Hristo Iliev discovered BMX tricks when he was 14-years-old. He became fascinated by the sport and at one point decided it will be an important part of his life. We asked him what made him so keen on this sport.

"There are many reasons, ranging from the great feeling when you are doing things with this bike that few people can do. Another thing is the people one meets when dealing with extreme sports. This is a society one feels good being part of.”

Hristo Iliev is 20 years old and is the best bmxer in Bulgaria with lots of prizes from this country and abroad. He has placed first in competitions like Urban Kings and Etnies Session in Sofia, Varna FunCity, Balkan Bike Festival in Skopje, Winner of Belgrade and others. He says the number of BMX riders has been growing: "It pleases me to see more kids practicing the sport, as well as older ones – above 25 years of age. However, conditions for practicing the sport in Bulgaria are not good.”

"We practice everywhere. Unfortunately, we have no specialized place for doing this. In other countries there are parks with ramps that predispose to safety and to learning new things easily. In Sofia there is only one such place in Studentski Grad. It has long been poorly maintained, although one need to pay to use it and that is why almost nobody goes there. In general, every city has a bike park, but the conditions are not very good. The state wants to show it is doing something for us but this is really not enough.”

So, the place where one often sees bikers in Sofia is the square in front of the National Palace of Culture, where stairs near the fountains and ramps for passage of strollers are mostly used by BMXers.

One sees Hristo flying over the granite pavement. The seat of his bike is lowered to the max and he says this is needed because of the nature of some tricks over the frame. Sometimes when he falls, he does it softly. He explains that anyone who deals with extreme sports learns to fall less painfully over time. ”You fall and you fall until at one point you find out why this is happening and you stop doing it. When I was younger I used to practice sambo, in which there are special ways to soften the fall. Maybe I also use something learned from that sport," Hristo says.

But what do his parents think about his passion?

"In the beginning they were worried. But they saw I am good at this sport and that it helps me in life because it teaches a lot - perseverance, friendship, making decisions. And they started liking it. When I was a teenager I spent my time on the bike and it stopped me from things like drinking and wild partying.”

Just watching the complex air tricks makes you feel fear. Is taking risks the actual thrill?

"No, I'm not a guy who likes to do things that are not safe. Usually I wait until I know I have the ability to do a trick flawlessly, or at least 99 percent of it, as there is never 100% guarantee. But there are people in extreme sports, who are chasing the thrill, not knowing if a trick would work or not. Obviously everyone is different."

Hristo says he is very grateful to the riders of the older generation who started in the 90s when there was no internet and everything was learning by trial and error. "It's nice when you have someone better than you, who can explain things to you. They invented their own tricks, tried them in the way they imagined, which was not always the most correct. With great perseverance they learned the techniques and then showed them to the next generation," Hristo says.

Here are his tips for the beginners:

"One just needs patience and will and the most important thing is having fun while doing it. Some get nervous when they cannot do a new trick but anger does not help. I also used to do that. I used to get angry and to throw my bike around but after some time I told myself that this was not normal and now I try to control myself better.”

English: Alexander Markov