Ken Dowdle from Mission BMX

As I said in the previous post, the first stop of the next leg of the tour is Calgary. We have a pretty solid crew that is going to be riding and hanging out in Cowtown. Our guide and host for the weekend is going to be Ken Dowdle from Mission BMX, a familiar name to a lot of people in the Canadian BMX scene. I sent Ken an interview a bit ago, check it out...

How long have you been with Mission BMX and give us a bit of history behind the shop.
I have been with Mission for a little over 15 years. We started selling BMX out of the basement under the name Big City BMX (which I started because BMX was my first love). After the first year or two we slid it into our existing skateboard and snowboard shop and we have never looked back. We started out really small as guys like Ten Pack were either just getting started or didn’t exist. Now with the support of the Canadian distributors and BMX in general we are able to offer all of the best BMX stuff you could want. Thanks Ten Pack! We have a great BMX team and fun shop rats that go as far as helping out when it gets busy. Mission is the place to be in Calgary if you ride BMX.

How long have you been riding? Give us a bit of a personal history.
I started BMX racing in 1983. I travelled a lot with that and then started hitting up the dirt comps at the races. By about 1990 I stopped racing all together. I just got tired of endless push ups and sit ups (ha, ha, ha). Really I just wanted to ride my bike and not worry about first or last. I really got into street riding and that’s all I wanted to do. Trails are hard to come by in Calgary (especially since they got plowed last year) so street and park rule the days on my bike. I still get a warm fuzzy feeling when I ride a new spot and I guess that’s good. I will keep riding as long as I can still turn the cranks and hold the bars.

What's the Calgary scene like these days (parks, types of riders, numbers, etc)?
The Calgary scene is in my opinion the best! We ride a little, hangout a lot and put on the greatest events (see below). Everyone rides the park a lot because it's there, but we do have some of the best street riding around. Like most cities there are the old dogs, the young punks and a bunch of party animals. Our scene just gets bigger every year and I think we may have too many people when the Re-session Tour rolls through town.

What's the history behind Calgary street jams?
Calgary street jams are awesome! I gotta thank Boicott (Ryan) for all of these events as he usually dreams up these ideas (ask anyone about the stripper street jam). They go like this: Everyone meets somewhere and we see how many show up (10-50). If the group is huge we split up and go session a bunch of places. After a good session we all just gravitate towards one location where everyone is invited to participate in a “liquid picnic,” usually by the river or at an outdoor patio. At this time prizes are given out usually in the form of ridicule or beverage. The awards sometimes last all night but everyone wakes up the next day with a prize. Calgary BMX rules.

What are your plans for everyone when the teams roll in to town?
The plan will be simple. Everyone will meet up at the 17th Ave. shop around 1pm on Saturday and we will follow the above formula (for the younger riders we will do a stop at the skatepark around 2pm so they can have fun watching and riding with the teams). I have a local indoor nighttime picnic area lined up with drink specials (Pilsner tall cans) and no line or cover if you BMX. Street, skatepark, river, and picnics are the best ways to experience Calgary.

Will there be enough cowgirls for everybody?
Are you kidding? They are everywhere. As long as Spicer doesn’t scare them away. Haha.