what got you started..???

[mike pardon]

Okay for me it was sitting watching magpie one day and they had some footage of a new sport called BMX and Tinker Juarez riding a skatepark in the states..He did 360s out of the bowl !!! Well i just died,,,that was it . I couldnt believe what my eyes where seeing. Then i heard Halfords had these Puch Murrays in and a mate from school was getting one for chrimbo..I had a £100 in the bank. I asked my Dad could i put it to buying one. I think they retailed for £130. He said "no chance" I spat the dummy..Then my mates discovered Alans and we used to nip there on our lunch and drool. He really had some exotic machines..Mongoose skyway. supergoose, etc

I couldnt understand why my Dad wouldnt let me buy one..So xmas morning comes i open up all my presents..I got a black and white portable TV!!! plus a pair of gloves and a race shirt..The penny still hadnt dropped..I distinctly remember looking out of the window and seeing about 4 of my mates fly down the street on gleaming new bmx bikes.. Gutted.
So he says just get my coat for us..I open the door and there it is,, a gleaming new mongoose skyway..

so began my journey into the dark side.. ha ha can ya beat that?

[harris]

my first memory was at my cousins in coventry ,i found a magazine he had i had never even herd of bmx
it looked great then forgot about it.a lad up my road pulled out on a space ship to me a raleigh tuff burner
wow i couldnt stop looking at the yellow wheels i wanted one but my parents were never gonna get me one.
then one day at school a lad had this bmx he had made up from bits it was the best i was ever going to get
my bum near so i told my dad and he said we could go look ,£20 he wanted it was a black thing with moto mag
wheels and mongoose stickers generic thing well heavy ,so dad got it for me but gave me loads of work to do
for him to pay it of.cheers dad you are a star....

[theRuler]

i'd seen ET but the whole bmx thing didnt really register - i mean we had always used our bikes for "scrambling" and skids and wheelies etc (remember turning the handlebars upwards on a racer for extra wheelie power?)

wasnt until my older brother got a bmx action bike magazine - that was july 1983. we read it cover to cover the whole summer holiday

had to wait until xmas to get bmx's though. and from then it was on.

[DR VINOAH]

"magpie" what great program that was

wasnt just the one thing for me

but seeing a bmx on "chips" got me 1st,a bit later on, the ruffell and co on blue peter

 a mate had a "motobacane" with suspension around 78/79,it was kawasaki green

he then got a supergoose and i got a motomag,i could do bigger jumps and not bend the forks

as i had done on me "panther" ,this was a chopper lookalike

also some issues of bmxa brought back from the US by me aunt in 79

im sure "tommorows world" did a feature on bmx around 1980,or maybe it was

"whickers world"

thats all folks

[Del]

One by one my mates started getting BMX's at around '83, so after a lot of nagging and having a glowing report from school that summer, my dad takes me to the bike shop. I already told him they were about £100ish, so I figured I'd end up with something basic. So we get there and there's a gorgeous DB Silver Streak which I'm drooling over. Anyway he says "Well if you're going to get one you might as well get the one you really want!" So we walk out with a Silver Streak and I think I slept with it that night!

[spicybob]

My Cousins came back from the States with them.
My parents refused to buy me a BMX even though they took me to OT's in Dartford to look at all the bikes.
They said I had to make do with the Grifter they had bought me some years previously.
This never detered me and a friend who had had a Mongoose Motor Mag shipped over from the States sold me some of its original parts which I fitted to the Grifter. Wheels pads etc.
I then saved my pocket money to buy the real deal.
My heart was set on a redline but I bought the first bike my savings amounted to. Appro £85 A Burner!!!!
Fortunately for me it was stolen and the insurance money went towards a GT!!
And I lived happily ever after.

[Geth]

Always wanted to ride MX. We had the racers turned "scramblers" with knobbly tyres, "cowhorn" bars that we used to ride down in the abandoned brickyard near to home.
Then Grifters came along and we thought they were the dogs nads. 20" wheels with knobbly tires, padded bars and MX style grips. We were there!
Me and a friend ended up swapping our Grifters for a RM125 not even thinking that it was probably stolen! My mum found out and went ballistic and made us swap back our bikes.
Still dreaming of MX, we used to buy "Motorcross & Trials Weekly" (I think thats what it was called). One week there was a pull out section on "Bicycle Motocross"
HUH?!
Whats that then?
Talked my mum to put some aside each week up until Xmas when I got my brand new Team Murray 340 from Halfords.
Thanks mum!

