Earlier today we posted up this edit featuring Carlos Vinuesa who’s only been riding 3 years but landed himself on the Shadow team in Spain. And rightly so, because he kills it. He puts his lines together with style often reserved for the more established BMXer.

Brian Foster has been a style god forever and he’s showing no signs of stopping. Photo by Rob Dolecki

This prompted a comment on our Facebook page from a fan called Jader Grolli who said, “You can be a good rider without barspins and whips all the time” Jader has definitely got a point, is it all about style? tricks? or tricks done with style?

We opened up the debate with “Do you need the full trick list to be good, or is style still king?” we got some great feedback, here’s how you reacted;

Sam Danielak would “rather watch an edit that isn’t full of bar spins and whips because that’s all people seem to do nowadays” and he’d sooner “watch someone do fewer, harder tricks, pulled really nicely”. In the style corner is Mike Francis “Style for sure – I’d rather watch Baz (Keep) ride a run at a comp and throw down style, than watch someone smashing out whips/bars/flips every 5secs”.
Fair play but we do have so many edits on the site which are just trick after trick after trick right? Josh Bright says “Someone that innovates is a good rider, whether they do that with tricks or style, should it really matter if you think ‘wow’ when they ride” Another solid point, and Drew Bezanson’s Joyride 150 edit was a festival of trickery and we’ve not met anyone yet who’s had a bad word to say about that beast, this was truly innovating.

The super low slung frame came in around the mid naughties. These appear to be a dying breed now, but boy could you whip em!

Charlie Eastman thinks bike design is a key player in this debate “Whips used to be the tre flip of bmx, that crème of cheeses, that trick everyone roared for, but now it seems as standard as a bunnyhop, but I do blame modern bmx designs to an extent with their stupidly low stand over height no better than a scooter…”

Tricks can be made to look good of course, there’s some untidy bars out there but when Edwin Delarosa throws them, it’s beyond stylish, as Rory Millhouse thinks here “Just because its a barspin or a tailwhip doesn’t mean it can’t look good!”

Edwin Delarosa bridging the tricks and style gap with his truck hop Ride cover from a few years back.

Dean Stanley has a good take on this “I have more than enough respect for all them riders throwin down every trick in the book, but I’m a massive fan of flow, so stick to what you’re all doing, go massive and have fun!!” Have fun seems to be the most appropriate way to end this for now… but I’m sure we’ll be back.

Feel free to keep this going with your thoughts, either in the comments or via our Facebook page.