The Building, Eindhoven. Will BMX have a new place?

Jun 21, 2009

Written by Bart de Jong

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On Friday I made a trip to Eindhoven for the opening of The Building, an Urban house that facilitates DJ-ing, graffiti, BMX, breakdancing, skateboarding, beatboxing and more lifestyles like that. There are a lot of people who do their own thing, but they need to have a place to do it. They live for it and spend every free minute doing it. It's not about making money, it's about feeling free and sharing the passion with others who think the same way. In the meantime crews like this can put a city on the map. With some help from the local council

this can go a long way. In Eindhoven things have been good on several fronts but the BMX part is lacking. For 7 months the BMX Playground was open in Veldhoven, ran by Laurens "Zonto" Dingen but that got shut down because the warehouse geting a different renter. Now there is no indoor BMX race track, nor trails but Zonto is working on that part and feels he can pull it off (in the long run).

On the Freestyle side of things Pim van den Bos and his dad Klaas have invested major time to get something off the ground for BMX freestyle in Eindhoven.

Everyone who has ever worked with the local council understands that these things can be a long process but with the opening of The Building at least they have listened to this group of passionate people. The Building is located inside the old Philips factory and is about 28 meters long by 30 meters wide.

Not super big but having a ramp set up inside, that would be available at least one time per week to ride indoors, would be great (or at least, a start).

Different scenarios have done the rounds and still it's not clear where it will go but at least Pim van den Bos impressed the people present at the opening with some tailwhips, backflips and frontflips on the box showing what BMX freestyle is all about. Let's hope for the best. That would be an

indoor BMX track with indoor trails ran

by Zonto and a place with an indoor park allocated to BMX freestyle. It will put Eindhoven on the BMX map, that's for sure. Let the building process begin.

BdJ