One of the world's biggest collections of BMX bikes is in Richmond's East End

There are bikes and then there are BMX bikes. 

The name stems from a mashup of the words bicycle and motocross. The style morphed from heavy, banana seat bikes with elongated “ape” handlebars in the 1970s into sleek, compact race rockets that have a home in the Olympics and on race tracks at Gillies Creek Park in Richmond.

“They were just copying motorcycles,” said Chad Powers, owner of Powers BMX shop and museum in Richmond’s East End. “And they kind of had that motorcycle look with the long bread loaf seat.”

The bikes are small — most kids move up to them after removing their training wheels or get onto them after outgrowing their scoot bike. And they’re easy to pedal and maneuver, and are known for their simple mechanics.

“No gears, no suspension. Strictly BMX,” said Powers, which is the store’s motto found on a marquee overlooking Williamsburg Road. “You're just literally [on] your own speed. You pedal and go. You can really ride a BMX bike almost anywhere.”

Most kids eventually graduate to mountain bikes or ten speeds after their first BMX style bike. But for some, a love of the style leads them to remain BMX loyalists.

“There's kids that are like two, three, four-years-old that race and then all the way up until dudes are in their 70s,” said Powers.

Powers is one of those people who’s never looked back.

“I started racing in ‘97. My first kind of big race was in ‘99, where I went to a national in Pennsylvania,” he says. “I raced all the way up until I was 18.”

Back-to-back injuries took Powers out of competition. But his love for BMX bikes didn’t end there. 

“At the same time, when I was 20, I started the shop. Just because BMX is all I know,” he said. “We only do BMX bikes. We're probably one of seven BMX shops in the whole country that are strictly BMX.”

His love for all things BMX grew from when he and his dad got his first BMX bike at a police auction and has since grown into a full-service store, shop and museum. 

“We have a little over 300 bikes,” says Powers. “They all get either donated, traded in. I buy them. And, they come from all over the world.”

Powers says he just got a bike delivered from the United Kingdom.

“That was a whole ordeal,” he says. “But this was a famous BMX bike from Ride BMX Magazine’s cover from August of 2000.” This bike was the one that Vic Murphy was riding on that cover photo.”

How did a bike from the U.K. make its way into his museum? Powers said people follow his shop and museum on their website, Instagram page and YouTube channel. Their museum website also features pictures and descriptions of the bikes. 

“Now stuff's just pouring in, which is awesome,” Powers says. “This is really the only BMX museum in the country. There's the BMX Hall of Fame. There's another bicycle museum in Pittsburgh called Bicycle Heaven.”

People come from all over to check out his BMX museum.

“We had a dude in here earlier that drove up from Raleigh to hang out for a while. Bought some stuff and left,” said Powers. “We had a couple come from Knoxville, Tennessee, and spent their anniversary weekend around the museum here. Spent Saturday and Sunday here just walking around.”

One of the oldest bikes in his collection is a Schwinn Stingray. 

“It’s kind of what started BMX, with the nice big ape hanger bars, the banana seat, slick back tire,” says Powers. “And when kids were jumping those, they would end up just breaking and bending those ape hanger bars.”

That style of bike was also great for popping wheelies, said Powers. 

Besides the hundreds of bikes on hand, the museum also has an array of other artifacts. 

“Like jerseys from famous riders, and we have all this artwork from a famous artist [Radical Rick] that ran in a magazine called BMX Plus,” said Powers. “And we have pieces off of famous ramps. We have famous people's bike parts.”

Plus, the museum even has a few BMX bikes with connections to the Olympics.

“So this bike up here was raced in the [2016 Rio] Olympics. Nick [Long] almost won on that bike, but he ended up getting fourth."

Besides the shop and museum, Powers BMX also has a small race track covering about a half an acre behind the store.

“We have dirt jumps and wooden ramps. It's our little playground over here. Anybody can come ride it and it's free,” Powers said. 

The thing Powers likes most about the BMX life is the community. 

“We're a pretty niche market. But it's very open arms, very inclusive,” he said. “It's really open to a lot of different people. if you show up anywhere on a BMX bike, even a BMX style bike, you get welcomed with open arms.”