How the BMX Scene in St. Louis Picked Up Speed

When Amanda Verhaeg started riding freestyle BMX two decades ago in Guatemala and Southern California, she was usually the only girl competing and faced bullying.

“But as I got to know everybody on the scene out there, I was more and more welcome,” recalled Verhaeg, who is now 40.

BMX freestyle and racing have since become Olympic sports with men’s and women’s divisions, which is among the factors that have translated to greater acceptance of female riders, Verhaeg said.

In June, Verhaeg and her husband, Greg, took over management of the Brighton BMX track in Brighton, Illinois, a village 12 miles north of Alton.

They are now among the leaders — all volunteers — behind three BMX tracks in the St. Louis area. And they appear to be gaining momentum.

“Just to see the smile on the kids’ faces and watching the kids go through the ups and downs, and they conquer them,” said Mike Demmin of why he volunteers to run the St. Peters BMX track. “Next thing you know, they are able to manual. They are able to jump. It’s just a great family sport.”

BMX (short for bicycle motocross) has been a sport in the St. Louis area for at least four decades. In 1982, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that 1,500 spectators gathered in north St. Louis County to watch 600 professional and amateur riders compete.

Mike and Betty Feagans started the St. Peters track in 1991. Ron Allsup opened the Brighton BMX track in 2001, and Johnny Murdock opened a Sunset Hills track in 2021. Demmin took over the St. Peters track in 2005, and his three children all gradually started racing.

“The goals are to get kids on bikes and have them race,” said Demmin, 52.

He and fellow volunteers changed the track design and installed jumps and asphalt corners, among other improvements.

The nonprofit organization runs weekly races and holds a league for new riders.

“It’s a group of kids that are all the same skill level, and they don’t get intimidated by the kids who have been doing it for years,” Demmin said. “It’s kind of the only sport, as far as competition goes, that a parent will give advice to a rider that their kid is competing against. ‘Hey, try this. Try this.’ Everybody wants to see everybody improve.”

Zac Barron stages camps that meet once or twice a week at the local tracks in which he teaches young riders the fundamentals of BMX riding and ways in which they can improve their performance by, for example, working on their form out of the gate.

He will tell them to hold “their body forward, maybe not throw the bike side to side,” Barron explained. “Or I say, ‘Hey, why don’t you try this this time?’ Maybe a manual. And then also they learn how to double manual or try a jump that they thought they could never do.”

One of his riders, Hudson Yahnke, 15, now rides for the 110% Nutrition BMX Race Team and has won several national races.

“Being able to teach and inspire someone to do it on their own is a whole other level of humility and gratitude,” Barron said.

Murdock, of the Sunset Hills track, started racing BMX at age 12 and turned professional after graduating high school in 1991. He competed in Mexico and England, among other places, but stepped away from the sport in 1997 because he could not make a living from racing and grew frustrated with the entire industry.

Then, 20 years later, living in Oakville and working as a mechanic, welder, and beekeeper, he decided to borrow a bike from a friend and rode at the St. Peters track.

“At 45 years old, I missed riding my BMX bike,” Murdock recalled.

After riding a few more times, Murdock wanted to open a track in Sunset Hills; otherwise, he said, “There is a whole demographic of kids that are never going to know what BMX is.”

After the city approved building the track, he fundraised, obtained dirt from the city, built a gate system and jumps, and purchased a batch of bicycles.

“Any kid that wanted to come ride an entry-level race bike, we had one there, along with brand-new, full-face helmets,” Murdock said. “All they needed was a long-sleeved shirt and long pants.”

He wanted to create a BMX program because it provided an outlet for kids who might not succeed in team sports.

“BMX offers a kid a little more individuality and a little freedom, and you don’t have to sit on the bench,” Murdock said. “Everybody gets to ride.”

He now has about 25 kids who compete in a racing league. They practice on Tuesday nights and race on Wednesdays. When the track has hosted state-qualifier races, hundreds of riders have competed. The track is scheduled to host another one in 2025.

