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Guys getting air and flying Bears.
No show pros and little girls. Sweaty white foreigners in
the hot afternoon sun. Posing with my bike and having fun.
Ahhh yes, it's bike show time again.
BMX enjoys a healthy following in
Taiwan thanks in large part to long time local practitioners,
an excellent ramp park which was built for the X-games a few
years ago, and of course all the clothes and trappings that
go along with riding BMX.
For the past few years the local crew
have secured an area adjacent to Exhibition Hall B during
the trade show for a BMX exhibition. A perfect place to show
off to locals and visitors alike. Absent this year were the
incredible foreign trial riders and maniac jumpers who blew
everyone away with their professionalism and high skill level
last year.
The locals figured with the absence
of foreigners this year they would get more locals involved
in the show, so all age groups and levels seemed to be represented.
Both days the show was lead by Bear,
the undisputed king of ramps in Taiwan. This guy rips and
has a gold medal from the Asian X Games a few years ago to
attest to his skill level. Auspiciously, he was the only rider
bothering to wear a full-face helmet for the event. It would
prove to be an almost fatal mistake for another rider on the
last day.
Final day arrives and we are down
to the main show with Bear warming up in the background. He'll
take the stage in five. Two kids are trying to rip up the
ramps, one girl about 12 years old and a little guy about
9 years old. Everyone is clapping at the little guy as he
catches 2-foot air off the tabletop ramp. He lands it no problem
and disappears into the background high fiving his stoked
buddies on the side.
Cute girl is up. She looks positively
hip for a teenage Taiwanese girl. She's wearing aloha print
shorts and a cool shirt. She's got a skateboard style helmet
on and crash pads on her legs. She takes center stage and
gives the ramps a run. Skill level is average at very best,
but the crowd is stoked to see a girl out there giving it
a try. She hit's the tabletop jump and gets minor air. She's
stoked; the crowd is clapping so everyone tells her to give
it one last jump. She turns around and sets up for the last
tabletop jump again. What followed next was straight out of
a horror movie.
Again she gets minor air off the tabletop
ramp, but this time her landing is off. She lands a bit sideways
and appears to be headed off of the side of the ramp. Rather
than bail her bike and take a nice little tumble, her lack
of experience has her falling with her bike off the ledge.
She falls, smacking her face into the pavement and immediately
passes out. Sickening sight.
From my perspective I thought she
had almost certainly broken her neck. Everyone stops clapping
and is horrified. A pool of blood and a passed out girl. The
event organizers never dreamed that something like this would
happen and thus had no ambulance at the event or even a first
aid kit on hand. The girl is dragged away under a tent and
is bleeding all over the place. Some asshole is right in her
face with a video camera filming the entire thing. I put my
photo gear away and run over to take a look.
Many teeth missing and some even went
through the top of her lip. Her eyes are swollen beyond belief
and she's got blood running down her face. She regains consciousness
and it looks like luckily the worst is over. Neck is okay,
she's not paralyzed but her face looks like a tomato. Ambulance
arrives 15 minutes later and she's whisked away never to be
seen again.
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