A person riding a BMX bike does a flip through the air in front of green trees
Sandy CarsonTj and Kristi Cunningham admire Ty Bement backflipping.

Standing amid the head-high dirt jumps at 9th Street, my 3-year-old son, August, and I peered up into the dense tree canopy as trains of BMX riders soared through the air, propelling themselves from one jump to the next without even pedaling—turning bike riding into performance art. We were in the heart of Austin for the 2017 annual Halloween Jam at the 9th Street bike park. The daylong community event featured best trick and long-jump competitions and a kids race on the pump track, where novice riders learned how to maintain their momentum by pushing and pulling over mounds of dirt. August was obsessed with construction vehicles, but I questioned if he would embrace catching air with the same passion.

9th Street BMX

Duncan Park,
900 W. 9th St., Austin.
9thstreetbmx.org

Map it

The history of this Austin bike park is richly chronicled in 9th Street: The Documentary by filmmakers Kenny Horton and Aron Hoag, released on Amazon Prime in 2024. It begins in 1992 with Parks and Recreation Department employee Darrell Dawson looking for a place to relocate a load of dirt he’d removed from West Austin Park in the historic Clarksville neighborhood, situated on a bluff overlooking downtown. Driving a dirt-filled dump truck down into Austin’s business district, it occurs to Dawson in the documentary, “Let’s take it over to Duncan Park. We’ve got a lot of standing water over there.” Not long after, a University of Texas student named Carl Lein was riding his BMX bike on 9th Street when he spotted the light gray dirt mounds Dawson deposited in an undeveloped area of Duncan Park, a half-block-long oak forest on the banks of Shoal Creek. In the documentary, Lein thought, “All I have to do is shape a lip and a landing on that dirt mound, and I have a jump.”

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By the time I arrived in Austin in 1998 to attend UT, that first dirt jump had transformed into the internationally known 9th Street “trails,” which is BMX lingo for a set of flowing dirt jumps. I was captivated by 9th Street—most BMX trails exist deep in the woods and out of sight, not in a public park at the center of a booming city—but I also felt like an outsider. Though I’d ridden and raced bikes for most of my life, I’d never learned how to jump properly. Also, I was intimidated by Austin’s tight-knit BMX scene, a subculture with its own fashion, music, and media. They had a strong code of ethics: No dig, no ride, meaning if you ride 9th Street regularly, you also need to help maintain the trails.

BMX riders from all over Texas, across the country, and even around the world began migrating to Austin to ride at 9th Street. “A lot of us were the outcasts in our hometowns,” Hoag, who’s from Houston, told me. “At 9th Street, we found our crew.” Horton, a former pro who grew up in Richmond, Virginia, arrived in Austin to ride 9th Street and stayed for 10 years.

A young man on a BMX bike flies in the air while performing a trick down a dirt lane between a large crowd of onlookers.
Sandy CarsonRiders gather at 9th Street in Austin for the 2024 Halloween Jam.
Two men stand beside each other in helmets and sportswear while one wears medals.
Sandy CarsonSixteen-year-old Stone Kepler won the event’s long-jump competition.

As 9th Street evolved in the 2000s, the ambition of the diggers and skill of the riders progressed. The jumps became bigger, steeper, and more menacing. Ed Davis, a high schooler from McAllen, moved to Austin after earning his GED and started digging at 9th Street as much as 16 hours a day. When he tore down the sacred tabletop that Lein built and turned it into a daunting double, a generational battle broke out over control of the trails. Words were exchanged, dirt clods were thrown. Gradually, a meritocracy emerged. Avid diggers like Davis earned the title “trail boss” and led volunteers who determined how the jumps looked and rode.

Four distinct lines formed at 9th Street and remain mostly the same today. The jump lines begin at the sidewalk on the east side of Duncan Park, circle through the woods, and reemerge at the park’s western end. Each line gets progressively more difficult from left to right. Intermediate riders can hit Left Slacker without having to leave the ground, while Main Line, with its jaw-dropping gaps, is known as “pro town.”

August and I were invited to the 2017 Halloween Jam by Chase Hawk, a pro who pedaled his first BMX bike at 9th Street, went on to win the 2014 X Games in Austin, and happened to live in our neighborhood. In the pump-track race, August rode a push bike in kid-size leather work boots. He only made it a half lap before peeling off the track but still received a shiny golden trophy for participating. As August grew older, we kept riding at 9th Street intermittently.

A man and his son stand on a dirt mound holding bicycle helmets in front of large green trees
Sandy CarsonWriter Ian Dille and his son, August, find community at 9th Street.

Then, the summer before he turned 11, August asked if he could do a weeklong BMX camp with Ty Bement, who runs Action Sportz Academy. A culture of mentoring at 9th Street emanates from BMX lifers like Miguel Esparza, a former preschool teacher who encourages kids to ride with intent and progress at their own pace. At Bement’s camp, riding with a half-dozen kids ages 7-16, August gravitated to the dig sessions. He learned how to restore jumps by spraying them with water and sweeping loose dirt up onto the lip, where it hardens into a smooth, concave surface.

Soon, August was encouraging me to ride 9th Street with him. But I didn’t own a BMX bike. Sheepishly, I reached out to Todd Moon, a prominent rider in the documentary, and asked if it’s OK to ride a mountain bike instead. Moon runs the 9th Street website and helped secure a $46,500 grant from the Austin Parks Foundation in 2019. He assured me most bikes, even pedal-assist e-bikes, are welcome. Moon also told me, if you can’t dig, “we encourage donations.” Riding at 9th Street with August one Saturday morning, I cleared the first three jumps on Left Slacker and smiled like I’d unlocked a secret to happiness.

On the last weekend in October, August and I took our bikes to 9th Street for the 2024 Halloween Jam. Bement, a muscular freestyler who can backflip a BMX bike on command, was emceeing. Red-faced kids ripped lap after lap on the pump track, and a handful of riders hit the trails in elaborate costumes. Brittany “Bee Cam” Campbell soared off a jump with a basket containing E.T. attached to the front of her bike. Stone Kepler, a 16-year-old with more than 16,000 Instagram followers, won the long-jump competition by launching nearly 40 feet. And then comedian Mike Epps, who played the “wrong Doug” in the movie The Hangover, randomly showed up. Wearing a red jumpsuit, Epps borrowed someone’s bike and rolled off the long-jump ramp. “That was an old man jump,” Epps said. But he landed it, August noted.

People ride their BMX bikes over dirt mounds.
Sandy CarsonRiders play “foot down,” a game akin to a demolition derby in which the last rider to put their foot down wins.

People congratulated recent trail boss “Hippie Josh” on how great 9th Street looked—even the Main Line was running smooth. In 2021, after the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Joshua Congleton, a self-described “trail pirate” with his own brand of shovels, found 9th Street in complete disrepair. He formed the A.M. Crew, which meets every Saturday and Sunday to dig and ride from around 8 a.m. until lunch. His wife, Rachel, is 9th Street’s “trail mom,” taking breaks from riding to patch up kids who wipe out. Even through extreme weather, the A.M. Crew digs religiously.

“We started in the back of the park, rebuilding our way toward the biggest jumps,” Congleton told me, leaning against his shovel by Main Line as riders flew over his head. “We finally got the park we have been working for.”

After the competition ended, the Jam’s inspired spectators took to the trails. August rode a small jump again and again, eventually asking me to see how much air he’d gained. We certainly weren’t “OGs,” a moniker for the crew of 9th Street regulars. But I no longer felt like an outsider, either. To August, 9th Street wasn’t just a park but a place to socialize and play, built and maintained by its community. It belonged to him, to all of us.

From the January/February 2025 issue

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