FATBMX Your Online BMX News Resource Since 1998

The cover of issue 33 is one I remember well. Jay Miron, Mark Losey and I made a trip from Huntington Beach to Vancouver. We stopped in San Jose where we visited the Garcia family, had a tour at the Skyway factory in Redding, rode Burnside early in the morning and then cruised on to "the Basic house" in Vancouver. We had nothing but rain all week long and did not much else than drink and play fuSball. Every time we got back from a club Andrew Faris was still riding his bike in the garage downstairs. He was working on a new trick and I promised him the cover of FAT if he pulled it. Well, he's on the cover isn't he?

Anyway, back to the content. Taj on vert on the contents page. This was 1996.

-Bicycle Stunt finals report (Florida),
-Andrew Faris interview,
-ABA Grands report + KOD,
-DIG sticker,
-VIDEO reviews,
-Brad Blanchard interview,
-10 memorable places where I spent the night,
-Bartman comic,

We are almost nearing the end here of the FAT-'zines that were made between 1987 and 1996 before we got involved with that WWW. John Parker got the cover of issue number 32. Again GT hooked it up with a free sticker on the inside cover. The computer was doing its job and made it easier to read the text. No more fading typewriter ribbon.

The BON section has always been a big part of the FAT-'zine. Read it, it will make you go: Oh yeah, I forgot about that. 

The Beerfelden comp is one to remember. We bring it up every time we run into Alex Reinke and Detlef Richter (RIP). Good times. Read about it on page 12.

A terrible accident on the way to the KOC in Kalle's dad's car did not stop us from getting there as planned. It was a close call but we survived. The car was a write-off though.

We had a Rob "Ninja" Sigaty interview before people started calling him Sarge. BS Comp OKC report by PdJ who also provided a free Paul's Boutique sticker.

Iwan and Choq went on a trip in a 2CV. Read all about it in FAT-32.

Free Vans sticker; check. A4 trails report, Sprocket Jockey tour report,  Dutch BMX race championships,

Issue 29 came with a bunch of free stickers; Mutation, BMX PARTY (Mental Jimmy'z), Forbidden Planet, VANS Off the Wall and a Gatorade postcard featuring Mat Hoffman doing a backflip. These little items were nice extra's that came free with the 'zine.

Webmaster Jos sent me a copy of page 4 a few weeks ago. Read it and smile.

8 pages of BMX news followed. Then the report about the trip to Copenhagen for the X-Mas jam followed by a Solingen miniramp session report.

Woody Itson gets interviewed and we went to the Phoenix Winternationals in the back of Chris Moeller's pick up truck. Back to Holland for the first NK of the year.

Also covered in issue 29 is the BS contest in Moreno Valley, California. Those comps were fun.

Thomas "Tarzan" Hansen gets interviewed, Axel Reichertz and Jay Miron get sequences.

We posted the I-punkt BMX comp results, did an interview with Mike Daily and Cruzin' Chris, went to another race in SoCal, and also Markus Wilke gets an interview.

Just read it.

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.

BdJ

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.

Enjoy.

BdJ

Check it out: FAT-'zine issue 20 (1990)

Issue 12 had a green color. In the beginning we picked our color but after some issues we did not care. As long as it wasn't the same color as the previous issue it was okay. The cover photo on the green paper came out nice. Issue 12 had the infamous Believe it, or not?! news section, a reader photo section and also an MBL concert report. We used to have some ramps at the end of our street that we set up differently all the time. It was our ghetto skatepark but it worked for us. We also rode our scooters there, see page 9 and 10. 

RAD-LAME list, of course! Entered a Talent Show at school and won! One DJ, one rapper and me flatlanding on stage. We got a trophy and a day off. Sweet.

2 Hip King Of Nothing (Rotterdam) report where they stole my camera. Bad news it was. Free Dave Vanderspek Curb Dogs sticker in this issue. RIP Dave. Yes we rode fullpipes back in the day. 19 years ago in Lieshout. Take that.

