Well I've been threatening it for a while so here it is, my history of BMX. This took some digging to find pictures of all the bikes I've owned & unfortunately most are not actually my bike but I feel they still give a good representation of what I was riding...
OK Christmas, circa 1983, I get my first BMX bike. It was a Falcon Pro Theta, which lasted all of about 3 months before it cracked at the down tube gusset (probably from doing 60'000 front hops)
Well good old Trinders came up trumps & swapped the frame over for the top of the range ‘Omega’ (probably due to my pop threatening to ring their necks if they don’t sort some shit out!) I remember buying all the pointless gimmicky shit that all the ‘band-wagon’ companies bought out & loving every minute riding it. Each day I would get home & go ride with Joe Burl, Sboy, Newly & even BobK, we totally lapped it up, we built trick ramps, dirt jumps and dirt quarters, shit! I even built a 6 foot quarter pipe for my metal work project at school… I sold the Falcon after a short while & just had to build my own bike up the way I wanted it. Being a skint school kid, it took what seemed like a lifetime of saving & gradually building up the bike of my dreams… eventually I built up a TRM (Totally Radical Machine) Freestyler very similar to the one below…
Mine was also all in white but with white Aero Zytec mags & I thought it was the bollox, we continued to ride more & more, went to race meetings all over the place with the Banbury X-up’s team, just lived & breathed BMX. I eventually sprayed the TRM orange & got some black Skyway mags for it (Which was also why I did the orange & black colour scheme on my current bike) & continued to ride until about the time I left school…
After leaving school I got into all the usual stuff that teenage working blokes get into & BMX was no longer something that I was into… I had a good few Mountain Bikes, which carried me up to about 1989-90 when by chance I was in the newsagents & saw a magazine called Invert. Well, to say that was a catalyst would be an understatement! I think within a month I had bought a GT Vertigo complete with bash guard from SS20 in Oxford (I remember Shaun Goff threatening to beat me up if I didn’t collect it after begging him to order it on the fone without paying a deposit) I was good to my word & handed over the £200 & walked away (they didn’t know how to set up the bike!) a happy man & the fire inside was burning once more…
I paid a visit to Tone-Loc’s place & he just looked at me when he saw me riding a BMX again & I knew he was down for getting another bike ;-) Soon after I bumped into BobK & Wakey in Town & they too were fired up to get back into it. We all just fell back into our old ways & started riding again... a lot.
Next up for me was another custom build, shit; I was earning money now so I ploughed a load of cash into an S&M Dirt Bike. It had chrome slam bars (well what do ya know!) Superpro 48’s & all good quality components…
Mine was yellow & it cracked at the seat-tube top-tube weld after a while so I sent it back & Hot wheels said it was just the paint & they would get it chrome plated for me......About a month later (bastards) I got it back & after 1 session the chrome plate cracked in the same place as the paint had done before (double bastards) so I exchanged it for a nice neon orange Haro Air Master...
Sboy returned to the ranks around this time & he was the driver on all of our old road trips around the country, some great days out were had by all of us :-) We would be at Mon's ramps every weekend/fine evening.
The forks on this didn't last that long & ended up raked out quite badly, I wasn't happy & Colin @ Get Pedalling who was just the best dude/shop keeper EVER, agreed to swap them over for anything else I wanted so I ended up with one of the 1st batch of Hoffman 'Condor' frame sets to arrive in the country! Can you say STOKED!!!
I rode this frame for quite a while, I was not happy with the way the pegs attached through the forks (they were pissed) & I took this up with Matt @ the rider cup in 92' & he suggested I 'straighten them with a hammer' all good!!
Eventually the forks broke off during a disaster of a disaster & the frame was sold on to Ray, the latest member of the Banbury Crew, which now consisted of me &....
where the fuck is everyone???
Quiet times indeed... still rode hard though...
From the Condor I went onto a Homeless SoulBro frame which I bagged for cheap off of Andy, a Coventry flatlander...
Nice short frame which I painted black & then yellow. I think Ray may have had this frame off me too? From there it was onto a Wilkerson Airlines Riot Frame that I bought off another friend of mine…
This was around the time that Myself, Ray & Gareth used to ride the old mini @ Spiceball park, after the Wal was the KHE beater frame, Jason Davies signature frame, in Blue, bought from Fenside in Coventry...
Ibbo should have this built up by now as he got it off me a while ago, I enjoyed riding that frame.
Then it was onto Milk's old DK SOB frame (that looked nothing like this one)
This was painted in primer grey, ridden & then sold on (quite quickly) to Steve Jones.
Next was the Dragonfly DFX frame, purchased from Broadribbs in Bicester. This frame had lots of good little additions like built in chain tensioners & a dropout protector on the drive-train side of the frame...
I sold the DFX to Sam Keene (where are you Keeno?) & he went on to destroy it in no time at all!
Time to move onto the start of my Fly Bikes era! I went to Birmingham to buy the Diablo when they came out & was well impressed with it, nice simple frame, no frills, a sign of things to come from this great bike co!
With the advent of lighter bikes becoming available, I decided (with lots of help & enthusiasm from Ray!) to get a lighter set-up so that I can ride for longer without getting so physically fucked! (old tosser that I am). I sold the Diablo & forks to some local kid that I haven't seen much of since...? Which brings us up to now & my current ride, the Fly Mosca...
I’ve seen a lot of fads & people come & go during my time riding, seen a lot of changes in BMX & made some great friends too. Afterall, I probably wouldn't know any of you lot without these little bikes.
