International – Pleasurewood Hills (Lowestoft) 1985

IBMXF International Lowestoft (Superclass Round) May 4th/5th

Pro Class Pete Middleton, Pro Cruiser Anthony Sewell

Superclass Leon Walravens, Super Cruiser Gary Llewellyn

17+ John Stockwell, 16s Gary Wallace, 15s Mark Watkins, 14s Dean Iddiols, 13s Chris Taylor, 12s Raymond Stap, 11s Richard Everest, 10s Dylan Clayton, 9s Alex Van Diesen, 8s Gary Smith, 7s David Maw, 6s Darryl Sopp

16+ Girls Alison Diegutis, 14-15 Girls Sarah Jane Nichols, 12-13 Girls Keeley Mulkerrins, 8-11 Girls Alexia Jarvis, 7 & Under Girls Holly Jarvis. 

40+ Cruiser Chris Bilner, 25-39 Cruiser Angelo Zimbito, 18-24 Cruiser Armond Bonis, 16-17 Cruiser Chris Wouters, 14-15 Cruiser Mark Watkins, Cruiser 13 & Under Jonathan Maw 

Rob Indri (RIP 2000)

It’s hard to believe it’s been 14 years since Rob Indri passed away.

There are so many good stories and quotes from Rob that are still talked about today in the race world. Rob was known for his mars bars, Lucazade and was also the first guy I ever saw with a can of RedBull at the races. Clearly, ahead of his time. JT race wear, Powerlite, GT, Diamond Back, Rocky Training, Ellis, Haden, Warrior, Thunder, and Primo were all names and bike brands Indri loved to support and quote during his race days. Rob loved to party and never missed a chance to let you know he could down 10 pints easy and could drink Gazza under the table if he ever got the chance. He would always get the Sunday Sport on the way to the track Sunday morning and was often seen Sunday night after the race heading down the M1 or M25 at access speed over 100 mph in his Ford Mondeo, heading back home to Woodham in time for his Monday-Friday suite and “tie” day job working in the City at Loyds of London.

On the track, everyone racing him feared him. Rob had no problem telling the competition they were getting cut off or put over a turn. He really did intimidate a lot but at the same time it was just so Indri so it was accepted. There are so many things that suck about not having Rob with us anymore – especially his stories and good times we all had together on road trips and races. I know with the way BMX progressed in recent years – especially with the new age classes and Vet racing, Rob would have won all through European and World Crowns he desired so much. He would have made an incredible mentor, coach and trainer to riders. He had so much to share with his raicng experiences, motivation and pep talks for others. He really was a great guy to have in your corner at the races if things were not going good not to mention in life. I hope he is still watching down on the BMX scene today and laughing in true Indri fashion… #missed #neverforgotten

1984 UKBMX Champion of Champions (Olympia)

Superclass Tim March, Superclass Trophy Pete Middleton, 17+ Frankie Romain, 16s Charlie Reynolds, 15s Gary Llewellyn, 14s Lee Alexander, 13s Wayne Llewellyn, 12s Anthony Howells, 11s Ashley Davis, 10s Nathan Lunn, 9s Dylan Clayton, 8s Louis Mears, 7s Ben Beasley, 6s David Maw, 5s Rowan Fryer

Cruiser 25+ Pete Sims, Cruiser 15/25 Gary Llewellyn, Cruiser 14 & Under Tim Print

14+ Girls Alison Diegutis, 12/13 Girls Sarah Jane Nichols, 10/11 Girls Donna Chisholm, 7 & Under Girls Michelle Chenary

Early days of BMX in the North West: Part One

By Alan Woods

Timeline: Summer 1980.

I was lucky enough to have raced motocross from 1976 at the age of 11. As you couldn’t get spares at the track we started selling oil, spark plugs and eventually race gear, shocks, etc like is commonplace now at tracks, before we didn’t see anyone anywhere around the UK doing this, this set the seed for our transition into BMX. I had seen some BMX photos in ads Dirt Bike magazine for H_Torque’s Minicycle & BMX Action magazine and as I always loved “push bikes” too it interested me. Anyway back to the timeline, it was still during the 1980 Motocross season that we were taking bikes on our trailer to show at the races so this must’ve been about July or August of that year.

