FATBMX Your Online BMX News Resource Since 1998

The cover of issue 28 shows what we were all about in 1993. In fact, it hasn't changed much. Road trips are the best. We brought you the BMX news in 1993 and we are still doing it now. 7 pages of BON in issue 27 and you were up to date of all the BMX news.

We received Huphter and Rabbit stickers for the free sticker page. Achim Kujawski received an interview and then we're moving on to oiur annual Mission Trails jam.

When noone was putting on a jam at SoCal's best dirt jump spot we took things in our own hands (again) and had a good time.

I missed the 1993 world's in Limoges, France but got some pics from Ralle and printed the results. Your pro champs? Retey, Hoffman and Wilke.

A 6-page Paul Roberts interview follows. He must have said something funny in this. Hope you can read it as the text is small.

The UCI BMX race world's took place 30 minutes from our place. We went there and even organized a KOD on the first straight.

We also had a Las Vegas session at "The Pits".

Matt Pingel was a big contributor of FAT and to show our love to him we gave him the cover of number 27. You must have heard of Jerry Galley too. He's on page 2 shredding the ramp in Dennis' backyard.

We got a free STD foundation sticker on page 4. Six pages of BMX news and another freesticker (Big Boy).

Thomas and Moni Stellwag get an interview. Greg Higgins contributed some art. Wow, another sticker: Mutation.

We did a report on some SoCal trails: Honda Hills, Mission Trails, 6th Street, Hoover and Dover. RAD-LAME. Did you make it on the list?

Backyard Jam 1993: Tom Lunch, Keith Treanor, Aju, Steve Geall, Grotbags, Congo, Grace and the Maddog. The mag interviews were with Brad McDonald (sitting in his "office"), a flatlanding Mark Losey, seatless Hal Brindley and going backwards James Hudson. 

The Lord (Dave Voelker) gets an interview on page 45. Nico Does gets the Bizznizz interview that starts on page 50.

I went to China for some demos. Crazy but good times. Read the report. 

Ronnie Farmer on the cover, yeehaaw. While in San Diego we rode Mission Trails on a daily basis with the Dirt Brothers. Ronnie Farmer was one of them. He was born in East SD and the Dirtbrothers house was on the edge of that shady area. We have not heard from Ronnie in a while an really hope he is doing well. He sure knew how to stretch them no-footed cancans.

Internet sites did not bring the news back in the day, FAT-'zine did. The Believe it, or Not!? section is huge, full of news.

We traveled to Phoenix for a Bicycle Stunt contest in our 1970 Buick Estate Wagon which had a 454 engine and was hella fast. We made it over there too.

Ronnie Farmer gets a full on interview in FAT-'zine. Maybe the only interview he has ever had. Read it.

We were doing Magazine reviews in issue 26 with Matt Pingel (BMX Freestyle magazine-Germany), Mark Noble (RIDE BMX magazine) and Vincent Ranchoux of Tracks BMX Power mag (France). 

Todd Lyons scored an interview which starts on page 43. We went to an NBL national in Las Vegas with the S&M crew. Jean Paul Rogers was selling RIDE BMX magazines for some extra income at the race.

Mongoose provided the free sticker and I also went to England and checked in with a contest at the Spitalfields Old Market in London. GT provided another sticker. Free stickers are good. 

Man, this issue is bringing back some more good memories. One of my favorite contests of all time was the World's in Budapest, Hungary. I could go on an on about it but you just check out issue #25 and read the party-part about it.

Sheps actually gets the contents page doing a nosepick with front brake. Only poor bastards that could not afford a front brake did toe jams at that time (Jon Taylor?).

When we went to the USA and there were no jams anywhere, we organized one ourselves. At Mission Trails. The Boost jam was born. We went to the KOC in Markus' van and had a blast.

From there I got a ride with Kay Clauberg in his VW Golf (4 people, 4 bikes) and we visited Tim Ruck's area (raced at Exeter's BMX track) and then went to the Rider Cup in London. More good times. Also did a trip to Malaga after the World's. Man, no worry in the world at that time.

What else can you expect this week? A Mat Hoffman interview. We are talking 1992 so keep that in mind when you read it.

Kai Uwe Lohff got an interview, we went to the Münster Monster Masterships in Germany, there's a report about a GT show in the USA, we went to a freestyle contest in Belgium, and wrapped up issue 25 with a report about a KOD in Cologne in some barn. Nothing but good stuff from 16 years ago. Enjoy.

If there is one issue that stands out to me it's issue number 24. It basically got me a job in the BMX industry, or at least the first steps were made. I showed this very issue to GT Bicycles president Richard Long at a trade show in Germany and asked if he (GT Bicycles) wanted to advertise. When he saw the cover of his team rider Dave Voelker flipping off the camera and not wearing a helmet he was not amuzed.

When Richard Long turned over the page he started reading the contents page. He noted the following: "He hates GT, but still rides 4 'em" and turned to the Jon Peacy interview on page 65.

The discussion was long but he got to hear what was wrong with the GT brand at the time. I felt strong about it because I had spent some serious time with the GT riders over in California.

When I left the meeting GT was advertising in FAT, they provided stickers for the free sticker page, I was offered a new Dyno Slammer and it was okay for me to get a temporay job at GT's headquarters in the USA. I seriously wasn't expecting all that.

