Neil Waddington - almost 50. Who Cares?
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 "Le Chien" 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
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
Stuart King discovered BMX at its lowest point in popularity, we pin it down to around 1990. How the carcass of a 80's kids boom held any interest to a young teen back then is quite intriguing.
Celebrating 40 Years of Freestyle Radness is the Bob Haro Lineage Master Freestyler. Only 400 to be made! Bob's first bike that revolutionized the sport of Freestyle BMX - The Haro Master has become one of the most iconic bikes in BMX history today.
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.
BdJ
Here's a little project that helped me through lockdown. Building and riding an old 86 Diamond Back Strike Zone. It was a great opportunity to re-visit some old tricks as well as learn a few new oldies.
Old school BMX 1980. By Pantswagen
Da Sugar Hills on the cover of FAT-'zine 19. Back to 1990. By BdJ. Flip through the pages.
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 30 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,
After doing a BMX 'zine for ten years (1987 - 1996) FATBMX made it on the internet. The year was 1998. Here to stay.