How did you discover BMX? What year was it? How was your local scene, who did you ride with back then?
Growing up on the outskirts of East London in the 1970s was a magical time for anyone who rode dirt bikes due to the close proximity of Epping Forest and untold wasteland as a result of all the damage done in World War 2.
The part of the forest closest to my house was littered with bomb holes from German air raids and, as it was on a big hill, I was actually riding the bomb holes as part of a big downhill track from the mid 70s onwards.
Around late 1978, we were all riding 24 inch tracker bikes with cyclocross knobbly tyres and motocross bike handlebars, the original “hardtail mountain bikes”, 20 years before they became fashionable. Whilst riding at a spot called Hollow Ponds I met the Walthamstow riders Andy Ruffell, Cav Strutt, Peter Middleton, Nicky Matthews, Steve Gilley and many others and instantly became friends with them. In early 79 we saw the famous episode of CHiPs that featured BMX racing and we all knew straight away that we wanted to do BMX.
Pretty much straight after the CHiPs episode the Walthamstow boys suddenly appeared on modified Grifters, usually colour changed to match the main motocross bikes, with longer straightened forks fitted, lightweight saddle and post, shopping bike handlebars and gears removed. They were the coolest thing I had ever seen and within weeks I had obtained one and carried out the modifications. Real BMX bikes were not available in the UK at this time.
Whilst we were all riding at Hollow Ponds doing big jumps, a chap showed up in a three piece suit with a distinctive hairstyle and seemed to know a lot about BMX in America. I described him to my dad when I got home and he told me it was Don Smith, a legendary motorcycle rider from the area with numerous world titles to his name. The next time I saw Don I paid close attention to everything he said. He spoke of an upcoming trip to California where he would purchase the latest BMX bikes to import, and how he was going to organise UKBMX races with a governing body and a professional class where we could all earn money racing BMX bikes. Don showed up with a full suspension mountain bike in spring 79 with motocross style forks, twin shock rear suspension and hub brakes. We all had a ride of it and told him that suspension on bikes would never catch on. Don went on to write the constitution of UKBMX, parts of which I believe are still in use today.
By early 1980 everyone in the growing crowd of riders had either a Mongoose or a Team Ace BMX bike. I had a very nice Supergoose 2. By the summer of 1980 races had already been held at Redditch, Ipswich at Coddenham and Buckmore Park.
Who was your first sponsor?
My first race was right at the end of 1980, or early 81, at Buckmore Park. The track was a quagmire of mud so the decision was made to race on the go kart track, with the start gate situated halfway up the hill that surrounds it. The event was huge with hundreds of riders from far and wide in attendance. I met riders there that day who are still friends now and still race to this day.
My next race was a few months later, also at Buckmore Park but on the proper track. I made the main along with Andy Ruffell, Jay Hardy and Craig Strong and got a good start, going into turn one with Andy, but immediately wiped out. I had won all my motos that day with Mark “Sid” Salisbury and Jay Hardy in them and it was then that I realised I could hang with the fastest guys in my age group and I wanted to take up racing regularly.
That result led to me getting sponsored by my local bike shop, Masons Cycles in Wanstead. The manager there, Chris Wonfor, was a great help in getting my racing career off the ground.
In winter 1980 to 81 I would rush home from school, grab my bike and sprint the three miles to Masons in freezing temperatures in the dark just to get the latest copy of BMX Plus or BMX Action to read about my heroes in the USA, Stu Thomsen, Harry Leary and the rest.
How long did it take until you got onto Redline?
July 1981, on Royal Wedding day, I got the breakthrough I wanted in racing by winning a National. Andy Ruffell was not there, but it still got me noticed and I was invited a few weeks later to try out for the new Redline Factory Team at Earls Court.
I showed up at The Bike Show at Earls Court with my mum for the try outs and instantly spotted Stu Thomsen on the track. I was speechless. It was the guy from the magazines. He came over and said hello to my mum and me and when I tried to say hello back, no words came out.
They were only picking two riders, one 13 and under and one 15 and over. All the other riders going for the older spot were a fair bit older than me and a lot bigger. We did some practice laps under the watchful eye of Stu, then lined up on the gate for a one lap race, winner takes the spot.
I pulled gate five out of the bag on a six man gate. All the other riders were inside me and the first straight was short, so getting the lead into the first turn was going to be tough. As I rolled up to the gate I saw a wheel line up outside me in gate six. I looked across and then up and up. Stu was lining up next to me. Now I was racing older riders and Stu Thomsen. I was nervous.
The gate dropped and I got a flyer. I looked across at the end of the straight and there was no one there. I moved across and took the lead. I could not believe it, I was winning. Halfway through the first turn I got hit from behind and it felt like a train. I came off the bike but did not hit the ground because someone caught me. Stu had slid out in the turn and accidentally took me with him but managed to catch me before I hit the ground.
I was fine but gutted because I had not won the race. Stu and the Redline staff called a rerun because of what had happened. Stu told me not to worry, he knew I would win it. We went again and I did. Just like that, I was on Redline.
