Always hustling, never satisfied

Retired BMX pro Miles Rogoish returns to Tulsa

“I don't see how you can respect yourself if you look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness.” —Hunter S. Thompson

Miles Rogoish roared to the front of the coffee shop on a motorcycle. As the recently retired pro-BMX rider walked inside, several people turned their heads to obviously stare. Their quizzical faces seemed to suggest that they either recognized him or felt like they should. Rogoish is that kind of person—and I know because I’ve known him since high school.

He asked if we could sit outside in the blazing Oklahoma heat so he could smoke. He ordered a double whiskey and Coke before we sat down. Rogoish knows how to relax, but he also knows how to work hard.

In the fourth grade, he won his first bike at a Jump Rope For Heart contest at Lee Elementary School. This formative event began his love affair with biking. After exchanging the road bike he won for a BMX bike, Rogoish began riding and entering contests.

In 2007, when he was only 16, he entered a contest in Milwaukee and was offered his first sponsorship from MANKIND From there, he was sponsored by Mongoose, Subrosa, Osiris Shoes, and ended his career in 2015 with Stranger.

“It felt really good to retire,” Rogoish said.“I definitely had some time left but it’s the kind of thing where you don’t want to ring the towel out. I didn’t want to end jaded. It feels good to still love BMX and bicycles.”

Now he works as a filmmaker, but this line of work is not new. His love for BMX and film happened almost simultaneously. In the sixth grade, Rogoish bought a camera and filmed his crew biking around downtown when it would clear out after 5 p.m.

“I always had a camera around,” he said. “I turned pro after I made a DVD with the local BMX crew, sent it off and they said, ‘Yeah we’ll take 500 copies.’”

Just like when he rode BMX and put hours into perfecting his riding, he continues to put in long hours as a filmmaker.

“I’m exhausted all the time and it feels good,” he said, laughing. “I never get sick because I just always feel like shit and I love it. There’s no real routine I just get it all done and I don’t think I’ll ever be satisfied. I hope I’m never satisfied. There’s just no stopping, and I think that is what keeps me going. I don’t want to know myself if I am completely happy.”

Rogoish moved back to Tulsa from Los Angeles a couple of years ago to be close to his family and is currently pouring unrelenting energy into several projects around Tulsa. He rents out a space at Charles Page Studios along with other local creative businesses, including Anthousai floral design and Tried + True, a rentals and styling company. Rogoish also is working on the grand opening ceremony of the skate park at Gathering Place and is planning events for the first 100 days of the park. BMX pros Ty Morrow, Andrew Castaneda, and Augie Simoncini will ride at the opening events Sept. 8-10.

Rogoish puts 100 percent into everything he has done.

“I don’t sleep a lot. I don’t cry a lot, I don’t whine a lot. I don’t mind dropping everything to come to your birthday and say ‘Hi’ … but then I jump right back into fucking whatever I need to get done.”

He works hard, parties hard, and has no regrets.

“People tend to love me or hate me, but I love that,” he said. “It puts a really good filter on the people that I work with, that I am friends with, and all the people I deal with. My main goal in life is to inspire and create and help and, until you know me and get that, I don’t care what you think from across the room.”

From his early retirement from BMX to making the move back to Tulsa, Miles is happy with his decisions and stands by them.

“So many people live their lives trying to be someone else, and at the end of it they are mad at themselves for not being who they are,” he said. “I won’t be mad at myself in the end.”