Our own secret BMXer Dane Mirror is on hand once again to brighten your day! Or ruin it if you have a name like Dave Smith, you live in Chelmsford and ride a flat rail..

1. Your name is too weak.

Wake up and smell the green tea hombre, if your name isn’t a marketable money making machine then you might as well get ready for a life of minimal paychecks, and by minimal we mean non and by non-we mean nothing, zero, nowt. Your name in principal is everything; if you think Joaquin Phoenix worked his way into acting with that fanciful name then think again, it was only 50% cool before he changed it. His original last name was ‘bottom’, great for working in a factory, terrible for working into the main credits of an American blockbuster. The same goes in BMX, take some of the greats like Taj Mihelich, Dakota Roche, Chase Hawk or Van Homan, entirely force based names, probably descended from the Vikings or Aztec warriors. In fact they actually all sound like men who chop trees down bare handed to build hospitals and open bottles of dark ale with their open fists, men who slay women and eat the hearts of other men with worse off names.

So, if it’s a Pro life you are pursuing for then make sure you change your name, honestly if you happen to be a Todd Greengates, Tim Smith, Daniel Barber or Alistair Whitten for example then think about changing it now or forever be destined to work in homebase and ride flat rails all weekend.

Here’s a short list of potential names of muscle which RIDE UK says you are aloud to use providing you get permission from the bill payer.

Heroin Thunder
Boxer Carlito
Rain Fortress
Rambo Victor Knuckle War
Terror Crimson

2. A flat rail is not a handrail.

I’m going to be very honest now, it might hurt you to hear this and it might be hard to swallow all the information at once but believe me its for you own good. If you haven’t done a handrail on a BMX then you are not allowed to talk about BMX in any way or shape. If you think that a flat rail is a rail then its not, you are wrong and you need to take some time away, to contemplate why you are involved in this pastime in the first place. You are simply not a man until you have been taken to town and eaten shit by a big steep steel rusty handrail with a foul and disgusting run up.

The handrail though is also a key ingredient to becoming a pro BMX rider, why? Let me explain; think of it as the equivalent of walking into a job interview and placing your testicles inside the mouth of your potential employer, you wont get the job but you will be feared by other men, and with that new sense of accomplishment you will probably be offered a new job, which might involved jumping out of a burning plane or punching hearts back to life on the accident and emergency wards. Remember, riding real brave heart style handrails is the fundamental part of turning pro and you won’t be looked at twice until you start hopping into the abyss on the reg. If you want to go big time pro you need to stop fiddling with the wobbly flat rail and tank off a big boy, preferably topless and with a ciggy in your mouth.

3. You live in dickhead town.

So you live on Church Street in Chelmsford and your best mate has a moshi monsters pocket camcorder and you have 5 spots (7 if it’s a weekend). You’ve made a few YouTube videos and you think you’re ready for the next step. I’ll level with you, you won’t make it in this cut throat business because you live in shits crap town and three medium park based whips on YouTube filmed by Tarquin is not going to melt the hearts of a solemn BMX brand looking for the next Baz Keep, seriously. Everyone moves away, I’m not being negative here and I’m not suggesting you move to California and live the dream on menace beach and get ripped with Fat Tony, I’m just saying you need to move to where the BMX is. It will make you work harder, ride better and give you a sense of what its like to not have your mother wipe your anus before and after you do a 180. Do it now and explore this great island or beyond, you can always come back when it doesn’t work out, Tarquin will still be here and you can make sweet movies together except this time they’ll be moody and depressive because they reflect the obsolete failure in your life. – DANE MIRROR