Stu shook my hand, welcomed me to the team and then handed me his race bike. He said he could get another one when he got home, but I could not get a bike like that in the UK as it was custom built.
A few weeks later I was racing at Outwell indoor and John Lee and Andy Ruffell were there. John had been getting closer and closer to Ruffell, who was virtually unbeaten at the time, so all eyes were on them as they lined up for the final. I honestly thought I was racing for third at best with those two on the gate.
The gate dropped and it all felt easy. I took the lead from the first pedal stroke and went on to win with a good gap over Andy, with John in third. It was October 1981 and that was the moment I started to believe I could win races whoever was there.
Who else was on Redline around this time? I’m thinking Stu Diggens and Gary Willats?
Initially the Redline team consisted of just two riders, myself and Gary Willats. Unfortunately Gary was seriously injured in a car crash and missed a lot of racing, which left me as the only rider for quite a while.
Stu Diggens joined the team later on, not long before I left. I had some great results with Redline, but myself and the team manager did not always see eye to eye. By June 1982 I knew my time there was coming to an end and when my friend Tony Slater showed interest in riding for Redline, I did not stand in the way and moved on from the team.
How did you get on Halfords and tell us about your first trip to the US?
It was quite a blessing. I did really well at the Anglo American Cup at Redditch about a week later and made the final where Tim March beat the Americans. Halfords main man, David Duffield, was there and was looking for an unsponsored rider to fund for a USA trip to race at the upcoming first ever IBMXF World Championships in Dayton, Ohio.
BMX Action Bike magazine’s Richards and Jim Black, along with Dave Young, Chris’s dad, were advising him on who to pick. I got on really well with all of them and had just had a two page interview in the magazine, so I have no doubt they helped influence the decision and I ended up being the lucky one.
A couple of weeks later I was boarding one of Freddie Laker’s jumbo jets at Heathrow at 16 years old. I flew to New York where I met Andy Oldham and his dad who were also making the trip. We then flew on to Pittsburgh where the plane developed a landing gear fault and we crash landed onto a foam filled runway. Andy somehow slept through the whole thing. We missed our connecting flight to Dayton, got a free limo ride to a hotel and flew out the next morning. Pretty wild experience at 16.
The heat and humidity in the Midwest was a big shock to me and even more so for the Oldhams as they were Northerners. Andy ended up getting injured in training which left me as the only Brit racing.
The parade lap was something else, just me carrying a massive Union Jack around the track. I made the semis but crashed and that was that.
While I was there I spent time with Greg Esser and he convinced me not to go home but to stay out there for the rest of the summer and follow the NBL War of the Stars series. It turned into an amazing experience and I even won a round.
It was pretty surreal travelling, training and hanging out with the pros I had only been reading about in BMX Plus a few months earlier, and suddenly they all knew me by name.
After the race season I went on to Canada and spent the autumn racing there. It was a good scene and about as big as it was back home at the time.
I came back home in late October 82 and still ended up finishing national number three even though I had missed a big part of the season.
Being local and racing with Andy Ruffell, how was it being around during the start of his celebrity status in BMX?
Andy Ruffell was becoming a media celebrity by this point and was getting so much TV work it felt like he was on every time I turned the TV on. He was getting into freestyle but was still virtually unbeatable on the track. He was a real phenomenon during the years I raced.
It seemed like you were not on Redline long before you got picked up by Torker, what was behind the move?
Alan Woods contacted me in December about riding for one of his teams and I jumped at the chance as I had always admired his set up and how professional everything was.
At first he asked me to ride for Robinson which I was happy with as I knew they were excellent bikes, but he later decided on me joining Torker. That worked out well as I was good friends with team rider Darren Page and his family, who lived locally to me.
Picketts Lock along with the Halfords NEC were big events back in the early 80s that were well documented not just in the mags but also on TV. Do you remember much from these events?
My first race on Torker was at Picketts Lock in January 83 and I had both Tim March and Andy Ruffell in my moto, which meant I was virtually guaranteed magazine coverage for Torker. The centre page spread in BMX Action Bike Magazine was Andy, Tim, Sid Salisbury and myself hitting the first jump.
Alan Woods also gave me a cruiser and I raced against Tim, Alan, Tony Slater and Jamie Vince. I never won, Tim did, but I came away with a solid second place.
I was having a decent season, scoring regular top threes on Torker. I won the inaugural British Championships at Knebworth House, the trophy actually says British Open Championships, and got third at the Halfords NEC race after nearly going over the gate and being dead last until turn two. Seeing that race on TV was so cool.
83 Worlds Slagharen Holland, how was that?
When the 83 Worlds came around at Slagharen, for some reason I did not want to go and decided to head back out to the USA instead.
A week or two after the Worlds there was a big race at Kettering, Ohio and it seemed like all the Americans who had been at the Worlds flew back for it. I raced Richie Anderson in Open Class and led him in a moto until the last turn where he came past me. He probably spun on the gate, but it still felt good to be ahead of him while it lasted.
By the start of the 84 season you had disappeared from racing. What prompted you to stop, birds and booze?
