Action Bike

[DINODOG]

When BMX Action bike finished, what did it become????If anything? I stopped getting abmx at no 36, wished had kept buying bitd but cars took over.

[SaMAlex]

around number 50 it changed to R.A.D. (read and distroy). Skateboarding was well in the mag by then, and soon after, BMX stopped being.

[MartyC]

there used to be a bit of history on BMX Action Bike and R.A.D. here.... www.whenwewasrad.com

[DR VINOAH]

if i recall correct
around mid 85 nicky phillips (of "anarchic adjustment" fame) got involved and it all went downhill from there
the later issues of bmx action bike/RAD are no more than glossy fanzines
now thats how to kill an arab

[Trev]

Action Bike and R.A.D. kinda help kill the competition scene.  It stopped promoting the UKBFA comps and gave the image that it was way cooler to ride street.  Unfortunately rather than showing the best competition riders in the country, it pretty much showed Nick Phillips and his mates dorking around London.  Shame really, as it used to be a great magazine.

But then again Freestyle BMX started going downhill when it became Invert. It stopped becoming a full on BMX magazine and more of a "Mark Noble and things he likes" magazine.  Record and Gig reviews?? WTF!!  I think i remember there once being a 4 or 5 page feature on the music Noble liked....

[Lazarou]

Action Bike and R.A.D. kinda help kill the competition scene.  It stopped promoting the UKBFA comps and gave the image that it was way cooler to ride street.  Unfortunately rather than showing the best competition riders in the country, it pretty much showed Nick Phillips and his mates dorking around London.  Shame really, as it used to be a great magazine.

But then again Freestyle BMX started going downhill when it became Invert. It stopped becoming a full on BMX magazine and more of a "Mark Noble and things he likes" magazine.  Record and Gig reviews?? WTF!!  I think i remember there once being a 4 or 5 page feature on the music Noble liked....

Total agreement from me!......

[WizardWeb]

And me ! To my mind , MN has continued that theme to this day..... 

[DINODOG]

So at what number did freestyle bmx become nomore??? did that become anything else?

[Trev]

So at what number did freestyle bmx become nomore??? did that become anything else?

can't remember of the top of my head what number it was.

am i right in thinking they dropped the bmx part for a few issues and just called it "freestyle" (i remember the magazine just having "freestyle" down the left hand side of the covers).  they kept that for a short period then renamed themselves "Invert Magazine".  I think i stopped riding whilst it was still Invert.  I believe (i am probably wrong about this) this is what has now become Ride??

[mark 2]

Some Nick Philip info here out of idle curiousity..... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Philip

[theRuler]

action bike was good until they put skateboarding in there

but the time it became r.a.d. it was a flimsy pamphlet with page after page of yawnarama skateboard pictures.

interesting to see the adverts in there though - the "hardcore" bmx shops suddenly becoming hardcore skate shops.

faze 7 is case in point

and alan's skates. suppose you gotta make a living though.

[mark 2]

Reading Action bike as an adult is sometimes a bit cringeworthy - it was my favourite as a kid, and BMX Action has aged better out of all of them as a read IMO if you know what I mean.....Freestyle BMX and Bi Weekly always seemed a bit piss poor compared Action Bike at the time too though.

[username]

I thought I would never defend Joe Burlo - but Faze7 was a skate shop years before bmx even existed in this country....

As for the mag, well being bought by Robert Maxwell and then dumped didn't help. What was left was funded mostly by TLB from his own pocket (and a remortage) and was lucky to have existed at all!

[Trev]

I thought I would never defend Joe Burlo - but Faze7 was a skate shop years before bmx even existed in this country....

As for the mag, well being bought by Robert Maxwell and then dumped didn't help. What was left was funded mostly by TLB from his own pocket (and a remortage) and was lucky to have existed at all!

Hmmmm... TLB...... the man who doesn't acknowledge taking BMX photo's in the 80's anymore....

I got on alright with TLB bitd, but the way he goes on about how he was a skating photographer in the 80's and has thousands upon thousands of pics and doesn't mention BMX at all did get me wound up a tad....

