Pro class racing 87 88

[thecrooch]

I met Sid at Kellogs...couldn't meet a nicer lad,gave me his zoom plate had to get it signed by Haro and leary while I was there and he used to send me decals and donuts and stuff,think he was based slough if I remember...Top Man was Sid

Sid was an essex boy through and through, lived out of Benfleet then moved to woodham ferrers (i nearly bought a house off him in the early 90's) where i grew up, the vinces already lived there, ruffell moved there as well and schofield lived up in the next village - was a surreal place to live with all those people you grew up worshipping being locals....

Sid is still local - think he owns a pizza delivery company and various other bits.   Jamie and Craig (still live local) were last seen training at Braintree late last year on new school bikes....  be great to see em back.

note from those pics that most of the pro's were riding semi factory rides as all the money was drying up - cant tell what sid is riding but doesnt look like his usual quad??  most of the kids ended up with his cast offs, he would break em, give em away to us and we would get em welded and eventually break them again....

[Zippy]

Nobody ever mentions Ruffell's Robinson days much do they.

[paulgray]

note from those pics that most of the pro's were riding semi factory rides as all the money was drying up

Hi Crooch,

I think you could probably count the number of UK Pro's who actually made any money from BMX on the fingers of one hand. BITD the prize money (at least when I raced) was generally £1000 which was split (from memory) £500 for a win, £250, £100, £50, £40, £30, £20, £10 so you had to be a regular winner (e.g. Geth) or top three finisher to make any money at racing. Also contrary to some rumours of the time the Pro's where not paid gate money just to turn up so if you didn't make the main you where no different from an amateur rider in terms of the cost of your days racing.

To make money you needed to be good enough to win occasionally but more importantly you needed to be savvy enough to realise that larger bike companies where interested in making a killing, so the thing to do was jump on board and promote their products. Andy Ruffell in particular is a good example of a rider that made money (compared to the rest of us), he was able to ride the BMX wave as he was a natural show man and always presented a clean image and was always in the magazines, he knew how to play the game and get the cash. He was also fortunate to be in the right place at the right time and know the right people, but that's not to take anything away from him, as a rider as he was multi-talented and always a hard man to beat on the track and we all owe him some thanks for the role he played promoting the sport  . Another route taken by Tim March was to set up your own bike company, a big thanks to Tim also for all he did Anyhow Andy and Tim aside, most of us got by on a shoe string and if we where lucky we got a little help from a bike shop or distributor, and we thought that was great. Just racing against the top guys was reward enough for a lot of us, and there was something special about racing in the "Pro class".

Paul

[jimmyp]

Nobody ever mentions Ruffell's Robinson days much do they.

He can't have rode for them for long as he was with mongoose in 86 and retired in 87

Anyone got some pics of him in robinson gear 

[thecrooch]

he must have been on Raleigh longer than a year surely??

and as he says in the interview on this site he got out when he couldnt get paid to ride a bike.... mortgages have got to be paid!!!  some people were lucky Craig Schofields Dad ran a successful building firm in Danbury and basically wasa  kept lad, i remember sitting in Jeremy Vince's lounge one night when Craig and Jamie came in - i had never seen a pair of thighs the size of Craig's but basically he didnt got to school (think he would have been about 15 at the time) just sat in front of the TV on an exercise bike.... I remember Craig getting a 2.8i capri when he was 17 for winning the worlds. His dad had promised him a porsche if he won but the insurance was a little on the steep size!!!

I agree Paul it was a great place to be at the time and us kids looked up to you pro's as gods but the reality was a lot different....

[jimmyp]

he must have been on Raleigh longer than a year surely??

No, he left coz Raleigh wanted to drasticly cut his pay so he went back to Mongoose. This is when raleigh threw in the towel on BMX but i don't know why as they had the two of the best riders and talent in the country with ruff and schofield. If all of the companys stuck with BMX and made new products it would not have died so quickly, 

[QUADROPHENIA]

nice to see geth on a proper bmx

[paulgray]

he must have been on Raleigh longer than a year surely??