Ended up hand painting it matt black with blackboard paint!

[Zippy]

The first BMX I saw was an ET Kuwi. We all took the micky out of the lad who had it because it wasn't geared like our grifters.

About a year later and I was desperate for a bmx. I was coming back from a PGL holiday and we stopped at a bike shop. It was full of burners. My mum asked what I thought of the red one and I explained that it was crap and that Haro or Redline made proper bmx's.

Anyway I got home and walked into my bedroom and there at the end of the bed was a red burner. I was as chuffed as anything and rode the wheels off it for about 2 years.

[macmark]

I saw something on a Saturday morning t.v. show Swapshop or Tiswas or one of those in the Summer of 78, about the next big craze from America. BMX!! Well that was it for me, I'd always wanted a MX bike but wasn't allowed one because there was nowhere for me to ride it. I remember running upstairs to my mum and dads room and they'd been out the night before so were still in bed. I can still remember jumping around pretending to be on a bike and making a hell of a racket asking if I could get one for christmas. I think they said yes just to shut me up so they could go back to sleep. I didn't forget, or shut up about it though and kept on and on. Eventually just before christmas they took me to a bike shop in East London called Bates and I chose a Mongoose Motomag with blue pads. Oh and I was only allowed to get it if I got a blue bombhead helmet that I had to promise to wear (yeah right!). The bike was then picked up a couple of days before christmas and kept at my aunts. We lived in 3 storey town house and I remember hearing my dad half cut trying to carry it up the stairs and put it in the living room. I sneaked a peak over the bannisters and saw it and don't think I've ever felt so excited as I did that night. I didn't sleep a wink and think I woke everyone up every 15 minutes to see if we could go and open our presents yet. Great days.



Mark

[felix]

Similar to a lot of guys here.  All kids rode bikes all the time in those days, played every day in the woods.  Made 'tracker' bikes with little knobbly tyres and stupidly long cowhorns.  Got my Grifter around '78 IIRC, learnt wheelies etc.  First sight of BMX was something on the TV and some of the first Mongooses in the local bike shop - Motomags and those matt black swan neck stems.  Remember (still treasure) the first copy of OBMX (?) later, BMX Action Bike with I think Cav Strutt and others and the Grifter conversion.  Must have read that issue, as scanned here a hundred times...

http://www.bmxtalk.com/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=2891&highlight=cav&sid=0f3e070d132d7f059bcc98efc22754f9

Did mine - straight forks, rings welded on the flared headtube by that Leyton bike shop.  Fitted Sugino blue alloy chainset etc.  Met two guys in the local woods who went to the US every summer - Jason Dawes and Dave Curry.  Progressed from there, got my first BMX, a Silverstreak - learnt a lot on that and so on.  The 'Bike SHow' at Earls Court with Ruffell, Stu Thomson and others and the wooden ramps - the excitement in those days is hard to convey - did anything to get a glimpse of new bikes, magazines or parts.  Tube to Masons in Snaresbrook, riding Hollow Ponds, hanging around Superbike in Ilford.  Best days of my life!

 

[Steve P]

My Dad worked in the local bike shop in the early 80's and I always wanted a Supergoose but money was always tight at the time and my constant Xmas requests were ignored

I ended up painting the outside of my parents house during the school holidays to earn the bike I always wanted and by August 1982 I had my very first BMX . . . a year or so later I got a new TA which I still own today

Bring back the 80's . . . I miss those days big time !!!