When I came back from the USA in October 83 I got a job running FAZE 7 BMX Shop for Joe Burlo, which was great, but it was also what made me lose interest in BMX. It became a seven day a week thing, BMX all week in the shop and BMX all weekend at the track. It tipped me over the edge and I quit at the end of 83.
Looking back at how big things got in 84 and 85, and seeing the Kellogg’s TV series with riders I had beaten week in and week out a few years before, I do regret giving it up when I did.
When I left BMX I completely turned my back on it and have no real memories of the sport after 83, apart from Tony Slater telling me about this kid from Derby, Geth Shooter, who was younger than us and beating Stu Thomsen and the rest. That always stuck with me.
You got back into racing years later, this time with mountain bikes. What years did you compete and what are your thoughts on the UK MTB scene?
Back in 1990, Tony Slater and Craig Schofield dragged me along to a BMX race at Ipswich. My Torker had air in its tyres for the first time in seven years and still had 1983 mud on them. I did alright out of the gate but was blowing up and gasping for air before the finish. Tony and Craig kept laughing as I got more and more frustrated trying to keep up with this 18 year old kid from Derby who was rather good… Dale something or other… haha.
A few years later, in 1996, I fancied a go at mountain biking and went along to the Bike Show where I bumped into Jay Hardy and Paul Roberts. They talked me into entering the National Short Course DH Championships the following weekend. I ended up winning it at my first attempt, which got me noticed straight away and landed me a small interview and photo on page one of issue one of Dirt Magazine.
I raced downhill for the next few years, picking up quite a few National wins along the way. In 2000 I took the bronze medal at the World Championships in Canada and then won the British Championships in 2005.
By the mid 2000s you found your way back into BMX and, with only a handful of races, qualified for and raced the 2005 Worlds in Paris, even making the main. It looked like the bug had come back?
Yes, I decided to give BMX another go and after just three races back I found myself at the UCI Worlds in Bercy. I got through the motos, then the eighths and quarters, and suddenly I was in the semi.
I was at the back and thought it was all over, but in the last turn they all went wide so I cut underneath them and made the main. Back in the stands it really hit me that I had made a World final when Dale Holmes said, “Hey Keith, you’re in the main.”
A crash on the third straight meant I finished seventh, which I was more than happy with. After that I stepped away from BMX again and focused on downhill, adding more National wins before finally stepping away from DH in 2008 to return to BMX once more.
I linked up with Dialled Bikes in 2009 and won the British Championships in 4X for them, then followed it up with cruiser titles in 2010 and 2011.
You got back into racing years later, this time with mountain bikes. What years did you compete and what are your thoughts on the UK MTB scene?
Back in 1990, Tony Slater and Craig Schofield dragged me along to a BMX race at Ipswich. My Torker had air in its tyres for the first time in seven years and still had 1983 mud on them. I did alright out of the gate but was blowing up and gasping for air before the finish. Tony and Craig kept laughing as I got more and more frustrated trying to keep up with this 18 year old kid from Derby who was rather good… Dale something or other… haha.
A few years later, in 1996, I fancied a go at mountain biking and went along to the Bike Show where I bumped into Jay Hardy and Paul Roberts. They talked me into entering the National Short Course DH Championships the following weekend. I ended up winning it at my first attempt, which got me noticed straight away and landed me a small interview and photo on page one of issue one of Dirt Magazine.
I raced downhill for the next few years, picking up quite a few National wins along the way. In 2000 I took the bronze medal at the World Championships in Canada and then won the British Championships in 2005.
By the mid 2000s you found your way back into BMX and, with only a handful of races, qualified for and raced the 2005 Worlds in Paris, even making the main. It looked like the bug had come back?
Yes, I decided to give BMX another go and after just three races back I found myself at the UCI Worlds in Bercy. I got through the motos, then the eighths and quarters, and suddenly I was in the semi.
I was at the back and thought it was all over, but in the last turn they all went wide so I cut underneath them and made the main. Back in the stands it really hit me that I had made a World final when Dale Holmes said, “Hey Keith, you’re in the main.”
A crash on the third straight meant I finished seventh, which I was more than happy with. After that I stepped away from BMX again and focused on downhill, adding more National wins before finally stepping away from DH in 2008 to return to BMX once more.
I linked up with Dialled Bikes in 2009 and won the British Championships in 4X for them, then followed it up with cruiser titles in 2010 and 2011.
In 2012 Mike Wong started a new brand, Factory Team Bikes, with me as the sole rider that first year, followed by a strong team from 2013 onwards. I stayed with FTB, became team manager in 2014, and in 2017 I said I would retire from BMX racing if I won the British Championships that year.
My body was pretty beaten up by then and I needed a rest, so I dug in, won it, and called time on my BMX racing career as British Champion in 2017.
Let’s wrap it up, final words?
I took a year out in 2018 and in 2019 started racing Enduro. I did the full seven round series and won five rounds, with a second and a third to take the overall title at my first attempt.
Next year I am taking on a fresh challenge with yet another form of bike racing. I think it is fair to say I just love bikes.
Thanks for giving me the chance to share a bit of my story riding bikes on dirt.
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