in contrast to concrete, which is inelastic. Parks designed with BMX use in mind will typically have steel coping along the side that is less prone to damage than concrete or pool coping. There are a number of competitions that focus on the BMX park discipline, with
X Games typically focusing on progressive tricks and large jumps, and other competitions such as the
Vans BMX Pro Cup focusing more on flowing and stylish riding on bowl style courses. In June 2017, the
Olympic Committee announced that BMX freestyle park would be featured at the
Summer 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.
Vert Ramp Vert is a freestyle BMX discipline performed in a
half pipe consisting of two
quarter pipes set facing each other (much like a
mini ramp), but at around 10–15 feet tall (around 2.5 to 3.5 meters high). The biggest ramp ever used in competition is the
X-Games big air ramp at tall. Both ‘faces’ of the ramp have an extension to the transition that is vertical, hence the name. Coping is a round metal tube at the lip of the vert that helps freestyle BMXers do grinds, and stalls on the lip of the vert. Riders go up each jump, performing air tricks before landing into the transition having turned 180 degrees. A typical run involves going from one side to the other, airing above the coping each side. Also possible are 'lip tricks' - tricks on the platform at the top of the ramps before dropping into the ramp. Many tricks consist of the rider grabbing a part of the bike or removing body parts off the bike.
Trails Trails are paths that lead to jumps made of heavily compacted dirt. Jumps in the same path, or "line", are sometimes referred to as packs, such as a four pack, a six pack, or an eight pack, which would have two, three, and four jumps respectively. A dirt jump consists of a steep take off, called a lip, with an often slightly less steep landing. The lip and landing are usually built as separate mounds, divided by a gap. The gap is measured from the topmost part of the lip, horizontally to the topmost part of the far side of the landing. Gaps typically range from only a couple of feet to over twenty feet. A moderate gap is around twelve feet. Trails riding is sometimes also referred to as "
dirt jumping". Most trails riders maintain that a subtle difference exists in the style and flow of "dirt jumps" and "trails"; trails riders focus more on a flowing smooth style from one jump to the next while performing other stylish tricks, while dirt jumpers try to perform the craziest tricks they can over larger, less flow-oriented jumps. Trails riders usually run a rear brake only as they have no use for a front brake, and usually a rotor (gyro) to make it easier to do barspins, so they do not have to spin the bars back the other way to untangle them, which is hard to do on trails. In general, trail/dirt jumping bikes have longer
wheelbases (
chainstays) than other BMX bikes to aid with stability in mid-air.
Flatland Flatland BMX occupies a position somewhat removed from the rest of freestyle BMX. People who ride in the above disciplines will generally take part in at least one of the others, but flatlanders tend to only ride flatland. They are often very dedicated and will spend several hours a day perfecting their technique. Flatland also differs from the others in that the terrain used is nothing but a smooth, flat surface (e.g. an asphalt parking lot, basketball courts, etc.). Tricks are performed by spinning and balancing in a variety of body and bicycle positions. Riders almost always use knurled aluminum pegs to stand on to manipulate the bike into even stranger positions. Flatland bikes typically have a shorter wheelbase than other freestyle bikes. Flatland bikes differ from dirt jumping bikes and freestyle bikes in one way. The frames are often more heavily reinforced because the people riding flatland often stand on the frames. This shorter wheelbase requires less effort to make the bike spin or to position the bike on one wheel. One of the primary reasons flat landers often ride only on flatland is the decreased stability of a shorter bike on ramps, dirt courses and streets. A variety of options are commonly found on flatland bikes, because it is in an open space. The most unifying feature of flatland bikes is the use of four pegs, one on the end of each wheel axle. Flatland riders will choose to run either a front brake, a rear brake, both brakes, or no brakes at all, depending on stylistic preference. ==Tricks==