Here is a video I posted from 1979, you can see my mum and dad at our Fox-liveried van and I am racing in the same DG Premier helmet I used for BMX in the first year:

The first BMX bike we had were MOTO ONE’s, either in blue/yellow or red/yellow: bmxmuseum.com.

We had 6 of them to start with. I think these came from a guy in Peterbrough who we bought American (yellow) YZ’s from, I have some old Trials & Motocross News’s in the loft, I’ll look for his ads. Anyway we also ordered some Mongoose’s from him too that he would’ve been getting from the Jarvis’ with a margin on but we got in touch direct and bought I think a couple of Motomags and a Supergoose. I kept the Supergoose and we kept on reordering these. We really had a head start because we already had all the race gear right there – JT Racing, DG, Oakley, etc. that’s why when you look at these photos everyone is tricked out, very few skateboard helmets and stuff to be seen. Around this time a pre-production run of BMX News that came free in Trials & Motocross News and was given out at Schoolboy MX events. It has some of the features that appeared in the production #1 but less ads and content – in fact I think it was mostly to show advertisers what BMX was about. Ipswich Coddenham was one race report I remember in there.

Around this time a gang of guys from nearby Ashton-In-Makerfield (you might remember we built a track there later on) came down to the shop when we just had a little room at my dad’s garage ,mostly with motocross bikes. This turned out to be Dave Arnold, Craig Borrows, etc who had converted Grifters and the Puch Murray bikes with Lester metal mags on them – but all painted lime green!

So by now we had good bikes, Mongooses mostly and I had imported some stuff from CYC in California as well – BUT we had no-where to race, we’d never seen a BMX track except in BMX Plus but you couldn’t get a sense of the scale or length. It’s also hard to imagine what is was like getting info back then. Can you kids imagine this? If you want to know about ANYTHING today you can check Wikipedia or watch YouTube, even in depth-how to’s on any sport right at your fingertips. Exciting times though. We would race round the streets just go – pedal, pedal pedal around the houses. Something else I know I will have difficulty getting across is the EXCITEMENT as being there at this time when we didn’t now what was what, even though we weren’t in California or Australia.

It wasn;t just us of course – in 1980 groups all around the country were promoting BMX and looking to build tracks – Malcolm Jarvis, Alan Rushton, Don Smith, Geoff Barraclough, the Scott-Webb’s over in Ipswich, Redditch….

Next up, we spotted in a Lancashire newspaper that a club had formed in Bolton, there was picture of a kid with a bike, anyway we called them super-excited but they had no track….. however they did have some land that the kids rode on. We said OK let’s make a date and we’ll bring out best guys over. Bring it on! OK so we showed up to what was basically an bit of grassed rough land next to a reservoir. They didn’t even have bikes, apart from the odd Grifter. We set to with shovels to build a jump and layed MX track marking tape that my dad had on a roll to mark the track out. The track basically just ran along the the reservoir, down the side, right over this jump we built, then that was the finish. We had no permission from the council, no insurance, no nothing, I am sure anyone who has tried to get a track going and dealt with the local authorities will laugh out loud at this. By now we had got some Redline bikes or frames from Gecko who also did Kuwahara so the good stuff was going into the UK. From the photos the riders present were pretty much what became our original Alans team: myself, Dave Arnold, Mike Chilvers, Mark Scully, Fenwick Carr, Stu Carr (not related), Craig Borrows and possibly some of the younger guys Andy Parr, etc. Mike Pardon was there but he hadn’t got a bike yet! Even though it was just a mess about everyone was serious like is was the real deal which I guess it was in a way.

Fun times ahead!

The photos attached – apart from the odd one or two that I previously posted on Facebook have never been seen or published before.

