When Jacob Biwer is at the skate park in Austin, he is often met by a few youngsters who want to ride with him and hang out with him.

Biwer, who is a sponsored BMX rider, doesn’t mind the attention, but he makes sure that the kids at the park are coming with the right mind-set.

Besides being a stellar BMX rider, Biwer also is very strong in anti-bullying and he always reminds kids to do their homework. Biwer graduated from Austin High School this spring and he’s already attending Riverland Community College as he looks to go into business management.

“A lot of times kids want to come hang out with me or ride with me and they can’t because they haven’t done their homework or they get in trouble,” Biwer said. “I tell them they’ve got to do good in school and they have to respect everybody. Then they can come.”

Biwer began riding BMX when he was 12 years old after his grandpa Doug took him to the skate park in Austin for the first time. Then his mom began taking him to different places to bike around the state. Eventually, Biwer met Dustin Grace, a pro rider in Minneapolis who competed in the X Games. Biwer and Grace have biked together often as Biwer has taken BMX more seriously — which means taking bigger risks to get noticed.

“In each competition they have people throwing bigger and better staff and you have to try hard stuff to get noticed,” Biwer said.

Biwer, who has competed in the Twin Cities, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin, has felt a new pain for every new trick he’s learned on the bike. When he first started BMX biking, Biwer broke his collar bone; when he first learned how to do a 360 down stairs, he broke his foot; when he first started doing tail whips, he broke his other foot; when he was working on 540s and 720s, Biwer broke his hand, and when he was working on a back flip, he broke his nose and suffered a black eye.

Biwer always wears a helmet when he competes, but injuries are unavoidable in a sport that pushes the envelope to the limit. Any time he doubts his future in BMX, Biwer has a friend to turn to.

“Every once in awhile when I get hurt or break a bone, I over think it and I wonder if I really want to keep doing this because it sucks getting hurt and it sucks being out,” Biwer said. “One of the main people who supports me is my good friend Isaac Arjes. He helps keep me going.”

Biwer said the skate park in Austin was a great place for him to start out at and he recently helped hold a skate park jam that drew at least 100 people. In the future, Biwer would like to go pro in BMX and he’d also like to eventually start his own indoor skate park and bike shop in Austin.