[SaMAlex]

I think I remember a picture of TLB taking some pics. He was in a massive puffa jacket, taking pics of Pepi doing some rolling flatland. It was on a roof top that Pepi used to ride on up North somewhere. TLB was sat on a skateboard and Dave Curry was pushing him along so he could keep up with the action. Maybe for TLB, that counts as being a "skating photographer"!

(I hope Ive got the details of the pic right. Its just popped into my head!).

[Trev]

I think I remember a picture of TLB taking some pics. He was in a massive puffa jacket, taking pics of Pepi doing some rolling flatland. It was on a roof top that Pepi used to ride on up North somewhere. TLB was sat on a skateboard and Dave Curry was pushing him along so he could keep up with the action. Maybe for TLB, that counts as being a "skating photographer"!

(I hope Ive got the details of the pic right. Its just popped into my head!).

I think I remember that... and by rolling tricks i think you're referring to a bar hop or something rather than hitchhikers. 

[SaMAlex]

I think it might have even been some kind of backwards rolling front wheel skuff like McCoy used to do. You know, like a half boomerang and start rolling standing on one of the front pegs.

[username]

Hmmmm... TLB...... the man who doesn't acknowledge taking BMX photo's in the 80's anymore....

I got on alright with TLB bitd, but the way he goes on about how he was a skating photographer in the 80's and has thousands upon thousands of pics and doesn't mention BMX at all did get me wound up a tad....

Thats not the TLB I know, when was  this Trev - what context? I think he was winding you up....

[Trev]

Hmmmm... TLB...... the man who doesn't acknowledge taking BMX photo's in the 80's anymore....

I got on alright with TLB bitd, but the way he goes on about how he was a skating photographer in the 80's and has thousands upon thousands of pics and doesn't mention BMX at all did get me wound up a tad....

Thats not the TLB I know, when was  this Trev - what context? I think he was winding you up....

I believe I saw it on his website a short while back.  I'll see if I can find it again.

[teamsano]

i stopped buying 'rad' when the bmx stopped getting featured, and moved over to 'freestyle', which i never really read before. although the one consistency throughout remained the good old 'bmx plus', which i cannot defend highly enough.

[MartyC]

Hmmmm... TLB...... the man who doesn't acknowledge taking BMX photo's in the 80's anymore....

I got on alright with TLB bitd, but the way he goes on about how he was a skating photographer in the 80's and has thousands upon thousands of pics and doesn't mention BMX at all did get me wound up a tad....

Thats not the TLB I know, when was  this Trev - what context? I think he was winding you up....

I believe I saw it on his website a short while back.  I'll see if I can find it again.

I haven't seen Tim in over 20 years but I understand he very much remembers how influential his role in BMX was both from a photography and retail perspective.  I think you need to understand how deeply rooted skating is in TLB's life, I first met him back in the late 70's when he was manager of Alpine Sports and when he wasn't working at the shop he was taking photo's of skaters in places like Meanwhile Gardens 1&2, Rolling Thunder, Windsor (anyone remember the Windsor skatepark?), Spandrel at Uxbridge and so on. 

[SaMAlex]

I never knew TLB was the manager of Alpine Sports. Thats way cool

[the_cyclops]

TLB is cool!

I spoke to him a couple of weeks back (sorted me out with some HUGE R.A.D. stickers too)

I must admit though that toward the end of ABMX and the beginning of R.A.D. was the best times..........It may have helped kill off the competition scene in the UK but in my opinion it came at the right time.....I was 16 when ABMX started to move towards R.A.D. and all the Anarchy stuff was pretty fresh and pretty much pre-empted the whole mid school ethos!

Thats just my thoughts on the matter!

 

[SaMAlex]

that might be right, but they still dropped BMX altogether (like most people I guess).

They went out of their way to put hoffmans backflip180 from mansfeild in RAD but they were still so crap. They compaired it to a 900 ... which hoffman also did at the same demo! The pics spoke for themselves, there was no need to translate a BMX trick into "skate" tricks for their readers

[MartyC]

I never knew TLB was the manager of Alpine Sports. Thats way cool

Bought my first BMX from Tim at Alpine Sports when it was at Notting Hill Gate