The Rise of 1980’s UK BMX Teams – by Chris Carter

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Factory Raleigh – Andy Oldham 

Stand at the back of the start hill at any BMX race, and you’d be forgiven for thinking that the people queuing for their races in their brightly coloured gear are all equals. But any kid that followed the BMX magazines in the pre and boom years of the eighties will tell you that there was always a hierarchy. Moto winners come and go, even mains can sometimes be won on a fluke – but no one gets sponsored unless they really have the right stuff! Let’s talk teams! Or more specifically, let’s talk eighties teams!

For most racers, the team with which they spend the bulk of their racing careers is Factory Mum and Dad. The cost of bikes, travel and gear, the pre and post-race pep talks, the pit crew, changing gear ratios between motos – all are met by the funds raised from the old man trudging to the office in the rain each day. The kit might bear the name of little Johnny’s favorite manufacturer, but there are a couple of very special words missing from the race jersey.

But for the lucky few, for the greatest talents in our sport, their jerseys bear the word “team” somewhere in their design. National Team, Factory Team, Support Team – to have these simple phrases emblazoned on the back of your shoulders or across your chest is a badge of honour, a mark of respect, a statement that this man is not as other men – a declaration that this rider has arrived!

For the new racer, lining up on the gate next to a team rider can be an intimidating experience. There stands the novice, maintaining a wobbly balance while trying to effect a two-pedal start. Next to him is the “team” rider – balancing motionless, his gate lose yet powerful, his gaze fixed on the track ahead, his eyes betraying nothing except a calm assuredness that his vast experience will secure a solid victory. Behind the start hill there was no hint of nervousness. He seemed to know almost everyone. And absolutely everyone knew him!

To arrive at the track wearing full race team livery has historically been the goal of many aspiring racer. Indeed winning a place on a team would, for many, take precedence over winning a race on any given day.

But how can a sport that is essentially a solo one have ended up with such a team-orientated culture? To find the answer, we have to go back in time to the very dawn of BMX in the UK.

With the rise of BMX in the eighties, and the promise for manufacturers, distributors, and retailers of increasing returns so long as the sport kept growing, BMX race teams proliferated at an unparalleled rate. By the mid-eighties, at least three prominent UK colour magazines had appeared, and companies were vying with each other to get as much publicity for their brands as possible. One of the best ways to do this was by having a well-known rider splashed across the cover or centre spread wearing the company’s brand logo.

But it wasn’t just the companies that benefited from this incentive. In many ways the magazines, both then and now, are ultimately democratic. Magazine photographers have the sole aim of putting talent on the page in order to attract readers. Some riders can provide the talent but can’t afford decent bikes or gear or to get to the events, while some riders can get to the events but can’t ride well enough when they get there.

Enter the BMX race team!

With a little corporate backing, kids that otherwise could only afford to shine at local races were given the chance to shoot for a top national ranking. In exchange, the company footing the bill would want their pilot to turn in respectable results and hopefully generate some publicity.

The first BMX team in the UK was set up by ex-motorcycle trials rider Don Smith and fellow BMX enthusiast Richard Barrington. That team was called Team Ace.

Around 1980, Barrington had set up a shop in Walthamstow and sponsored some local riders to get the whole thing going. For Barrington and Smith, this was about more than just pushing a team – they were attempting to push the sport itself into some kind of stable existence in the UK. Those early team riders included Nikki Matthews, Pete Middleton, Tony Waye, Steve Gilley, Andy Ruffell and Cav Strutts. Ace even went as far as producing a frame and fork set, though production was limited. Today only one of those early Ace frames is believed to have survived.

Andy Ruffell (Riding for Ace) at Harrow Skate Park with Ace boss who is unfortunately no longer with us, Richard Barrington, in the background.

