Street riding is a style of riding a
BMX bike in which someone attempts to
ride something that wasn't
designed to be ridden on. This can include anything, from riding on walls, to flower boxes, to handrails. Anything that your
imagination says you can ride.
Street began not long after flatland started gaining popularity in the mid 70s. Riders who had very little near them to ride decided to just make the best of what they had. So for example, someone would attach pegs to their bike, and use the pegs to grind on something. Or, they would use a bank leading up to a vertical wall to propel themselves onto it. The great thing about street riding is that the only limit is your imagination. You can ride pretty much everything if you can think of a way to do it.
Due to the fact that street riding is typically done on concrete and metal objects usual found in developed areas, cities and urban areas are meccas for street riding. While it is possible, and common, for street riding to take place out of a city, cities continue to offer a much more diverse selection of terrain in a much closer proximity then rural areas.
One of the big problems of street riding is that the people who own the property that is ridden on, often don't appreciate it. Many times the police are called in to rectify the situation. This has in some circumstances even led to the arrest of the particicpants, though more commonly results in being asked to leave, or getting a ticket. This causes street riders to become generally sneaky leading to "hit and run" or night-time missions, in an attempt to defer this interupption to their riding.
Despite the fact that street riders are often looked up as vandals, it is an amazing thing to see how someone can take something so ordinary looking and turn it into something incredible. In the words of a parent who's child rides, "You haven't been in a city until you've been there with a rider."