FATBMX Your Online BMX News Resource Since 1998

Name: gOrk (aka Craig Barrette)
Hometown: Soon to be Claremore, Oklahoma (on the outskirts of Tulsa)
Started riding BMX in: 1976, at age 13. ... and have never stopped.
Biggest result ever: Being inducted into the BMX Hall of Fame in 2010.

Congrats on the new position at USABMX. It was newly created and seems like a perfect fit for you. Can you explain what it entails?
gOrk: My new title is Curator of the USA BMX Museum. For the most part, I will be in charge of the new BMX Museum that we opened earlier this year at the new headquarters in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Aside from continuously adding content to the Museum and rotating displays, I will finish archiving and scanning

Mark Losey has shot many covershots in his life. This time he makes the cover himself, mouthguard and all. Brian Foster had just discovered the freestyle scene and puts his aluminium Schwinn to the test by doing a 300 X-up in Chicago. Third rider on the cover is Trevor Meyer. Has anybody heard of him lately?

The year is 1995 and I just got my first computer and played around with Coreldraw a bunch for this issue. For once FAT had different fonts, different font sizes and more of that stuff that did not work on a typewriter.

The news section was big again. We went straight into the S&M warehouse ramp followed by a Robo interview. Megafestatie report, free Haro sticker, and a report about the Chicago BS comp followed. The Sjappi Jam in Maarssenbroek was always fun. Dirt , Vert and Lake jumping this time.

KHE provided a sticker and then we went on the Jinx-tour. One of the best trips ever.

We had to smuggle Jay Miron across the Spanish border in order to do a show.

Read all about it in issue 31. 

We had a session in RL Osborn's backyard. Rode some pools in the USA. Went to the ABA Grands.

Had a free Webco sticker and visited Hoffman Bikes in Oklahoma. It had been ten months since the last issue had come out so we had loads of content. We went to Kampen for the first round of the Dutch BMX championships. We printed a scene report of an Italian park in Lignano. Of course we had a Mission Trails report, a Mutation sticker, Bartman comic, KOD report from the ABA Grands and a free Vans sticker. Soo wrote about the A4 trails and then it was straight into the Brian Foster interview. TL won the ABA race in Reno, read the report on page 78-79. Evel Knievel made it to the FAT-JAM and I wrote a little report for Gearhaeds 'zine on the GT AirShow. Flip through it and enjoy.

BdJ

Check it out: FAT-'zine issue 31 (1995)  Flip through the 'zine page by page if you hit that link.

Issue 29 came with a bunch of free stickers; Mutation, BMX PARTY (Mental Jimmy'z), Forbidden Planet, VANS Off the Wall and a Gatorade postcard featuring Mat Hoffman doing a backflip. These little items were nice extra's that came free with the 'zine.

Webmaster Jos sent me a copy of page 4 a few weeks ago. Read it and smile.

8 pages of BMX news followed. Then the report about the trip to Copenhagen for the X-Mas jam followed by a Solingen miniramp session report.

Woody Itson gets interviewed and we went to the Phoenix Winternationals in the back of Chris Moeller's pick up truck. Back to Holland for the first NK of the year.

Also covered in issue 29 is the BS contest in Moreno Valley, California. Those comps were fun.

Thomas "Tarzan" Hansen gets interviewed, Axel Reichertz and Jay Miron get sequences.

We posted the I-punkt BMX comp results, did an interview with Mike Daily and Cruzin' Chris, went to another race in SoCal, and also Markus Wilke gets an interview.

Just read it.

Neil Waddington - almost 50. Who Cares?

Matt Pingel was a big contributor of FAT and to show our love to him we gave him the cover of number 27. You must have heard of Jerry Galley too. He's on page 2 shredding the ramp in Dennis' backyard. We got a free STD foundation sticker on page 4. Six pages of BMX news and another freesticker (Big Boy).

Thomas and Moni Stellwag get an interview. Greg Higgins contributed some art. Wow, another sticker: Mutation.

We did a report on some SoCal trails: Honda Hills, Mission Trails, 6th Street, Hoover and Dover. RAD-LAME. Did you make it on the list?