At around the same time, Malcolm and Sue Jarvis, Chris Cowan and Malcolm Williams launched an import/export business called Ammaco. Jarvis had been a successful property developer and had heard about BMX in a passing conversation with a colleague. As the father of five young children – Alexia, Holly, Sam, Russell and Julian – the whole idea of BMX appealed to Jarvis. So without any real BMX knowledge, he hopped on a plane to the USA to investigate the possibility of importing these crazy new bikes to the UK.

Jarvis’s shrewd business instincts led him to California where he met up with, amongst many others, Scot Breithaupt and Bob Haro. Convinced of the commercial viability of BMX, Jarvis returned to the UK and prepared an information package about the fledgling sport which he distributed to hundreds of media outlets. Off the back of that, says Malcolm, “The phone didn’t stop ringing.” By the end of 1980, he had persuaded Halfords to also get on board in supporting this exciting new sport.

Soon after, Jarvis did a deal with Skip Hess in the USA to import Mongooses into the UK. What he needed now was a vehicle to promote the brand to UK kids. The answer – a BMX race team.

Drawing from his own stable, Malcolm started by putting his own kids on the team. But he needed more, particularly in the older age groups. With the newly formed Ace team having already gathered some heavyweight talent in one place, Malcolm had the perfect opportunity to go headhunting. Pete Middleton and Andy Ruffell took the senior places on the Ammaco squad, with Wayne Llewellyn and Steve Greaves bridging the age gap between the older and younger riders.

Ruffell of course would grow to become a sponsor’s dream and stayed with Ammaco Mongoose until the end of 1984. In that time, an enormous amount of money was spent on him traveling all over the world promoting both BMX as a sport and Mongoose as a brand. Yet there can be little doubt that the publicity he generated translated directly into sales for Mongoose that far exceeded the company’s investment in him.

In 1985, UK manufacturer Raleigh decided it wanted a more prominent share of the team pie. Raleigh had previously sponsored a number of well known riders, such as Andy Oldham, Jamie Staff and Kev Riviere, but now they were planning a huge publicity push. And being such a large firm, their strategy was simple – buy the cream of the crop and put them on a Raleigh bike.

Most of the exciting BMX action was being performed by teenagers. Though younger kids might be nagging their parents to buy them a bike, it was invariably off the back of looking at photos of older kids in the magazines. And so, with a suitably corporate no-nonsense approach, Raleigh simply made sure that the most prominent rider in each age group over fourteen would ride for Raleigh. And such was the ubiquity of the Raleigh Burner as a first bike for thousands of kids, that it was almost a money-no-object corporate takeover.

In the fourteens, Kuwahara’s Stu Diggens had been unstoppable for two seasons, so an offer, reputedly into four figures, was made to entice him onto the team – not bad for a school kid back in the mid-eighties! In the fifteens and sixteens, Raleigh already had the number one guys in the form of Craig Schofield and Martin Jose but added Jason Maloney for good measure. Now they set their sights on the big boys.

Though Ruffell was actually beaten to the number one plate by Tim March in the first year of superclass racing in ’84, Tim couldn’t quite topple Ruffs from the top of the publicity charts. Despite being number two, it was Ruffell and not March whose fame extended beyond the boundaries of BMX, and it was Ruffell who got to see the colour of Raleigh’s money!

When Andy was eventually headhunted, Raleigh knew he wasn’t going to come cheap. In his last year at Mongoose, he had appeared in the Sunday Times Colour Supplement in an article which estimated his earnings at around £20,000. Bear in mind this was 1985 and twenty grand was an awful lot of money in those days, especially for a kid still in his teens! Though the details of his deal with the UK cycle giant were never disclosed, it’s not unreasonable to suppose, based on the figure in the Times article, that Raleigh had an even greater figure in mind when they approached him.

Plainly Raleigh felt that those thousands spent on Ruffell would equate to even more thousands in terms of sales. They were almost certainly right. Andy Ruffell, BMX publicity machine, was the ultimate team rider.