Anyway, back to the content of issue #24:

-Jesse Puente interview
-Jay Miron interview
-Jon Peacy interview
-Sean Yarroll interview

The new typewriter is doing its job making it possible to read the text in issue 23 which has Geoff Martin on the cover while doing some flatland riding in front of Hamel's in Mission Beach.

This issue has a lot of USA stuff in it. We visited the first Bicycle Stunt contest in Texas with the GT team, we also made it to the next round in Glendale, Arizona. Sheep Hills looked different in 1991 and we also checked out a Todd Anderson/Eddie Fiola trick show.

Jimbob reports about the East coast of the USA in two stories and we also covered several European events like the King Of Concrete, the Tourcoing France contest from March 1992, and we had a pictorial of the 1991 World's in Denmark.

We were pretty international back then with a Barrow in Furness jam report (UK), Axel Reichertz' roadtrip to Spain, European team championships in Abbeville, France, an international contest in Eindhoven (NL), and a skatehouse report from Essen, Germany.

I wonder how we did it all but somehow it worked out. Mario Schepers, Alan Peterson, Barker Barrett and Effraim Catlow got the interviews. Flip through the pages and check if you got a photo in this issue.

1991 was the year I had to join the army. Everyone had to back in the day and it was my turn. Had my personal UZI 'n shit and made it to the Corporal rank in just one year, whatever that's worth.

The best part of the 12 months in the army was that I managed to pass for my truck drivers licence. I rented a room so I did not have to live on the military base and could ride a bit after "work" and still manage to do the FAT-'zines.

The pace had slown down to only a couple of issues per year but they were stacked with stuff.

Just like issue #22:

-Did a commercial in Gran Canaria for ProSpecs shoes in 1991
-Reported from the Trier contest
-Rode the Vogelsang dirt spot in Cologne
-Went to Abbeville in France for a contest
-Was there a contest in the Jugendpark every 4 months or something?
-Mini-FAT-JAM Aarle-Rixtel
-Christmas Jam report from Denmark
-Muenster Monster Mastership
-Skate comp in Erp
-ECC report

We've arrived in 1991 with the FAT-issues. #21 has 104 pages and includes all stories from my first trip to the USA. It was the best. For years I'd been reading the american magazines and now I was there, in San fucking Diego!

Before I had put my bike together Vic Murphy called to see if I wanted to go ride some street. Hell yeah! 20 minutes later Knock knock, who's there? Vic Murphy, Pete Augustin and Kaarlo Wik.

Damn, is this for real? I hurried getting the re-welded HARO Master together to hit the streets. Wow, this was good! Places visited were Mission Trails (daily session?), Ron Wilkerson's spine vert ramp, the San Diego Home Ave ditch, Imperial Ditch, backyard pools, rode some flatland at Mission Beach, went to the Nude bowl, the 2-HIp meet the street in Palm Springs, Balboa Park, a ditch in LA, the DirtBros mini, and much more. It was a great time and you can read about it in this issue.

But there's more. Interviews with Alexis Desolneux and Eng San Kho, reports on the FAT-JAM, a trip to Longjumeau France, UK KOV report, KOC report, the Lageja '91 comp and of course free stickers and stuff.

Go back in time, when riding real street was just being developed by the DirtBros.

Let's start this review by a quote from Vic Murphy who was a regular contributor to the FAT-'zines back in the day. "I ride to get better. Not to get money. Not to impress anyone. Not to improve the environment. But just to see how good I can get riding from one place to another. Some people don't understand me. Well, I don't understand them. Ride to death."  Vic Murphy. D.B.I.

Issue 20 of FAT-'zine came out in the fall of 1990 right after we had finished another FAT-JAM (report in #21). We traveled around in the summer and visited the World Championships in Trier, a few VANS shows in Germany, went to the ECC in Slagharen, and we had a few lakejump sessions when it got really hot.

Interviewed people this time were Jason Jessee, Joop "Sloop" Smulders, Raymond Tabak, Frank Schnuetgen, and Dan Hubbard. We also had reports from the UK King Of Vert, a street jam in Aalborg, Denmark, the 2-Hip comps in the USA, and a full report from the contest in Cologne, Germany.

It's the first issue on the new typewriter so you can actually read the 'zine.

You know what I like about all these FAT-'zines? it gives me a nice timeline of things that happened years ago. I couldn't really remember when we started putting on the extra FAT-JAM to start off the season. Now I know. 22 April 1990. This means we've done a "Mini-FAT-JAM" for 22 years now.

It was dubbed Mini-FAT-JAM as it was a smaller version of the actual FAT-JAM. Mario Schepers seriously messed up his ankle by going Sky Hi after being towed by a moped to get some extra speed.

It was nuts and the pictures show it. We still talk about it every time we hang out at OJA and the pics help remember. What else did we have in this issue?

6 airs by Mat Hoffman on that Coca Cola quarterpipe in Bercy and boy did he go high.

Frans Swinkels got an interview, and we made a photo trip around the world starting in the USA and ending in France.

We went to Nantes, France for a contest, and the Pingel-Maier duo took care of the Tropica Contest #2. The poster was a fold out promotional piece to wear a helmet. Zonder Helm, Kop Kapot.  Some Germans still remember that one as their favorite Dutch.

Lee Reynolds and Dirtbro Jimmy Arrington have an interview, Matt Pingel took care of some pages, we had crosswords again, the Rad vs Lame list and the Believe it, or Not!?-news section.

The free stickers came from RAP X and a NO SMOKING campaign. Flip through it, you'll find a photo and will say: "No shit!"