I was born in 1992. I have been introduced to the sport by one of my neighbors Zeynel in the early 90’s. He was the one lay couple of people on the ground and jump over them. He had a yellow BMX bike which I don’t remember the brand. IT was the first BMX bike I saw as far as remember. Shortly after meeting Zeynel, another friend of mine told me that there was a shop renting BMX bikes hourly. The shop owner was an elderly retired man Yaşar. He brought couple of BMX bike from Germany after his retirement and start renting the bikes in our neighborhood. I was amazed by the chrome-polished bikes look. These rental bikes are great opportunity for me, and I was renting them on Sundays and riding as much as I can.

In 1992, I went to fair area of Gaziantep. There was a very wide flat public space. At that fair area I came across many BMX riders. They were older than me and doing great tricks. I was astonished by the tricks. That day I decided to own my own BMX bike. Aftr one year one of my close friends Kenan purchased a Chinese made BMX. For a while we together rode that bike in the neighborhood. That year Kenan had a very bad accident with the bike. The pin of the front break was failed and the break mechanism jammed in to the front wheel, therefore; Kenan fell very bad and had many bruises and stretches on his face and body. His family was scared that my friend was going to hurt himself even further and made him to sell the bike. I purchased the bike from him. That was the first bike I own. It was 1993 and I start chasing the BMX gang in Gaziantep.

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At that year I realized that BMX in Gziantep was developed since 1980’s. They were like Harley Motorcycle gangs in different neighborhoods. I start hanging out with one of these gangs cocsist of 8-10 people and spend my time to improve my skills.

Since 1985 I have known Orhan who owned a bike shop at Gaziantep. There were many BMX riders buying and selling their parts and bikes. His shop was kind of a BMX shop since most of the BMX riders were doing their trade through his shop. Time to time a very nice BMX bikes were brought to the shop by the people coming from Germany. It was very hard for me to buy one these nice bikes but eventually I managed to buy a decent bike at that shop with a payment plan. It was a Bisan BMX with and SR stem, MX brakes and FIR wheels. This bike was much better than the previous one.

During 90’s BMX had a very special place in the city life. There were many tricks handled beautifully by many of the riders. Street riding was very widespread and amazing bunny hops were common. Touching the bus’s side mirrors and closing them with the rear wheel was one of the signature moves we have invented. Jumping over the bikes and motorcycles or hopping down long and high stairs was daily routine. There was also dirt jump ramps we were riding for long jumps and high jumps. Cat Kemal was one of our legends at the time. As its obvious by his name, he was quite amazing with hi bike. He was able to jump over 20 bikes, and over 120cm bunny hops. I saw he was jumping over a police motorcycle one day. He was pretty inspiring. He was one of my idols.

Some older riders were pretty crazy. They were closing the side mirror of a police car and have the police chase them down to have adrenaline.

Of course I wasn’t as crazy as them but I was pulling tricks as good as them. Some times we were getting bored of riding at Gaziantep and visiting other cities like Adana, Mersin, Antalya, Maraş, Kayseri, İstanbul, Ankara. They were great times.

Most of my friends riding street style stopped riding since then.  The number of BMX riders at Gaziantep dropped drastically. Street style became too boring for me and I decided to ride flatland. I found a video tape called “Trickstar 98” made by the greatest flatland riders at that time, and decided to ride flatland. In 2000 I purchased KHE Premium. I start doing trick shows and make money out of it. I was active up to 2006. Since 2006 I did not have enough time to ride because of the work.

Currently I am riding once or twice a year. Whenever I put my feed to the pedal, I feel younger. BMX has still a very special space in my heart.

Since my first BMX bike, I had many bikes like BİSAN, REDLINE, MONGOOSE, KUWAHARA, HUTCH, GT, GENERIX, HOFFMAN, HARO, DIAMONG BACK, KHE PREMIUM and lastly KHE EQUILIBRIUM. I still own KHE just in case I decided to ride again. I love this sport very much, and I strongly suggest every kid to try riding a BMX bike and experience the adrenaline. My best wishes to all riders and BMX enthusiast in Turkey.