“My biggest rewards would be us opening up for the first day and just hearing people talk about how awesome it is to have a BMX track,” Murdock said. “And it ain’t just me. I have a whole team of volunteers that help.”

Verhaeg, leader of the Brighton track, overcame the hurdles of entering a male-dominated sport to become the No. 2-ranked rider in the women’s expert class for ages 26 to 30 in the National Bicycle League, which has since dissolved.

“It’s my happy place. It’s my zone,” Verhaeg said. “I could just put some headphones in and do my thing.”

Now living in Alton with her husband, Greg, Verhaeg took over the Brighton track because the previous operators were ready to step away, and “we have never really had a track to call home,” she said. She also founded a local organization, Femme BMX, that was dedicated to increasing the number of girls who ride.

She estimates that almost half the Brighton riders are girls, including her two teenage daughters.

But nationally, only about 15 percent of the 44,000 USA BMX members are females, according to the organization.

“When we only see men, we don’t think that’s something women do,” Verhaeg said. “When we show women and normalize women being involved in sports and doing ‘guy things,’ more women do those things.”

Verhaeg said she also has a  dream of collaborating with the other local track operators to create a race series in the St. Louis metropolitan area. “That can build ridership with all the tracks and bring us together to make the BMX community,” Verhaeg said.

Still, plenty of challenges remain. Barron and Murdock both mentioned weather as a problem for the dirt tracks. In recent years, the Midwest has seen increased heavy rains and flooding, which experts say is partly driven by climate change.

Sunset Hills leased the land for the track to Murdock essentially for free because it is in a flood plain along the Meramec River.

“We take our chances,” Murdock said. “We got a pretty good system. We know when we’re going to be close to flooding, and we can move stuff out of our containers and up to higher ground. It’s not like it washes the dirt away, because the water level comes up and then it goes right back down.”

Also, while BMX becoming an Olympic sport has helped increase its popularity, it has also become more competitive, Barron said. That means people are buying more expensive equipment and paying to use indoor facilities. The upshot is that it has also made the sport safer, because now everyone wears a helmet, Barron said.

“It’s more like a club sport. Before, it was like, ‘OK, let’s just go find a piece of plywood, put it on a small log, go jump,’” Barron said. “It’s nice to see a progression of safety, but with a level of competition, as you keep getting better, it becomes more niche, and you need to do XYZ to compete at a certain level.”

Jude Schulte, 13, started racing at age 10 after hearing that they were building the track in Sunset Hills. He took his first class with Murdock and then participated in the league at St. Peters.

In short, he loved it.

“You can have friends and teammates that you race with on the team, but it’s always going to be how you race on your own,” Jude said.

The toughest part is “not giving up after you crash,” he said, which has happened a lot.

At a practice earlier this year, he was mid-jump, “got spooked and flipped on my back.”

He had some abrasions and was stiff the next day but immediately got back out there because “he didn’t want to lose his edge,” his father, Luke, said.

“I’m probably going to have an early ulcer. It’s nerve-racking, but I love it,” said Luke.

The sport has redefined their family, Luke said, because his younger son, Tommy, now also races. Luke and his wife volunteer at the tracks and travel around the country for races.

Luke, who also raced mountain and road bikes, said his son has already surpassed him. Jude hopes to advance to the final race of a national competition.

But for Luke, his favorite part is the camaraderie among the local BMX families.

“You have a kid blow out a tire, and 12 dads are running with extra wheels and tools to make sure that that kid gets back into the race,” Luke said. “They always make sure that they fist bump and congratulate each other at the finish line. You don’t see that in a lot of other sports.”

Author: Eric Berger is a frequent contributor to Terrain. 

Top image: Jude Schulte, left, and others take a break from competing at the St. Peters BMX track. (Courtesy of Luke Schulte)