Although Ruffell’s fame may have extended further outside BMX than March’s, in a curious irony, it was March who managed to pull sponsors from outside the sport into BMX. In 1983 his primary sponsor was Lee Cooper, a jeans manufacturer. In 1984 he started his now legendary MRD outfit, but it was in 1985 that Tim really raised the bar. Somehow he managed to persuade grocery chain VG to enter into a joint team venture with his own March Racing Developments. The result included a fully liveried VG/March double decker bus for transporting the new MRD team to races. During MRD’s time on the race scene, the fortunate beneficiaries of Tim’s vision included Steve Bigland, Mark “Whoppa” Watkins, Anthony Howells and Ashley Davies.

Craig Schofield, Brian Jones, Julian Jarvis, Don Smith, Andy Ruffell, Russ Jarvis, Malcolm Jarvis, Chris Young, Sean Day, (Unknown) Sam Jarvis.

But not all teams have been based on the multinational model of hard cash for hard promotion. Many teams were smaller affairs in which bike shops or importers would either set up their own team or else strike a deal with manufacturers to help out riders in their locality. Names like Edwardes, Youngs, Hotshot-Redline, Shenpar-JMC, Alans-Robinson and Bunneys-GT all came to be recognized as heavyweight team entities in their own right. And more than a few big names got the extra push they needed by riding for them: Geth Shooter, Sarah Jane Nicholls, Tony Holland, Charlie Reynolds, Dale Holmes, Karen Murphy, Dylan Clayton, Dean Iddiols and Gary Llewellyn to name but a few.

Other teams operated with tiered grades of team membership with riders aspiring to be, as it were, promoted internally. Kuwahara ran a successful national team as a first rung on its factory team ladder, though this sometimes made for complications if the factory star stayed on the team for too long. In 1983, for instance, rising star Darren Wood was on the Kuwahara National squad, but with Diggens taking the factory place in the same age group, and showing no signs of slowing down, Wood eventually had to jump ship to Skyway to secure a full factory ride, in turn leaving the way open for Lee Alexander to join the Kuwahara National Team for ’84.

From around 1986, the BMX magazines began to evaporate as the sport reached its peak and then began to decline in popularity. Without a ready media in which to get promoted, the corporations that had financed so many teams began to walk away from the sport.

In their place emerged a new kind of team run along altogether different lines. Team management moved from being a commercial concern to a more altruistic one. Managers were now helping talented riders meet the high cost of competition simply for the love of the sport and its riders rather than the pursuit of a tangible increase in sales or publicity.

Never was this more apparent than in teams such as Rainbow Racing or Alan Sopp’s ASR outfit. Both became enormously credible teams, yet they had nothing to promote – no frames and forks, no number plates, no clothing line – not so much as a baseball cap. And yet they helped support the race careers of such talents as David Barnsby, Mark Sopp, Kev, and Mike Riviere, Tom Lynch, Warren Godfrey, Brad Smith, and of course the late great Winnie Wright.

Today the heady era of the eighties boom is behind us, but the allure of the place on a team is as real as ever for many riders. Moreover, the digital revolution and the advent of new social media has enabled the creation of entirely new team opportunities and operating models for those sufficiently imaginative to find them. These teams help to support a wide range of riders – from gifted hopefuls at the grassroots of the sport, up to national racers in the elite categories. Whilst at the extreme end of corporate sponsorship, HSBC’s multi-million-pound commitment to British Cycling has enabled the riders at the very top of today’s sport, such as Beth Shriever, Kye Whyte and Quillan Isadore to become truly professional athletes on the global stage.

Though the team ride will remain an elusive dream for the majority of racers, there can be little doubt that the BMX Race Team itself is here to stay.

