Peter Beu

The Cologne Youth Park was created as part of the Federal Garden Show in 1957 and was actually a completely normal youth centre with play equipment for children, roller skating and a tea dance. Peter Beu joined the team in 1978 with the task of bringing a breath of fresh air to the centre.

Peter knew the youth park from his school days. He founded a motorbike workshop and set up a monthly cinema day. With the rise of BMX sports, kids from the neighbourhood soon found their way to the park, including Stephan Prantl and Martin Kalabis. Attracted by the spacious areas of the park, they told of their desperate attempts to build ramps in the trade fair car parks and under the Cologne bridges and how these were repeatedly removed by the public order office. Peter saw the dilemma and decided to give the boys a home, even if it sounded easier than it was at first. The city of Cologne didn't want to hear about this kind of youth work.

At this point, local bike dealer Jung stepped up to the plate and offered his support. Equipped with financial means for the first time and no longer reliant on loans from various construction sites, the boys got down to work and built wooden obstacles and ramps. Of course, the whole thing had to be used and so in 1984 the first improvised race was organised, which was open to all participants. In 1984, racing was of course already in full swing in Germany, not least less than 10 kilometres away in Cologne-Vogelsang. However, as a youth leisure centre, the Jugendpark deliberately opted for a format that was as open as possible.

But racing wasn't really the youngsters' main interest either. They wanted to ride freestyle, so the next step was to build a replica of the famous 1.88 metre high quarterpipe from BMX Action Magazine and start preparing for the next event. The sport of freestyle slowly spread throughout Germany, with show teams in Bonn, Bremen and Düsseldorf and, last but not least, the PTR trick team from the Stuttgart area making a name for themselves. Peter Beu turned to another employee of the Cologne Youth Park, who was giving music workshops at the same time: André Maletz. Together, they organised the first big BMX freestyle contest in Germany in 1985: they invited the PTR team as judges and show acts, asked friendly teams to bring their ramps and organised a relaxed competition with an open atmosphere and as few rules as possible. In the meantime, many former BMX racers had turned to freestyle and the relaxed format in the youth park created an exuberant atmosphere and at the same time made it clear that freestyle is also ridden at a high level in Germany.

The foundation was laid. The very next year, 1986, the contest took on unimagined dimensions: More ramps, a supporting programme with the American GT team Martin Aparijo and Dennis Langlais and German freestylers who had spent a year honing their moves after the big report in Speed Magazine, safe in the knowledge that they finally had a setting for their skills. The contest was a complete success and it was clear that from then on, contests would take place regularly at the Jugendpark. However, as Peter and André were not event managers but youth workers, they began to involve the young people in the work right from the start. Gradually, they withdrew from the organisational work and handed over the reins to the growing organisational team led by Stephan Prantl and Lars Dorsch. At some point, the Youth Park was no longer the organiser of the competitions, but only officially provided the grounds.

But Peter's youth work didn't really end there. Particularly due to the sometimes somewhat unconventional way of procuring wood for the ramps in the youth park, as the person in charge he was of course also the first point of contact for the law enforcement agencies when a construction crew was caught again. And even when the event almost reached Love Parade dimensions in the 2000s, Peter often had to take the rap as head of the youth park. But as he had trained with the NRW police before his time at the youth park, he knew how to deal with his colleagues.

Dealing with the city of Cologne also became more and more complicated: while no one thought of obtaining permits for the competitions at the first events, this changed very quickly as the competitions grew in size. Campfires in the car parks or the increasing demand for camping sites required more and more measures, including cordoning off and guarding the entire event site. The expense, coupled with increasing environmental regulations, went so far that the decision was made in the mid-2010s to no longer organise competitions on this scale. 2019 was probably the last BMX contest to be held in Cologne's Jugendpark, as the site has since been declared a nature reserve.

But by then, Peter was no longer at the youth park. He left the centre in 2012 to set up the "Halle 59" bike and skate park in Cologne-Kalk together with Stephan Prantl. The city had provided them with a hall that was ready for demolition, and with the help of Stephan's contacts with companies and sponsors, Peter turned it into a year-round centre for BMXers, skaters and everything else that needs ramps - exactly what the youth park could never be because of the constant danger of flooding. The BMX sport is therefore still part of his work.

Peter Beu gave Cologne's scattered freestylers a home and turned his hometown into a BMX Mecca. His cry of "Helmets on!", which rang through the Jugendpark early in the morning, remains unforgotten and it is also thanks to his patience and commitment that BMX freestyle events have been taking place in Cologne for over 40 years now. For this, he was inducted into the German BMX Hall of Fame in 2025.