No, he left coz Raleigh wanted to drasticly cut his pay so he went back to Mongoose. This is when raleigh threw in the towel on BMX but i don't know why as they had the two of the best riders and talent in the country with ruff and schofield. If all of the companys stuck with BMX and made new products it would not have died so quickly, 

Hmmm... I think Raleigh milked BMX for all they could get out of it. I don't remember them giving any support to the sport itself, just made a lot of money out of mass production bikes. I don't consider them to have ever been a real BMX bike company like Redline or GT, didn't they go bust in the end, what a shame.

[jimmyp]

he must have been on Raleigh longer than a year surely??

No, he left coz Raleigh wanted to drasticly cut his pay so he went back to Mongoose. This is when raleigh threw in the towel on BMX but i don't know why as they had the two of the best riders and talent in the country with ruff and schofield. If all of the companys stuck with BMX and made new products it would not have died so quickly, 

Hmmm... I think Raleigh milked BMX for all they could get out of it. I don't remember them giving any support to the sport itself, just made a lot of money out of mass production bikes. I don't consider them to have ever been a real BMX bike company like Redline or GT, didn't they go bust in the end, what a shame.

Raleigh started to move heavely into mountain bikes and really put BMX to the back of there prioratys and this was apparent with the way they let Ruffell go. Craig was also offered alot less and things that had been promised where taken away so they had made there position clear. I think GT got into a bit of trouble like most BMX firms back then but they where one of the lucky ones and got bought out by a bigger company. The thing was non of these companys that took the BMX firms over never really had any idea how to take BMX forward so it was a long slow death.

[hudu]

Who can identify the location of this Pro race held in 1987?



Damon Parkinson, Phil Charnley, Tony Flemming, Paul Gray, Andy Ruffel, Travis Chipres (USA), Mark Whatkins, Geth Shooter

Dougy Sladen on the startung handle 

Thats one of the Pro mains from the Barlow Classic, Sponsored by British Coal as it was back then.

Think Geth won that day, I seem to remember Travis Chipres getting his Factory Mongoose kit a bit dirty that day, got sent over a few berms 

Keep 'em coming Paul! I have very few pics of Pro Racing.

[paulgray]

Who can identify the location of this Pro race held in 1987?



Damon Parkinson, Phil Charnley, Tony Flemming, Paul Gray, Andy Ruffel, Travis Chipres (USA), Mark Whatkins, Geth Shooter

Dougy Sladen on the startung handle 

Thats one of the Pro mains from the Barlow Classic, Sponsored by British Coal as it was back then.

Think Geth won that day, I seem to remember Travis Chipres getting his Factory Mongoose kit a bit dirty that day, got sent over a few berms 

Keep 'em coming Paul! I have very few pics of Pro Racing.

Only got a couple more to come 

[paulgray]

he must have been on Raleigh longer than a year surely??

No, he left coz Raleigh wanted to drasticly cut his pay so he went back to Mongoose. This is when raleigh threw in the towel on BMX but i don't know why as they had the two of the best riders and talent in the country with ruff and schofield. If all of the companys stuck with BMX and made new products it would not have died so quickly, 

Hmmm... I think Raleigh milked BMX for all they could get out of it. I don't remember them giving any support to the sport itself, just made a lot of money out of mass production bikes. I don't consider them to have ever been a real BMX bike company like Redline or GT, didn't they go bust in the end, what a shame.

Raleigh started to move heavely into mountain bikes and really put BMX to the back of there prioratys and this was apparent with the way they let Ruffell go. Craig was also offered alot less and things that had been promised where taken away so they had made there position clear. I think GT got into a bit of trouble like most BMX firms back then but they where one of the lucky ones and got bought out by a bigger company. The thing was non of these companys that took the BMX firms over never really had any idea how to take BMX forward so it was a long slow death.

I don't even like to mention GT and Raleigh in the same sentence to be honest but enough of that. Why did BMX die in the UK? well apart from all of the politics that tore it apart I think that there were other reasons. Firstly mountain bikes came along and they were the new 'in thing' and BMX always had the 'kids bike' image from people who knew little and understood less. MTB was a 26" so it was a "real bike" with gears and the manufacturers forgot BMX and moved on like you said. A much worse problem was that the first generation of BMX riders were growing up and moving away from the sport and their parents went with them. These parents were the people who started the clubs and ran the races for us  , when they left there were to few people to pass the batton to and the clubs and tracks folded in large numbers  .

