🅰fter a year of going on this site pretty much every day "lurking in the background" I thought it high time to contribute. It's a very long one, so grab ya brew, go to ya comfy spot an smoke em if ya got em..........
Name: Darren
Born: 1976
Location: Black Country and proud.
Bmx's I like: all of em! GT, Haro, etc, especially British built freestylers and shiny chrome ones.
Bmx heroes: Eddie fiola. Mat Hoffman. Neil Ruffell.
Loves: wife and two brilliant kids. Music.
Hates: computers, work, getting old.
So here's my introduction, my testament and my bmxy life.....so far.......
Firstly I have no claims to fame, never took part in any official races, never entered any comps or brushed shoulders with any bmx legends. Never even had a decent bmx, Just an average Joe from a Black Country council estate who was there bitd from the height of the bmx scene? (1985? ) riding through the "bmx dead years??" (1989-1995?)
I know it sounds poxy but Bmx became my escape I could and would go anywhere, it was freedom. I wish I could describe that feeling of bursting out my front door on my bmx and BANG! hitting the day riding, without a care in the world.
For me it all started christmas 1984 aged eight and my first bmx, I'm guessing like most of you, it was a Raleigh burner, mine was a mk1 night burner. a progression from my Raleigh striker.
I flippin loved it!
That Christmas morning I went out on it for the first time and I soon met up with one of my mates who had also got a burner for Christmas, in the distance we saw a couple of others who had also had bmx's that morning, before long there were probably twenty of us cruising round our shitty Black Country council estate, bmx bandits! Already trying to wheelie, bunny hop, looking for jumps and racing each other.
And that was it.
From then until I started work in 1996 I was a bmx'er, a radster! From that moment on I rode my bike everywhere, all day everyday every chance I had.
I had all the riding gear, track trousers, a multitude of racing tops, the gloves, helmet and full face mask and I would tear around our estate in the full set up, I'd probably get arrested now if I did that! (Looking like stigs bmx cousin )
Back then a few doors down from my house was a long slide on a high bank, running down the side of it was a disused railway embankment ( no tracks ) and we used to ride down the bank and up the other side where we had turned it into a dirt jump which was about fifteen feet high (but flattened out at the top). I spent a lot of days there till late evenings and there was always a group there, some of whom had travelled from afar (the surrounding estates) to ride our jump, it was the go to spot. And it was right at my back gate. We would line up our bikes and see who could jump the most, I can remember tabletopping over eight bikes I must have been 9-10 years old.
My earliest memory of crashing was around this time, but it wasn't on our monster dirt jump. A few streets down there was a concrete ledge (about three foot high) at the end of someone's drive which was fun to jump down. One day I was messing about there on my own and thought I would take a very long, very fast run up, peddling my backside off down the road and around the house and off the ledge. As I got around the house at about 90mph the owner pulled onto his drive and BANG straight into his posh ford Granada whacking my Crown Jewels into my stem and head-butting the bonnet. He wasn't happy and gave me a right rollocking while I lay there crying with my sack in my hands. A few days later I bumped into his son who was older than me ( can't remember his name but remember he had a gold tuff burner ) and he threatened me with a flick knife saying " your the little git that smashed into my dads car" or words to that effect, I knew he was only showing off to his mates and off I went. Later that week I was going to the shop for my mom and saw a group of lads jumping on a makeshift ramp made out of house bricks and a good bit of wood ( I think it was a wordrobe door ) it was quite high for such a ramp probably 6/7 bricks high. So I quickly got to the shop went home and back to the ramp, as I got there the ramp was in bits and the guy who threatened me was screaming holding his bumhole and being helped home by two lads, one was pushing his tuff burner with a long protruding seat-post and the other lad was holding his areoroyal seat! With the rest of the lads who saw it looking shocked and sorry for him, I just rode past, a silent witness to the aftermath but inside I was LMFAO. I suppose this was the day I first learnt about karma.
At the back of our monster dirt jump was waste land where we made a bit of a track. A Camel, a water pit, a log jump etc, there would always be someone there with a shovel, each week a jump would be changed, added, improved or destroyed.
local to us a bmx track was built by the council, it was no hell track though, the newspaper came down to take pictures and we had already made our own big dirt jump that ran off the track and thats what they took pictures of and not the actual track. To get there I had to go round an old quarry which was a bit of a track itself with some sketchy jumps and an even sketchier Tarzan swing. Happy days.
Around 1985/6 I remember watching bmx beat and being shocked that Andy ruffells brother was in it, and then rooting for him (Neil Ruffell). After watching it I went out on my bike and soon met up with some others who had also watched it, word was our local comprehensive had opened up a tennis court that had a quarter pipe in it that the sixth formers had made. So off we went. When we arrived it was like bmx beat on steroids, I couldn't guess how many where there, but I guess they had also been watching bmx beat "can you believe Andy ruffles brother is in it........... Gud tho worn E"
This was my first time on a proper ramp, kickturns and rollbacks were the order of the day I don't think anyone dared to jump off it as I don't think any of us had been on a proper ramp before.
Sadly my night burner soon got nicked. Heartbroken isn't the word!
Lucky for me Santa got me my next bmx the following Christmas this time a mk2 Raleigh mag burner. I remember spending my birthday money in halfords on a skyway pad set,skyway decals and silver spray paint. My first delve into bmx restoration. My mag burner also got nicked!
And so started a long line of bodged, borrowed, swapped, begged, borrowed and thrown together bmx's, most of which got destroyed and broken in them "bmx is dead days?" It wasn't dead for me.........
