FATBMX Your Online BMX News Resource Since 1998

Name: Alessandro Barbero
Hometown: Ceva, Italy / Woodward, PA, USA
Started riding BMX in: As a kid in the late '80's. Pro since 2001.
Number of bikes in the collection: Most of my bikes are Race bikes from 1975 to 1985. I don't know how many exactly.

What is Italy's history like regarding BMX Bikes. Do you have any Italian BMX bikes in your collection?
Alessandro Barbero: Of course I got some, so I usually try to split the BMX Toys from the Real BMX that

Name: Chad Powers
Hometown: Grew up in Nokesville, VA, live in Richmond, VA now!
Started riding BMX in: 1996
Number of bikes in the collection: 250-300 rideable bikes

The BMX museum you've got going at the shop is fairly new. Can you explain how it all unfolded?
Powers BMX: it’s not new! It has always been in the works. But we just moved the shop into a bigger better spot which we had build a section dedicated for the BMX museum!

When you were looking for a new location, was starting a BMX museum always on your mind?
Powers BMX: Yes, the museum was a main point of the new location!

It seems you've got plenty of bikes. How do you decide which bikes deserve a spot in the museum?
Powers BMX: We don’t dislike anything that’s BMX! We are going to downsize it a little, get rid of some doubles.

What's the oldest bike in the line-up?
Powers BMX: We have a Schwinn Sting ray. I personally love the '70s BMX.

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: Scott Towne
Hometown: Otsego, Michigan, USA.
Started riding BMX in: 1977
Number of bikes in the collection: More than I need, less than I want. I don’t consider myself a “collector”. I’m a lifer. Old BMX bikes are something I have because they are part of my story. I could give a presentation on each bike that I have and why it means something to me. In fact, I just might start doing that. “It’s all in the presentation” after all.

Name: Mike Janssen, owner BMX Museum NL
Hometown: Shanghai, China
Started riding BMX in: 1982
Number of bikes in the collection: 100+, all part of the BMX Museum NL collection which opened the doors on February 8 th 2009.

Do you remember the moment that you decided to start collecting BMX memorabilia?
Mike Janssen: Definitely! I started to look in 2000 for my own 1984 GT Pro Series because I regretted it

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.

Name: Aykut Hilmi
Hometown: London, England
Bike: Hutch Trickstar

What's your earliest memory of the Hutch Trickstar?
Aykut Hilmi: I saw an American commercial and was hooked! At the time I had a red Raleigh Burner and we used to make half pipes in our local park

Who were some of the Hutch riders that you admired back in the day?
Aykut Hilmi: I didn't have much knowledge back then about BMX riders apart from the ones

Name: Steve Brothers
Hometown: Eagle Point, Oregon currently, and Hutchinson, Kansas as a kid who raced.
Started riding BMX in: Sanctioned BMX racing? 1980... the shot of me on the PK is my first race. I got 2nd. Of course like most 70's kids, we were doing little "moto" style upgrades on our stingrays and stingray clones and making jumps and doing our thing... this seems to be fairly universal for BMXers of my demographic. But again, as far as racing in a sanctioned context, I was an ABA racer... had a PK Ripper in the beginning, but moved on to a GT afterward. I only raced for a few years, I sometimes reflect on the fact that I've been deep in this old school BMX scene for far more years as an adult, than I

Name: Billy Mills
Hometown: Romford, Essex, UK
Started riding BMX in: 99’
Number of bikes in the collection: More than 10, less than 20…

When you saw that S&M x Supreme bike, what did you have to do in order to score one?
Billy Mills: I’ve been into Supreme before the brand became ‘hyped’ around 2010. I’ve always collected the brand, so once I heard about the S&M collaboration I had to have it, I put feelers out to some friends but it was too exclusive to have one set aside. I eventually got this one from eBay after some pestering.

Has the value doubled already?
Billy Mills: This is the question that everyone asks, it’s a strange one, because 99% of the owners of these bikes don’t actually ride or know anything about S&M, they just have a computer program that