Recently I went to a regional at Hartlepool, there where something like 20 motos and this was considered a good turn out. It was a fun day and well run by the NE BMX club (round of applause) but BITD you would have had more motos at a club meeting. Still it's good to see that the sport is still alive all be it in a slightly different way and lets hope it goes from strength to strength.

[ron burgundy]

A very interesting thread, nice one

[mr.magoo]

loving it, nice to fill in some of the unknowns, as i gave up on my 16th birthday in '86 when i bought my first motorbike, and decided pedalling wasn't nearly as much fun. Really makes me wish we hadn't all dropped out so quick.
But keep 'em coming ... tis great

[paulgray]

loving it, nice to fill in some of the unknowns, as i gave up on my 16th birthday in '86 when i bought my first motorbike, and decided pedalling wasn't nearly as much fun. Really makes me wish we hadn't all dropped out so quick.
But keep 'em coming ... tis great

I love motorbikes too, but back on subject here's me trying to steal a place off Travis at the finish line.

[paulgray]

Pontins again, Damon winning from Darren and myself, with Craig and Tony bringing up the rear.



That's all Folks! I got no more new photos for you 

[paulgray]

OK this is from 89 and no more Pro class  so it was called SilverClass racing or something silly like that.

This was my final year of racing  Me 6 and Jamie 54 out front in a moto.

[Brandy Truffle]

Thanks for sharing those with us Paul. Helps fill in little blanks in memory of some and gives others who had left the sport a couple years earlier an insight into how things went after...  Awesome. 

[OrgasmDonor]

really cool pics dude 

[jimmyp]

OK this is from 89 and no more Pro class  so it was called SilverClass racing or something silly like that.

This was my final year of racing  Me 6 and Jamie 54 out front in a moto.

Its funny how the end of the 80s saw the end of BMX as we know it 

[paulgray]

Did any of the old clubs or tracks survive the dark ages (90's). As far as I know up here in the North East BMX racing went extinct (or am I wrong?). How about MK, I know that's still running, was it a survivor or was the track rescued from the weeds and resurected? My knowledge of the 90's is nill.   

[thecrooch]

MK as a club survived but I think the track is at a different location.

Woodham has been ressurected but we are suffering at the hands of small people with no brians at the council.

I think Ipswich might still be in the same location???

Most of them suffered, Hounslow was torn down a few years back.  Theres a thread somewhere of a lot of the sites where weve google earthed them.  its sad.

[scott250]

Great pics Paul.  I never raced myself, but I really looked up to alot the riders in your pics.  I used to to go down our local track to jump the jumps.  Someone dug a lift into the side of the start gate, that was my favorite jump BITD.  Thats my roots and I still love the dirt to this day

[paulgray]

Great pics Paul.  I never raced myself, but I really looked up to alot the riders in your pics.  I used to to go down our local track to jump the jumps.  Someone dug a lift into the side of the start gate, that was my favorite jump BITD.  Thats my roots and I still love the dirt to this day

It's never to late to give it a go, the OS racing is a right laugh and there's always a good bit of crack with the lads once they've got their wind back 

Have you had a look up at the new SummerHill track in Hartlepool? it's got more jumps than Ayton Quarry  don't know how they find time to pedal.

[dialledbikes]

Great pics and history.

I always thought Ruffell and Schofield were on Raleigh for much longer than a year.

I knew that Ruffell rode for Robinson briefly just before he retired, but didn't know Schofield did too.

It's ironic that Raleigh was responsible for helping BMX to grow by sponsoring 2 of the top riders and offering a mass produced affordable bike to the masses.  Burners were everywhere!  However, I think this contributed to the demise of BMX as well, as Raleigh diverted money away from real BMX companies, and Burners were so crap that people eventually moved on to mountain bikes or gave up riding altogether after they had outgrown or broken their Burner.