"Winners come and go, legends stay for ever"

For a long time I had the idea of organizing a European BMX Hall of Fame to honor our past and present BMX racers, pioneers and others. An important motivation to start a European BMX Hall of Fame also was the fact that present and future riders should know more about the history of their sport and her legends.

A sport with no history is no sport!

In the year 2001 we did officially start with the organization of the "EUROPEAN BMX HALL of FAME".

HISTORY EUROPEAN BMX HALL OF FAME

For many years the ABA  (Amercian Bicycle Association, USA), now called USA BMX, has its own USA BMX HALL of FAME, at the moment located at the Chula Vista (San Diego) Olympic sportfacilities in California - USA. Here mainly American BMX pioneers, racers, manufacturers and organisers/promotors are inducted and presented. The USA BMX Hall of Fame has around 140 members at this moment (ending 2016). Seen below, the Hall of Fame awards wall and one outside USA HoF member, Mr. Gerrit Does (inducted in 1998).

In the year 1999 also the NBL - National Bicycle League (USA), started their NBL BMX Hall of Fame. The first person to be inducted was my dear friend Mr. George E. Esser (r.i.p.), who started the N.B.L. organisation in 1974. The N.B.L. seized to exsist in 2010, so did their BMX Hall of Fame.

Update 2018: In 2018 a former I.BMX.F. World Champion from Australia, Cameron Mitchell, started to organize the Australian BMX Hall of Fame. This first Aussie BMX HoF was a great success. Read all about it in section "History of BMX - Year 2018".

This gave the University of BMX (Europe) the idea to also start presenting awards to European BMX Hall of Fame members, from 2009 on. To present all European BMX Hall of Fame members to the public, a Wall of Fame was created at the BMX MUSEUM in Megen, Holland.

EUROPEAN BMX HALL of FAME

In total there are 124 European BMX Hall of Fame members. Among them inducted riders, organizers, pioneers in BMX, manufacturers. Only 6 members are form outside Europe and it all concerns the periode of 1978 up and till 2011:

• 2 members holding Olympic BMX titles (since 2008 through the UCI)
• 30 members holding World Championship titles (I.BMX.F and now UCI)
• 40 members holding European Championship titles (I.BMX.F. and now UCI)
• 9 members holding World Cup series or Supercross Series titles (UCI)
• 32 members, special recoqnition (among whom 6 outside Europe members: 5 from the USA and 1 from Japan)
• 5 European BMX race events as members
• 3 European BMX manufacturer teams, holding World Manufacturer Team titles
• 3 European National BMX Teams, holding World titles National Teams.

In Europe 23 countries are involved in BMX Racing at this moment (2011).