"Blue Groove" is reported to have origins in motor racing held on oval dirt tracks many decades ago. Tearing through the corners at high speed, tires would wear onto the near pavement-like surface changing the track color from brown to a blueish black. Repeated use by skilled drivers revealed the optimum line through the turns. Novice drivers were advised to stay in or follow the blue groove to keep up.
BMX racing borrowed the term in the 1970's as blue grooves popped up beneath the 20-inch wheels of young speed demons throughout the country. Today, blue grooves can be found on BMX and slalom courses and freeride parks the world over as riders seek the best grip and high-speed tracking on course. You may even know of a few local trails with blue groove berms. On a trip to Northern Arizona last month, our very own Jeff Menand happened upon a two-wheel cowboy as they railed some choice blue grooves of their own set into the desert red rock.
Tom Weathers, Cowboy Poet and mountain biker, shared the following poem with Jeff while singlespeeding on Schultz Creek Trail in Flagstaff, Arizona.
November 2007
“Blue Groove” as defined by Tom Weathers
I can take the wildest bronco in the tough old woolly West;
I can ride him, I can break him, let him do his level best;
I can handle any cattle who ever wore a coat of hair,
And I've had a lively russle with a tarnal grizzly bear;
I can rope and throw the longhorn of the wildest Texas brand,
And in Indian disagreements I can play a leading hand;
But at last I got my master, and he surely made me squeal
When the boys got me a-straddle of that gol-darned wheel.
It was at the Eagle Ranch, on the Brazos,
When I first found that darned contrivance that upset me in the dust.
A tenderfoot had brought it; he was wheeling all the way
From the sunrise end of freedom out to San Francisco Bay.
He tied up at the ranch for to get outside a meal,
Never thinkin' we would monkey with his gol-darned wheel
Arizona Jim begun it when he said to Jack McGill,
There was fellows forced to limit braggin' on their ridin' skill;
And he'd venture the admission the same fellow that he meant
Was a very handy critter far as ridin' broncos went;
But he would find that he was buckin' 'gainst a different kind of deal
If he threw his leather leggins 'gainst a gol-darned wheel.
Such a slam against my talent made me hotter than a mink,
And I swore that I would ride him for amusement or for chink.
And it was nothin' but a plaything for the kids and such about,
And they'd have their ideas shattered if they'd lead the critter out.
They held it while I mounted and gave the word to go;
The shove they gave to start me warn't unreasonably slow.
But I never spilled a cuss-word and I never spilled a squeal--
I was buildin' reputation on that gol-darned wheel.
Holy Moses and the Prophets, how we split the Texas air,
And the wind it made whip-crackers of my same old canthy hair,
And sorta comprehended as down the hill we went
There was bound to be a smash-up that I could n't well prevent.
Oh, how them punchers bawled, "Stay with her, Uncle Bill!
Stick your spurs in her, you sucker! Turn her muzzle up the hill!"
But I never made an answer; I just let the cusses squeal,
I was buildin' reputation on that gol-darned wheel.
The grade was mighty slopin' from the ranch down to the creek,
And I went a-galliflutin' like a crazy lightnin' streak--
Went whizzin' and a-dartin' first this way and then that,
The darned contrivance sort o' wobbling like the flyin' of a bat.
I pulled upon the handles, but I could n't check it up,
And I yanked and sawed and hollowed but the darned thing would n't stop.
Then a sort of a thinker in my brain began to steal,
That the devil held a mortgage on that gol-darned wheel.
I've sort o' dim and hazy remembrance of the stop,
With the world a-goin' 'round and the stars all tangled up;
Then there came an intermission that lasted till I found
I was lyin' at the ranch with the boys all gathered round,
And a doctor was sewin' on the skin where it was ripped,
And old Arizona whispered, "Well, old boy, I guess you're whipped."
And I told him I was busted from sombrero down to heel,
And he grinned and said, "You ought to see that gol-darned wheel."