[bmxgirl]

I got into it by watching bmx beat. I  was really young and still had my first bike with stabilisers after watching bmx beat i'd go out in the garden and try to do stunts 
The kids who lived opposite me all had burners and i really wanted one. A couple of friends also had bmx's i would always ride their's and make them ride my girly bikes lol
When i was about 12/13 i finally got my first bmx a California Star, which i still own

[Jazzchimp]

I started at a very early age by emulating Evil Kinevil (75'ish) and various stuntmen by tipping my 3 wheeler onto 2 wheels


I progressed onto my budgie type bike (77ish) and just wanted to be a moto-x rider.


Then my dad gave me a leaflet on Puch Murray bikes and that was it.. A week later I had one and never looked back

[mike pardon]

                                        Classic memories guys and gals keep em coming!!!!

[MartyC]

I used to skate at Harrow Skatepark, was one of the infamous Harrow Boyz with Buzz, Dave, Rodga, Sh1thead, Hamster (Steve Douglas) and many others.  In 1979 we used to get these two guys come down on these new bikes and they could ride if you know what I mean.  Both could really jump and carve the performance bowl (with it's 4 foot of vert!) and ride the halfpipe (which is really tight at Harrow).  They used to let me have a go on their bikes which was pretty cool, I could wheelie and jump a little.  I got to know them quite well and loved the bikes (they rode Mongooses), the two guys were Andy Ruffell and Cav Strutt.  I then saved like fook to get myself a BMX bike and in three months had earned enough to go to Alpine Sports (as it was then) and get me a Scorpion Explorer and went racing the following weekend at Chatham, gave up skating and have loved BMX bikes ever since 

[P0LL0]

Dean Rush when he was thirteen getting a Foot or so out of a six foot quarter then me and him went to Horsham to watch Chris Young and Rob Bell do a show and that was that!

[stevenage kid]

In 82 a few local teenagers being in mind i was 8 to 9, (pickle will know) brian gillespie, aday, ron and tony fox all lived local. i just was seeing tv coverage and just wanted a bmx.  i had to wait till christmas, and me folks wern't loaded and i remember my dad putting down a 13 pound deposit on my blue burner (everyoe had red), i was stoked.  we then used to all ride to moores bike shop and drool over the aero pro burner and the ultra buner.  I then went to local bowes lyon skatepark for the first time with my mate nick lacey, and i saw my first gen1 haro, mr mason smith had one.  I then went to a trip with the play scheme to hemel hempstead bmx track and saw my  first skyway ta.  I was hooked, then tony fox turned up at my park on a yellow gt perfomer. WOW.  I got my first freestyle bike, in christmas 84.  All my mates were sending there frames to dp to get sprayed illuminous colours, anyone remember.  (ha illuminous colours were cool).  and i went to moores and ron who was the DON DADDY at the time at bowes worked there and was selling his legendary skyway ta, white tuffs, mk1 ez bars, rgd stem. the lot.  His bke was well respected in the area as one of the best.   Fortunately, i dragged my mum in there and asked her to look at this bike, he was selling it for £175.00, and i remember my mum saying to me "i can only afford £150"  next minute he walks past and says the price has dropped it £150.00.  The best day of my life.....................  I was dialed and i was 11 and he i am.......   I then lived at bowes lyon, and in the summer lived at knebworth.  Knebworth was crazy,  Anyone remember the huge hill you had to ride up.  how manytimes!!  Oops nearly forgot the chris young skyway team demo at stevenage leisure centre,  and the ron wilkerson and brian blyther demo at customs old shop.  All huge inspirations..

[pickle]

My god!!!  i'm going all misty eyed over that!  i remember Tony Fox! he used to work at Moores before Ron.......we always used to ride down the glebe shops just to look at the Redline that was hanging up over the till.
My BMX'in started back in about 82 (i think) all my mates had got them.......Ron had got a Tuff burner (yes even he had one BITD) and i loved it!!!  those tuffs 

but like most of us back then, my mum and dad didn't have too much money to throw about.....and with two other kids to buy for it looked like i would never get a BMX!    I had to make do with my brothers hand-me-down racer......which i then systematically destroyed by jumping anything in my path!
Well Christmas came round and i'd opened all my pressies, but no BMX    I was then made to go to the garage to get the potatoes for dinner......i opened the door, turned on the lights and there she was!!!  it was only a Burner GS from the catalogue....but it was my Burner GS (ultra burner wanna be!) and i loved it!!!
Over the following years it ended up being neon green, with blue Z's....then i swapped them (with Foxy) for some blue Tuffs 

By this time Ron and Ryan had got there DP's which looked the dogs! but for me.....my burner (which was the first new bike i had ever had) was my baby!

