Joe Kid on a Falcon Pro...?
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)
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!
Thanks to www.radbmx.co.uk & www.vintagebmx.com for some of the pictures.
5 Comments:
good stuff. A really good read. I am getting more and more into this "oldschool" stuff (90s anyway). I have almost got all the parts together to rebuild my 1991 dirtbike ... but I really dont get out much at the moment!
Cheers, the Haro Air Master had a built in bash guard 'sledge' which bolted into the down tube & the brace around the CS. Check out Matt Hoffman in 'Head-First' for classic footage on how to use a sledge! (I have it on DVD if you need to see it...)
Cheers for your comments BK & welcome to the blog (at last) could do with some of your literary derangements around here ;-)
The Wal belonged to Benj Oliver before I purChased it, don't remember what I paid for it but will say that he went back to his DP Firebird afterwards! It was a completely different ride with the sledge attached (read uncontrollable) but was cool without it. Ibbo said he saw some kid riding it just the other week so it's still out there somewhere.
I wonder just how many of my previous bikes are still out there...?
Last summer Geoff gave a fully built up (very early) WAL to a friend. It had everything on it: super pro 48s, upside down dk stem, milky bars, the whole pack. The friend was away and the WAL was safely in his bedroom but one of his housemates needed to visit a pal in Barton so he took the WAL. Sure enough, when he went to go home the WAL was gone and a crap MTB was left in its place. it was in Barton and he didnt even lock it up! All he said was "well Geoff just gave it to him anyway, what was the problem?". If you see a red WAL in Oxford ... take it!
pictures please! ;-)
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