Name: Trevor Henry
Hometown: West London UK
What's your earliest memory of BMX?
Trevor Henry: Watching Craig Strong doing no handed wheelie’s on TV and then seeing my friends trying to the same on Grifters and Choppers, but complaining about how heavy they were. Then E.T. came out and everybody ditched their Choppers for Burners, PK Rippers, Ammaco’s and DP Firebirds. It’s like a wave hit the London overnight… one day it was Rubik’s cubes and monkey boots then the next day it was BMX’s Breakdancing and Electro Hop music.
Who were some of the BMX riders that you admired back in the day?
Old school BMX was a legendary era for the sport and the tricks and the riders that can do them are becoming rare to see and today awe are lucky enough to have @fishonabike here at our skatepark doing his top 10 favorite old school BMX tricks and they seem impossible!
Name: Frank Lukas
Hometown: Koblenz, Germany
Bike: Morales 2nd Generation
Home come you decided to build up a Morales bike from scratch?
Frank Lukas: I think this frame is the most iconic Flatland frame ever designed and produced. It changed everything. Don’t quote me here, but I think it was the very first “Flatland specific frame”. I also think that the riders who rode the frame had the biggest impact on Flatland besides Kevin and Chase. I was so into Westcoast Flatland- Richard, Jesse, Edgar and many more...
Name: William LaRoque aka Larock
Hometown: Long Beach, CA
What's your earliest memory of BMX?
Larock: Seeing On Any Sunday for the first time and wanting an MX kit for my hand me down Lime Green StingRay.
Who were some of the BMX riders that you admired back in the day?
Larock: That’s a tough one! I was kind of Partial to the SE Factory Boys because they had such close ties to Long Beach, BUMS track was less than a mile away from where I grew up. Scot, Thomsen & PK of course. But who could deny the Panther, Dain, Utterback, King, Atherton and all of the others that graced the pages of our favorite magazines.
Name: Paul de Jong
Hometown: Aarle-Rixtel
Started riding BMX in: 1971 but real BMX Bike in 1979
Number of bikes in the collection: Don’t have a clue, at least 15 nice ones
Do you have any bikes from the '50-s when the first people started racing BMX in The Netherlands?
Paul de Jong: Yes I have a 1950 Schwinn girls beachcruiser from Mom, who was jumping doubles in the 50’s when BMX was popular in the Netherlands. Before you “Americans” are going to reply on this: Ignaz Schwinn is from Europe fyi.
What makes you decide to start a certain bike building project?
BMX Texas Take Over: Riding into the Lone Star State!
Name: Steve Strong
Hometown: Dagenham, UK.
Started riding BMX in: 1981.
Number of bikes in the collection: 3 at the moment, built around 25 decent ones I was happy with.
What was the first project bike that got you into collecting BMX bikes?
Steve Strong: 1981 Team Murray 'Track Certified'.
How difficult was it to find parts for it in the beginning?
Steve Strong: When I first started, I knew nothing of the UK scene. I was (and still am) a member of BMX Society and BMXMuseum. Primarily all of my parts came from Ebay.com and the Museum pages.
Name: Brian Gutierrez
Hometown: Venice, California born and raised but migrated to Orange County in the late 80's.
Started riding BMX in: Friends of mine I rode with and me started calling it BMX in 1972. Prior to that point we just rode our Sting Rays. We were emulating Evel Knievel whenever possible. Starting with use of a small wooden car ramp we would attempt new records over an ever longer, ever taller stack of old banana boxes. When that lost its sparkle we went to the dirt! At first it was just to find bigger stuff to jump off of or over the top of.
Then we discovered we liked the dirt. The trails that went along with the jumping spots were just as fun
Name: Alex Leech
Hometown: Oxford, England
Started riding BMX in: 1981
Number of bikes in the collection: Maybe 20 completes and another 20 frames
Do you have any other brand of BMX bike in your collection other than an S&M?
Alex Leech: I have one BMX that’s not S&M; a Haro “84 Sport”. I had one in 1984 so I wanted to get another one. The one I used to have was a USA made Gen2 Sport. I rode it for ages and it broke many times. Unfortunately, I have no clue where it ended up. The one I have now is a Gen3, so not exactly the same as my old one. It isn’t built the same as I rode mine but it’s got a few references to my old bike.
The latest episode of the Union Tapes is live now featuring Nick Phillip.
"We finally caught up with Nick Phillip, and we get deep into it on many topics that he had hands on involvement with. This one gives us all a deep dive into much of the mystery for most of us, meeting Jess Dyrenforth, Rom trips back in the early days, starting AA as a mail order from his bedroom, landing a job at BMX Action bike, working with Dave Curry, and talks about what an influence Curry had on the scene.
We talk all about the behind the scenes of BMX Action bike RAD magazine, the early Southbank scene, Mons jam, being a rider rep for the UKBFA, AA becoming a clothing brand, the rise and focus of street riding in the magazine, the style change within BMX as it evolved away from its constraints. The push for evolving the character of BMX, moving to California in the good ole USA to work for Freestylin Magazine, Homeboy and Ozone, getting into the early rave scene in the late 80s, right up to what he’s up to today."
Riders mentioned: Jess Dyrenforth, Dave Curry, Craig Campbell, Alisdair Mckenzie, Damon Nicholls, Eric Steel, Billy Stupple, Marco Lara, Andy Ruffell, Tim March, Dave Slade, Craig Grasso, Andy Jenkins, Spike Jonze, Maurice 'Drob' Meyer, Dave Nourie, Eddie Roman, Dave Vanderspek Skateboarders: Bod Boyle, Dobie Campbell, Joe Lopes, Todd Swank
After doing a BMX 'zine for ten years (1987 - 1996) FATBMX made it on the internet. The year was 1998. Here to stay.