Backyard Jam 1993: Tom Lunch, Keith Treanor, Aju, Steve Geall, Grotbags, Congo, Grace and the Maddog. The mag interviews were with Brad McDonald (sitting in his "office"), a flatlanding Mark Losey, seatless Hal Brindley and going backwards James Hudson. 

The Lord (Dave Voelker) gets an interview on page 45. Nico Does gets the Bizznizz interview that starts on page 50.

I went to China for some demos. Crazy but good times. Read the report. 

Ronnie Farmer on the cover, yeehaaw. While in San Diego we rode Mission Trails on a daily basis with the Dirt Brothers. Ronnie Farmer was one of them. He was born in East SD and the Dirtbrothers house was on the edge of that shady area. We have not heard from Ronnie in a while an really hope he is doing well. He sure knew how to stretch them no-footed cancans. Internet sites did not bring the news back in the day, FAT-'zine did. The Believe it, or Not!? section is huge, full of news.

We traveled to Phoenix for a Bicycle Stunt contest in our 1970 Buick Estate Wagon which had a 454 engine and was hella fast. We made it over there too.

Ronnie Farmer gets a full on interview in FAT-'zine. Maybe the only interview he has ever had. Read it.

We were doing Magazine reviews in issue 26 with Matt Pingel (BMX Freestyle magazine-Germany), Mark Noble (RIDE BMX magazine) and Vincent "Le Chien" Ranchoux of Tracks BMX Power mag (France). 

Todd Lyons scored an interview which starts on page 43. We went to an NBL national in Las Vegas with the S&M crew. Jean Paul Rogers was selling RIDE BMX magazines for some extra income at the race.

Mongoose provided the free sticker and I also went to England and checked in with a contest at the

Man, this issue is bringing back some more good memories. One of my favorite contests of all time was the World's in Budapest, Hungary. I could go on an on about it but you just check out issue #25 and read the party-part about it.

Sheps actually gets the contents page doing a nosepick with front brake. Only poor bastards that could not afford a front brake did toe jams at that time (Jon Taylor?).

When we went to the USA and there were no jams anywhere, we organized one ourselves. At Mission Trails. The Boost jam was born. We went to the KOC in Markus' van and had a blast.

From there I got a ride with Kay Clauberg in his VW Golf (4 people, 4 bikes) and we visited Tim Ruck's area (raced at Exeter's BMX track) and then went to the Rider Cup in London. More good times. Also did a trip to Malaga after the World's. Man, no worry in the world at that time.

What else can you expect this week? A Mat Hoffman interview. We are talking 1992 so keep that in mind when you read it.

Kai Uwe Lohff got an interview, we went to the Münster Monster Masterships in Germany, there's a report about a GT show in the USA, we went to a freestyle contest in Belgium, and wrapped up issue 25

Stuart King discovered BMX at its lowest point in popularity, we pin it down to around 1990. How the carcass of a 80's kids boom held any interest to a young teen back then is quite intriguing.

Celebrating 40 Years of Freestyle Radness is the Bob Haro Lineage Master Freestyler. Only 400 to be made! Bob's first bike that revolutionized the sport of Freestyle BMX - The Haro Master has become one of the most iconic bikes in BMX history today.

The new typewriter is doing its job making it possible to read the text in issue 23 which has Geoff Martin on the cover while doing some flatland riding in front of Hamel's in Mission Beach.

This issue has a lot of USA stuff in it. We visited the first Bicycle Stunt contest in Texas with the GT team, we also made it to the next round in Glendale, Arizona. Sheep Hills looked different in 1991 and we also checked out a Todd Anderson/Eddie Fiola trick show.

Jimbob reports about the East coast of the USA in two stories and we also covered several European events like the King Of Concrete, the Tourcoing France contest from March 1992, and we had a pictorial of the 1991 World's in Denmark.

We were pretty international back then with a Barrow in Furness jam report (UK), Axel Reichertz' roadtrip to Spain, European team championships in Abbeville, France, an international contest in Eindhoven (NL), and a skatehouse report from Essen, Germany.

I wonder how we did it all but somehow it worked out. Mario Schepers, Alan Peterson, Barker Barrett and Effraim Catlow got the interviews. Flip through the pages and check if you got a photo in this issue.

BdJ