1983 NBMXA British Championships

17+ Darren Bullock, 16s Mark Cracknell, 15s Scott Williams, 14s Gary O’Connor, 13s Stu Diggins, 12s Nick Dalton, 11s Brad Smith, 10s John Greaves, 9s Alan Brookes, 8s Zac Taylor, 7s Neil Huddart, 6s Nick Simms, 5s David Maw

Senior Girls Sharon Elliott, Intermediate Women Sarah-Jane Nichols, Junior Girls Rebecca Slowley

Cruiser Dave Thomas

1983 NBMXA National Champions

17+ Steve Gratton, 16s Mark Cracknell, 15s Ian Harrison or Harvey Munckton, 14s Darrin Stock, 13s Tim Print, 12s Mark O’Connor, 11s Anthony Howells, 10s Tim Hammond, 9s Paul Cobbing, 8s Richard Hunt, 7sNeil Huddart, 6s Steve Cragg, 5s Paul Meyers

Senior Girls Julie Woodward, Intermediate Girls Sarah-Jane Nichols, Junior Girls Debbie Haynes

Cruiser Roger Hammond

Poole UKBMX National 1984

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One of the most iconic images from the 80’s in UKBMX is Charlie Reynolds and Geth Shooter over the first Dolly Parton’s during a 16 expert battle at the Poole UKBMX National. We have got a few quotes from the riders who were around at the time and their views on the shot.

Ian Gunner
Geth – “Ere Charlie, why ain’t anyone else jumpin’ these?” Charlie – “Dunno bro, but if I can get over em’ without losing my back end, I’m gonna beat ya”. The rest – “I think we’re in the wrong moto”

Nathan Lunn
That was a real spectacle for Poole National!!! Although, other people jumped the Dolly’s during that weekend, I think this is the picture and memory that comes to mind most. It was a case of those who DARED won. I’m sitting on my mum’s lap in my Torker gear above the head of the rider in Lane 8. Who can name all those that cleared the Dolly’s that weekend?

Gary Fenwick
This is probably one of the most iconic pictures of 80’s BMX. The powerhouse vs the showman. Both riders had a huge impact on the sport, Charlie with his sense of theater and Geth for providing the drama. For me, it was Geth that was the ultimate racer, fast and full of skill on the track but also humble and a great ambassador for the sport off the track. I had the pleasure of Geth riding for me at East Coast BMX when he was between sponsors (that didn’t last very long !!) and we still remain friends today. p.s I’m glad to be on this picture but wish I was a bit further ahead!!! LOL

Jon Beckett
Geth and Charlie at the top of their game, Shooter had the style and the speed, Charlie had a leather fanny pack with mobile phone…if he couldn’t clear doubles in a straight line them he’d 360 them instead.

Julian Allen
This pic captures everything about UKBMX in the 80’s for me. Geth and Charlie had some epic battles but were poles apart as people. One southern, loud and flash and the other Northern, enigmatic and workmanlike. Yet on the track, they both were all business and went all out for the win. Most of the guys in the class were rolling the Dolly’s at Poole but these two bossed it. Geth laying down all the style and Charlie just pinning it. Classic!

Mike Baggs
Timeless classic photo, this was UKBMX racing I think at its best & it was when bmx, in my view, was proper & pure Bicycle Moto X. I’m all for evolving in any sport & it should happen, but looking at this fantastic pic of Geth, Charlie, Martin Jose etc it’s just got this jaw dropping factor about it, it’s hardcore, raw bmx racing at its best, the track was great for it’s time, the atmosphere was electric & the crowd are on edge in anticipation of will they won’t they jump the magnificent Dolly’s every single person is watching this race, in short a stunning picture that will always stand the test of time, people in years to come will still marvel at this pic.

Mike Wong
Not the best BMX photo ever taken, but sums up the original spirit of BMX racing and why so many of us 30 or 40 somethings got into the sport when it first came to the UK. Yes, everyone wanted to win, but everyone also wanted to get rad. That’s the difference between original BMX and Olympic era BMX. Thank God for riders like Billy Luckhurst, Paddy Sharrock, James Horwood, Callum Dalby and Connor Swain who keep the spirit of “getting rad” alive in the UK race scene.

Phil Charnley
“That jump was way ahead of the times and pissed on the likes of Kong or the Chasm just cos of where it was. I swear this pic was on my wall straight outta the magazine.”