Is There Life After Youth?

Is There Life After Youth? 11
Michael
Tenner
_
Mika, 30 years old from Neubrandenburg,
Northern Germany, started to ride in 1996
because he wanted to do an endo on one of
these little bikes. He got a Stratos with
pegs screwed to the axles. With this he
spent his days getting air from a small
curved quarter to landing bank and learning
new tricks. He and his buddies hung around
watching BMX videos over and over again,
getting motivated to ride.
Nowadays Mika is an engineer, living with
his girlfriend in Berlin, riding “one of
those frames that everyone rides”, and
on a monthly basis, hitting the Berlin
mini-ramps and inner city street spots,
motivating himself by grabbing some flow from
a transition and surprising himself with a
good feeling while doing a new move. Small
talk with the people at the park or meeting
new people while riding also makes him grab
his bike and go out. “There are still a lot
of fun people in the scene. There’s still
the crazy guy with the sketchy moves, I like
what people are doing in BMX”.
If there was no bike in his life, Mika
would build one, but apart from BMX, he
does many different things with his life,
getting focused lately on discovering the
environment by running and climbing.
Mika taking a break, Berlin, 2014.