Congratulations, Sarah-Jane Nichols! Inducted into the British BMX Hall Of Fame

Pre-BMX

Prior to racing BMX both her brother, Michael, and she were involved in Schoolboy Motocross, generally both finishing middle of the pack.

BMX Career

1981 – Started her journey into BMX racing and had a first place at a Southampton race meeting.

1982 – UK BMX – Junior girls No. 1

1983 – NBMXA No. 1
NBMXA British Champion
Jag World Championships Burbank USA – 4th

1984 – NBMXA No. 1
UK BMX No. 1
Champion of Champions Winner.
Kellogg’s Overall Winner
European Champion

1985 – UK BMX No. 1
Kellogg’s Overall Winner
European Champion

1986 – NBMXA British Champion
UK BMX No. 1
European Champion

1987 – World Champion
NBMXA British Champion
European Champion
Also inducted into the NBMXA Hall of Fame

Post-BMX

Since Sarah’s departure from BMX, she continued Shotokan Karate and earned a black belt. She played Ice Hockey for 35 years during which time she represented Great Britain and the England ladies, playing in Ukraine and France. Sarah also had a role in a TV Show called, Ice Warriors, which was shown on ITV during 1997 for 9 weeks. She was Taaraz the Renegade in the show, which had the same production team as Gladiators and a similar format, except it was on ice. Sadly, they only made the one series. Sarah quit Ice Hockey, just recently, in 2020 when Covid hit, she felt at age 50 that she needed a change, but wasn’t sure what that looked like.

Around 2010, Sarah took up road cycling, and bought her first road bike. She trained hard to do a charity ride from a local village to Paris -210 miles which was incredible. Since then, she’s done a lot of road cycling over the years, including another long ride from Belgium back to the UK and a 100-mile event around the New Forest to name just a couple.

In September last year, Sarah decided what she finally wanted to do and that was to restore her old 80’s Redline and go to a few of the Old Skool shows and events that are held around the UK. Christian Kift was instrumental in helping Sarah restore her bike and in December she was doing Santa Cruise 7, a charity BMX ride around London dressed up as an Elf. Sarah was later invited by the local BMX track, Andover, to take her Redline along, to show, and talk about BMX in the 80s and the differences between then and now. Whilst at the track, she was given the opportunity to use a club bike and try out the bikes and track. To her surprise, she found that she still had a love of BMX racing. Within weeks, Sarah had purchased a second-hand bike, then some padding, (after learning the hard way not wearing any), and she is currently working on fitness and track craft with the hope of a comeback to race next year in the 30-plus lady’s class.