I can remember cycling the length of Stevenage to spend the whole day at Bowes.....shouting "droppin in" as you flew round towards the clover......and just watching Mason and Ron ripp that park up! 

Yes i can also remember that hill ride to Knebworth!  but when you got there you had a blast down that snake run into the bowl 

I was crap BITD...the most i could manage was jumps, kickturns and rollbacks.....oh and endo's.....but my god we knew how to have fun back then! 

I remember Halfords was just over the road from Bowes and when the Extra Burner came out (just after ET i think) everyone rushed over to see it and marvel at the red and white paint job (looking back it was pants) but we were easily pleased.

Great days!   

Oh i also remember Rons dad helping take my tuffs apart and re-greasing all the barings.....he was such a nice bloke! always helped you if you had a problem with anything on your bike....Top bloke! and so was Ron.....If you're reading this ron get intouch mate......i'm sure you'll remember me.

[weston]

i always wanted to jump bikes like evel knievel, i used to build ramps on my striker then my grifter, after watching bmx on tv for the first time & seeing magazines it was on, waited all year for my first bike the red burner & that was that

[jimwise68]

Mine is pretty much like everyone else. Had a grifter late 70s used to build jumps and wheelie the thing. Saw a show on Tv about BMX and it didn't really go in. But about 2 months later saw a red and yellow bike in a local bike shop in Maldon Essex. That was it I really wanted it.
Pestered my parents for ever and they said no. So I asked if i could get one from the Littlewoods club book if I paid for it myself. Placed the order and 28 days later my life changed. I was the first person in my village to have a bmx and I felt like the king of the hill on my flashy red and yellow mk1 burner. Can still remember the excited feeling of popping on the pads, because i had to build it up before riding it.

A year later (1983) I got a Mongoose Californian for Xmas and was even happier.

[selfpreservation]

my mates big bro was a sponsored motocross rider and one day out of the blue he turned up with a yamaha byz it was about 81 , et was in the air rhe rest is history

[Trev]

I think it was just after watching ET. I so desperately wanted a Kuwahara. I remember entering a competition in Look-In to try and win one.  Can't remember how long after, but my parents bought me a Piranha.  Started messing about in the streets doing jumps of kerbs and stuff and building 4" high jump ramps (yup 4 inches not 4 foot). I used to watch a programme called Kick Start which had Motorbikes completing a course and tried to replicate that on my bike. Got a glimpse of BMX Beat in 84, but didn't really remember too much about it. What really got me into it though was the Kelloggs in 85. I saw the semi's and saw Neil Ruffell do a no handed cherry picker. I was blown away by it. I had never seen anything like it before and thought that is what i wanted to do. I then taped the final the following week and have probably watched that close on a thousand times. I could tell you every single bit of movement by Neil Ruffell and Ron Wilkerson. I so desperately wanted a freestyle bike after that. My dream was a Skyway like Neils, but that was way out of my price range. The closest I thought I could afford was a bike called a BH Trickstyler (anyone here remember them? - I never actually ever saw one in real life!) which came in Orange. That was about £150. I started saving like mad. But come christmas time I was getting quite good on my Piranha, so my aunt helped and said she would lend me the money to buy a Street Beat. I was so stoked when I got it, I must have rode it everyday. Even when it was raining, I would practise balancing tricks in my mum's hallway. Soon after I got my Street Beat, my parents took me to watch Holeshot in 85. I just wanted to get good enough to be able to compete with these guys. The next thing i saw was BMX Beat 85 which I think was aired in April 86. Once again I recorded them and played them to death. Did anyone noticed that there wasn't a single Street Beat in that series??? I remember wanting to learn every flatland trick i saw. I practised hard and entered my first comp in 87.

[jeff spicoli]

seeing jeff watson in action now in 81 I only bought it for the skateboarding but after seeing watson I was hooked.