The Second Generation of UKBMX & NBMXA

I think it’s fair to say these photos capture some of the second generation of UKBMX/NBMXA racers competing under the EBA banner, taken at Hounslow in 1989. By then, most of the big-name UK Pro Class stars from the 80s—the magazines, the Kelloggs, the NEC, Earls Court, TV appearances, and the big factory teams of the early BMX boom—had moved on. But among the younger riders who had been climbing the ranks in the early 80s and stuck around, it was their time to shine.

New teams were being formed on small budgets. Zines, race programs, and dedicated dads with video cameras were documenting the racing—replacing the likes of Channel 4, News at 10, or Saturday morning TV. A new, fun, and exciting UKBMX scene was thriving, even if the only people seeing it were the ones living it.

Van and bus trips to Europe, sharing hotel rooms with 10 others, racing on YTS budgets, sharing bikes, and traveling the country and the continent—it was all part of the deal. Despite tougher times, new British names were emerging and carrying the flag internationally, just as standout riders like David Maw, Sarah-Jane Nichols, Craig Schofield, the Llewellyns, and so many others had done before them.

Eastwood, Lacey, Revell, Worthington, Adeyemo, Thompson, Dick—the list goes on as a new era of British BMX pushed through. These photos say a thousand words if you lived it.

Thanks to CK Leong, the Malaysian London transplant from the late 80s and early 90s, for sending these snapshots and memories from a defining chapter of British BMX racing during the underground years of BMX.

These two Konica still photos were somehow miraculously preserved and escaped unharmed over all these years. Must be a telling sign of how significant those times were to me—when I was like 19 years of age. I was on a 3-year solo undercover project with the excuse of pursuing a UK engineering course in Material Science, but you and I know I was there for something else!

Three years is all I needed—and all I had! I bought a second-hand GT, joined UKBMX beginner class, then the Expert age group in my second year. That’s where I raced so much (fight or flight!) with Clive Gosling and Paul Roberts, and became great friends with Winnie Wright. I turned Superclass in my third year! It was 3 years stacked with good UKBMX racing in the South East Region, and a limited few spots over the Nationals, where I traveled on all kinds of public transport—big or small—I could access, and solo camped my nights away, even if the night was freezing cold and I could barely sleep. But I did what I had to do just to get my “arse” up on the gate with my mates the next morning! It was like me joining the Marines over and over again, literally! Everybody loves the 80s British weather. I don’t think we even needed a weather forecast, anyway.

Three years of too much craziness… of what went on behind the scenes, what I saw, and what I didn’t—but just messing around with my mates in the 80s. It was another day, and we were having a short recess before the finals’ call-in. I was chatting with Tom Lynch, admiring his new ELF colours, along with Keith Joseph, Bobby Hyde, Joe Eastwood, Clive Gosling, and Dale Holmes… Winnie Wright and many more soon joined in for a good laugh at this Japanese-Far-East-UK-Asia-transplant-looking lad having his final race in the UK. Charlie Reynolds came crashing in somewhere in the frame, and Billy Wright—being his usual self—froze that special moment in two iconic still shots from that summer of ’89 UKBMX National at Hounslow! Great times!

Thanks, lads, for leveling up the field—and that’s my one takeaway from this 3-year undercover project!

– CK Leong