My cousin was a big influence, he was a few years older and more into the bmx scene in a big way and always had top bikes, well to me anyway, Patterson, areopro, Curtis but mostly he had Dp firebirds. His last bike was a haro bashguard sport in neon green, he had it shipped from USA when it first came out, I flippin loved that bike, tho would have had the chrome master myself. I remember going with him to buy his first Dp firebird f&f £75 from our local bmx shop, nutty Russell's, a little gang of us went as it was quite the occasion. The first proper freestyler bmx among any of us, we all had burners. The shop is still there but no dp's and no db silverstreak or mongoose Californian in the window that I used to dream over. Another bike shop we'd go to was ladypool cycles in Birmingham. It was a bus, a train, another bus and a long, long walk up ladypool road to get there, always worth it tho. One day When I was in there two lads rode in on their bikes, parked them upside down on the bars an seat.......as KooL as, both bikes were top notch, top of the line, chrome shinny customised flatland bmx's. Me and my cuz soon got talking to them and one of the lads was American ( which was novel to us ) and later we would bump into him now and again at Birmingham wheels. One day while flicking through a bmx magazine I spotted a pic of him in a flatland comp in I think Germany. I think his name was Liam ward if it rings any bells with anyone. I never bumped into him again after seein him in that mag.
Birmingham wheels. Again this was a mission, since we couldn't take our bikes on the bus it was a 30 min bike ride, 30 min train and another 30 min bike ride. We used to take our bikes in the luggage compartment on the train and sit with them and there always seemed to be someone in a wheel chair plonked in there, which I always thought a bit shit and so always felt compelled to chat to them and bore them (probably about my bike and bmx).
I never really rode the track at wheels we were more interested in the ramps and the other riders and their bikes. It was the first time I saw a haro, GT, skyway and all the other top bikes and seeing some serious tricks. What I remember was a little shop in the middle by two ramps, one of which had a skate park type set up which were near the track and a big ramp that must have been twenty foot and had about four foot of vert! I don't think I ever managed the top of that one.
I also met my wife while out riding my bmx, the same one I'm restoring at the moment, which gives me a little edge when it comes to the moans about it ( £money, clutter, time etc ) and adds to its sentimental value. This would have been about 1990 when flares were all the fashion, mine were 23inchers and I had to tuck them into my socks else they caught in my chain, how she ever met up with me again I'll never know.
The biggest part of my bmxing was when the local park had a half pipe built, a metal ten footer. It would have been about 1992. By this time not many people were riding bmx's, there wasn't the big mass of bmx riders like at the opening of the bmx track next to it, but it was a meeting place for the ones still riding. I can remember often having the mickey took because I still rode a bmx, oh well, I didn't care, I lived at that ramp, and is where I learnt most of my tricks ( which wasn't many ) but I did love to get air! Memories of those hot summers pouring cheap cola on the ramp to get some grip when it got slip-slidey , trying to outdo each other and making new friends, oh and the accidents. I think the worse being when two lads tried to "backy drop in" and yep it ended as you would expect, two cracked heads in a mangled bike.
The ramp and track are still there and I do plan to do a pilgrimage once me bike is up and running.
One of my last memories of riding a bmx was about 1995 when me and my cousin went to a show in Wolverhampton where there were some ramps and a bmx thing going on. By this time my cousin was driving so we didn't have our bikes. When we got there we got chatting to two lads on their bmx's standing by the ramps, it was a bit of a free for all, there was no pro's or event, nobody seemed to be riding just posing, so me and my cuz grabbed a bike each from the lads we were talking to and hit the ramp, we hit the ramp hard. There was a dj and he was loving it, commentating our moves and drawing in a big crowd, we killed it for about 15 minutes then just left and that was that, I suppose a fitting end to a decade of bmx.
So my bike, the reason I'm back into it, the reason I'm on here.......
Back to 1987 my best mate who I grew up with ( later to be my bestman and I his bestman ) moved to live in Bristol with his dad. He would come visit his mom most weekends and in the holidays and we would hang out. Because I was always on my bmx his mom one year brought him one for Christmas so he could ride with us instead of being backied everywhere. Before long his bike would stay at my house, and as I said my bikes were always broken, in bits or swapped about, I would ride his when he wasn't up from Bristol. Of course before long his bike was broken or in bits etc. But I always made sure it was rideable when he visited, though it was different each time he came I made sure I replaced parts with better ones. I once worked for a week in my uncles garage, I got paid £40 and brought a suntour stem, mongoose decade bars, tange grips and I think a sugino crank. Couldn't do that now for £40 could ya! I also sprayed it every colour you could think of, although I always really wanted it chromed.
Bitd, after reading a piece in either vert or rad magazine a chap had built his own bmx. It was all black, had a removeable bashguard, a wishbone rearend and was called "beyond". I spent a winter in my mates garage converting my bike into an inspired beyond, a total resto, taking it apart, spraying it Matt black and putting on laser cut stickers from a stationary shop in white along the down tube in my then graffiti tag name ( I also used to spray walls ). The last time I sprayed my bike I used every dreg of colour spray I had left in my then huge graffiti arsenal. When I got a job at 19 I got a car, and my beloved bmx lay in my mom and dads shed for the next 10 years with strict orders never to throw it. It then lay in my garage and then my shed for another 10 years until October 2016 when I had a little twinkle and thought " I'm gonna clean up me old bike an get it ridable, just for a little project to keep me busy ". And that's when I found you guys and one year in and here I am. So............ Hello!
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