Name: Mark McCorkle
Hometown: Beaverton, OR
Started riding BMX in: 1978 in Littleton, CO
Number of bikes in the collection: 14. 11 vintage/old-school.
Do you remember the moment that you decided to start collecting BMX memorabilia?
Mark McCorkle: It was 2008. I still had my original race bike from 1979. I had been hauling around, place to place for nearly 30 years. One day I just sort of realized I didn't feel I'd ever really use it. I figured if I could get $1000 for it, I'd let it go. After digging around on eBay, BMXMuseum and OS-BMX (now BMXSociety) websites, I generally found it was probably a $500-600 bike. So I decided not to part with it.
Name: Daniel Purcell aka Superbikedan
Hometown: Essex, England
Started riding BMX in: 1980
When was the first time you rode at Romford skatepark?
Daniel Purcell: On a skateboard in '78 when it opened then on my first BMX in 1980.
When was the last time?
Daniel Purcell: 2004 when after a lot of pressure from my son and Rom old school to see me ride again I lasted a couple of hours before I broke my leg and that was the end of my come back, many said that was the best few hours they saw, haha.
Obviously you've been involved in BMX for a long time and have seen the bikes come and go. What bike (brand) has always been a favourite to you?
Name: Jonathan Sherwood
Hometown: Durban (South Africa), now living Durham (UK).
Started riding BMX in: Had a BMX from a very young age but only properly discovered BMX in 1992.
Number of BMX bikes in your collection: 35 completes, 14 frames, and a whole lot of random parts and race gear.
Being from South Africa originally, what were popular BMX brands when you started?
Jonathan Sherwood: BMX was huge in SA in the 80's, so all of the major brands from that era were popular (GT, Mongoose, Kuwahara, Hutch, Patterson, etc). In the 90's however there were absolutely no BMX bikes for sale in SA, so you could only get bikes from mail order stores like Dans Comp, ACE, and
Name: Jason Teraoka
Hometown: Kapaa, Hawaii
Started riding BMX in: 1976
Number of bikes in the collection: 7
Do you remember the moment that you decided to start collecting BMX memorabilia?
Jason Teraoka: The seed was definitey planted around 2006 when I pulled a complete 1978 Motomag JAG from a bulk trash pile at the curb. I had that bike stashed for years. It wasn’t until 2015 that I finally gave it a soft restoration and got it into rideable shape and because of that, acquiring parts and collecting sparked. Soon after, a friend gave me two of his childhood bikes (1978 LRV and Team Mongoose) and another bike was pulled from a bulk trash pile (another 1978 Team Mongoose). It was then that the bug fully bit. Collecting went into hyperspace once I moved to California from Hawaii and started going to swaps and shows and meeting some great people in the community here.
At this moment, do you wish you had started collecting earlier?
Jason Teraoka:For sure! I’ve heard so many stories about the glory days from the established collecting
Name: Johan Janssens
Hometown: Boechout, Belgium
Started riding BMX in: 1982 my first season in competition racing.
Website: www.jjrbmx.com (Hutch BMX, JJR BMX, old school Pro Winner and more)
Bike: Quiet Resistant/JJR, Denver Special 24”
What's your earliest memory of BMX?
Johan Janssens: Around 1981 when I saw a kid riding his BMX bike on the other side of the street and wished I had one too. Later I got a Raleigh Ultra Burner.
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.
BMX Texas Take Over: Riding into the Lone Star State!
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
A Bonus Haul To End The Year! S&M HAF, Kuwahara & More!
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