I got into BMX when I was 12 years old — yeah, that's way back in 1979! But my love for riding started years earlier. When I was 5, I got a Big Wheel. We lived along a bike path that runs alongside the Mississippi River, and I'd pedal that thing as fast as I could, trying — and failing — to keep up with the cyclists who passed by. I remember wishing so badly that I had a real bicycle so I could keep up with them.

By the time I was 6, I was learning to ride on two wheels. We didn't have much money back then — my mom took the training wheels off a small, cheap, fixed-gear bike so I could learn, but it never really fit me right. Once I outgrew it, I went back to riding my Big Wheel until I was 7, when I finally got my first real bicycle: a banana-seat model. A few years later, my stepdad surprised me with a blue Schwinn Sting-Ray with three speeds, and I went everywhere on that bike. I don't think my parents ever knew just how far I'd ride — my best friend and I would easily go 15 to 20 miles from home, taking off on these adventures with no real plan, just figuring out how to find our way back.

In 1979, I saw my first BMX magazine, Bicycle Motocross Action (later renamed BMX Action). Growing up in a lower-income community, I had no idea BMX existed as an official sport until then, and from that day forward I was obsessed. I did everything I could to build up a decent BMX bike — delivering newspapers, and once I was old enough for a regular job, working at McDonald's — all so I could afford better bikes and parts. I had a racing bike and a freestyle bike.

My first mountain bike came in 1987, but mountain bikes back then weren't great, and since I rode mine like a BMX bike, it didn't hold up long. I didn't get into mountain bike racing until 1994, and that's when I finally learned to ride a mountain bike like a mountain bike instead of a BMX.

I've been riding both MTB and BMX ever since, and I still push myself to progress as much as I can, even at my age. It's different now, but I enjoy riding just as much as I always have.

Got questions about BMX or mountain biking, or curious about what I do on my YouTube channel, ShadLife? Ask away — that's exactly what ShadBot is here for.