Podcast – Jason Boness (Raleigh)

While in the UK over Christmas I headed over to Raleigh for a Tour of the Factory and recorded a Podcast with my friend Jason Boness, who I’ve known for a very long time.

We talked about both Jason and his brother Jamie’s history in BMX who have been involved since the early 80s riding Raleigh Grifters and Burners, the start of Newark Club alongside riding and racing in the Nottingham, Derby and East Midlands areas at the time.

Jason talked about going the Freestyle route riding Nottingham’s Broadmarsh with Ross Marshall, Donovan Pennant, Nick Martin, and Mark Hyson to name a few, while brother Jamie focused on the race side riding for teams like Dyno, GT and later Haro.

Jason talked about getting a job at Raleigh back in 1993, the company’s history researching BMX and going all in with the Burners and the reason behind the name when everything launched.

We talked about the Raleigh Team riders and, of course, the noted Andy Ruffell signing, Craig Schofield, John Lee, Andy Oldham, and Team Managers Steve Bebb and Sam Wood, just to name a few, the deals some of the riders were getting, the marketing budget numbers and huge figures spent and the vast volume of Burners sold even at the time.

We talked about Raleigh into the 2000s, distributing Diamondback and later Free Agent when Geth Shooter was the product manager over there and some of the riders that rode for both teams in a new era of BMX at the time for Raleigh.

Jason talked about how his job changed and evolved over the years at Raleigh and what they are doing in current times including a re-launch of the Anniversary Burners selling out instantly each year since 2017.

We talked about Raleigh working with the We Were Rad guys, the British BMX Hall of Fame, the launch venue in Nottingham last month, the future of Raleigh in BMX and so much more.

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