Petaluma boy, 8, starring on BMX racing circuit

A Petaluma cyclist is making a name for himself on the global BMX racing circuit — at just 8 years old.

Hendrix Hines just rode to a seventh-place finish at the world championships in Glasgow, Scotland, earlier this month, competing against fellow 8-year-olds from around the globe.

The finish cements his status as the seventh-ranked BMX racer of his age in the world, already at the “expert” level of competition. Hendrix will get to sport the WORLD7 plate on his BMX bike for the next year, until the 2024 world championships.

That event will be held in South Carolina, which is a little closer than the places Hendrix has been riding recently.

Just this year, he competed in races in England, Italy and Belgium, in addition to this month’s Scotland competition — although he’s also raced closer to home in California and Nevada, said his mother, Caitlin Hines.

It helps that the Hines family splits their time between Petaluma and England during the year. Hendrix was born in San Francisco but the family moved to Petaluma when he was just a toddler.

His interest in cycling started early, his mother said. As a baby, he would never sit still and refused to go in a stroller from the time he could walk.

He began riding a pedal-less Strider bike while the family still lived in San Francisco. He soon progressed from simple walks in the Marina neighborhood to wanting to tackle the city’s famous hilly streets, Caitlin Hines said.

At age 2, Hendrix was riding his Strider bike in the world championships in Salt Lake City. He then moved on to a pedal bike without training wheels by the time he was 2½, prompting his family to look for ways to keep up with his rapidly advancing skill level.

They found the North Bay BMX program run by Olympic bronze medalist Donny Robinson in Napa, where Hendrix advanced to the point he was racing around the state and in his first national race at the age of 5.

Wearing his USA jersey in Scotland earlier this month for the world championships, Hendrix competed against fellow 8-year-olds from as far as Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, Japan, Germany and Colombia.

After the race, the boys traded jerseys with each other as souvenirs, his mother said, and Hendrix came away with jerseys from Japan, Australia, Great Britain and the Netherlands.