A collection of photos from the 70s & 80s of kids jumping their bikes, sometimes over other kids. In that first pic, there is no way the two kids at the end of the row didn’t get stomped by that landing.
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This (i.e., building ramps from old plywood from new home construction, logs, whatever) and riding bikes around town in general are two activities that went well into the late 80s and early 90s and then... kind of faded away. I know it's an old man thing to say but I just don't see as many kids riding to nowhere in particular anymore. But for us, as kids growing up in that time between like 1988-1995... man, we'd just ride without any kind of supervision (or cellphones) for literally 6-8 hours all around a town of about 26,000 people and no one batted an eye.
I have been pleasantly surprised to see groups of kids riding around seemingly aimlessly in my new neighborhood in suburban DC. It actually made me really happy and I think this is the exact reason!
There's a group of kids near to me who have built 2 or 3 dirt jumps in a parcel of conservation land. It's encouraging to see them getting rad from time to time.
I remember how shitty we were as kids at building ramps. Nothing survived more than a couple of jumps.
All jumps were made out of half-rotten plywood, if memory serves.
Now that's memories. I never jumped other kids though.
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