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
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
With 92 pages we were allowed to call this a double issue. Most 'zines at that time did not have more than 48 pages and FAT was establishing a name for itself in the underground BMX media world. Mat Hoffman made the cover and rightfully so. He had just performed a trick in Bercy that noone had seen before. A backflip on a quarterpipe! And not a low one either. Way out of the top of the Coca Cola quarter pipes. Sick! We're getting more American stuff in the 'zine so from now on the FAT issues should become more interesting for our American visitors.
Ralf Maier and Frank Schnuetgen did a Cali trip in the winter of '89/'90 and showed what it was like down there (page 28 - p33).
Vic Murphy wrote a story about the 2-HIp comp at Trend. Mark and Chris Noble sent some Cali stuff from their trip and we also had an interview with 2 Hip announcer Kevin Martin.
The other interviews in the double issue are with Klaus Dyba, Thomas Fritscher and Patrick van Wolferen. We sat on our asses too long and had collected lots of material for this one.
Divorze posse live, Lageja '90 contest report, a Life's a Beach, Ack 'zine and SKY HI sticker, contest info, 'zine reviews, Stokebros, Mookhoek mini, Rad-Lame list, Tropica DM, Skatehouse visit, Zoetermeer spot, BMX crosswords, ......
The first double issue of FAT-'zine. With 88 pages it was also twice the size of most 'zines back in the day. Issue 13+14 featured over 150 photos. The quality was terrible but at least it brought the message across. The typewriter was still doing its job but the ink ribbon was fading. I loved freshly new ink ribbons as it also had a white line up top that you could use to correct the typos. But more than once the machine got stuck behind a photo and the letter didn't line up correctly and you had to bring out the Tipp-Ex to change things. It was horrible compared to the computers we use today.
FAT-'zine was getting a structure with an editorial, contents page, news section, staff list, RAD-Lame section etc. and the double issue had the following features: Lageja contest, Freestyle contest in wherever, Bart & Martijn Deijkers interview, free VANS sticker, Kees Lemmens interview, Phantasialand report where some American riders were doing shows, Incertitude concert review, 8th Muenster Mastership report, Albert Retey interview, Amsterdam skate trip, Tropica and StokeBros write-ups, Rene Hofman interview, Trier/Kenn freestyle contest (1989) where we stayed in the concrete pipes, second FAT-JAM report where the FIAT 127 got thrashed, Andreas Althaus interview, we went to Spain to do a demo with David Quesada in San Sebastian and the ETA got loose.
Sean Coons did a comic and we already had stuff lined up for the next issue.
Check back next week for issue 15 but first flip through the double issue page by page:
It was 1988, the year after the Tizer World Championships in England and the IFN had called for the Tizer World Cup. My plan was to get a ride from Robert Moeller after the Trier contest but while over there they told me there was no space for me in their car. I bought a single train ticket to England from Trier, Germany and had 10 pounds left for food. Luckily I got the leftover bag of bread from the contest so I did not starve. My sleeping bag was the bike bag again so I wouldn't have to pay for my bike on the train. 14 hours later I arrived in Manchester. Read the contest report in issue 5 of FAT-'zine.
We have interviews too with street pioneer Dave Slade, Carlo Griggs, Steve Giberson, Chris Potts and Jeff Cotter. They've got some funny things to say.
The 'Zines scene was getting big and we have reviews from Euthanasia (Jamie Cameron), COW (Mike Rose), Crucial Mania, Totally Intense (Effy), The 'Zine (Pat Wirz), Damage (Dave Slade) and Decade 'zine (Thomas Fritscher, Bresie, Thrasher and Geisser).
The free sticker was provided by FAT-'zine. Yes we had stickers back then.
Joachim Mulkens, Speed and Ollie took care of some great art again. Paul writes about his freestyle activities in 1982. We did a contest report on the Kenn/Trier event. Check this. I went by train to Duesseldorf first. We shredded the city there all afternoon and then took a train to Trier.
Issue 4 of FAT-'zine is more of a skate issue. BMX Freestyle was at an all time low so we did some fun things next to it. It kept us on the streets and the ramps that we had placed at the end of the street could be used for everything. It was the time when we did shows with the Town & Country crew. Bert, a T&C distributor was a crazy guy who organized demos for us at some of his dealers. We loaded up the ramps, did some demos and received dinner at the local snackbar in return. When one shop did not want to give us the gas money or some decent food, it was time to do some anti-promotion. Charlie Sport sucks! Haha, funny shit.
Vert ramps were hard to find back then but we found one in Rotterdam. The hiphop concert review of issue 4 is from the Stetsasonic concert at De Effenaar in Eindhoven.
A free sticker came from Seaflex again Charlie Sport did make it on the Lame side of the RAD-LAME list (of course).
We had an interview with Dave Vanderspek and mini interviews with Elger Blitz and Dan Archer. Find a photo of Bart doing a cancan on a scooter wearing pink Oakley blades, pink/blue T&C pants and a pink T&C backback and win nothing.
Sniper Frans Swinkels was getting rad on his Zorlac representing Vision Streetwear in 1988 and
After doing a BMX 'zine for ten years (1987 - 1996) FATBMX made it on the internet. The year was 1998. Here to stay.