Tony Hawk did a demo in Eindhoven and we were there. Ryan Moniham interview, Dynamo Open Air '89 report, Bresie interview, Miniramp pics, Pingel art,  Open Dutch vert skate championships, and a freestyle contest report from Sedan, France. Another road trip it was and we rode on carpet! That about sums it up.

Lee Reynolds made the cover of issue # 10 of FAT-'zine. He had not seen it until recently when he found it online. That's why we're putting these things on the internet. Those who did not save anything from back in the day still have a way to flip through the pages; digitally.

It's 1989 and we made it to the Mega Free event in Paris. We started working the "press pass scam" to get into places for free and to get backstage. Paul brought a suitcase, long jacket and a baret to impress the security guards and it worked. When he opened up the suitcase backstage his bottle of Coca Cola and bag of chips rolled out, but he was in! That game never stopped.

Back to the issue:
Carl Inkpen reported from a competition in Farnham, UK, Pingel went to Rom skatepark.

We had 6 'zine reviews (Liberty, ACK, Spazum, Shred Zone, Mayhem and R.A.H.F.).

There was no Photoshop back then but there were scissors and glue to make a double air on page 15-16. We traveled to Roncq, France for a contest and had a good time as usual.

Our local rap group was called Divorze, read the interview on page 22-23. Lars From Mars (BMX Masters MC) wrote another story for FAT and we interviewed Eric Fischer.

Did you ever have a cover of a magazine? Yes I did, FAT-'zine issue 9 right here. Putting yourself on the cover is pretty lame but what the heck, make your own (maga)zine and you have that control too. The photo was taken at an event in the Rai, Amsterdam and "street riding" was a new thing. We got plenty of cool artwork again from our friends at school. Somehow they never got caught. The StokeBros sent over a few pages and again we brought the news in the Believe it, or not!? pages.

It's 1989 and a photo caption says that Paul is back on the freestyle scene. A comeback in 1989! Paul also went to see Suicidal Tendencies twice and reports about it.

Issue #9 has 'Zine reviews (Sketchy, Fractured and Zenith) and Lars from Mars also wrote a story that you can find on page 18. We did a lot in 1988 and have 7 pages covering the places we went.

The free sticker page was filled with a terrible Airwalk freestyle team sticker but hey, it was free.

We went to a BDP concert in Eindhoven (P. 29-30) and went back to the University of Duesseldorf to ride the brick banks. The year was 1989.

Jeroen Hoogaerts (RIP) and Ron Wilkerson both got interviews. We did Another RAD-LAME list, Matt Pingel contributed more stuff and we went to the EnergieHal in Rotterdam for a session.

The colour of the cover changed with every issue. I sometimes checked on the cover color before Joop (R.I.P.) started photocopying but at times I couldn't be bothered and found out when the 'zines were done. It's still 1988 and Carlo Griggs scores the cover. Jamie Cameron took the photo. Nice one.

The 'zine is starting to look professional with an official editorial page, contents page, and articles.

Interviews in issue 6 come from Tommy Guerrero, Dennis McCoy, Rick Allison and Robert Moeller. There's a photo of Axel Reichertz flatlanding with a fullface. Paul, Menno and I did a Coca Cola commercial and made easy money.

Frank Peeters reports about the Titus Cup, Le Clip provided the free sticker, we went to Bonn for a contest at Mathias Rechenburg's place, we cruised over to Den Haag for a sk8 contest, we visited Tropica in Germany and also discovered the banks at the University of Düsseldorf (1988!).

The Stokebros are starting to make a presence and Olli contributed a nice drawing of Alf.

Just flip through the 'zine page by page and discover something weird. Find the link below to turn the pages.

It was rough at times to do a 'zine. Photos were received by post and then photocopied. The original photos were returned and you had the paper to work with. You made a layout of the page and started typing on the actual page. The space you had available was the space you needed to fit your story in. The pages got stuck in the typewriter very often which caused major headaches. The typewriter ribbon faded out after a while too and finding a new one for the old typewriter was a challenge in itself.

The page numbers were added at the end with a number mold. The pages needed to line up and all of you who have done a 'zine before know that this did not always go smoothly.

But it's 1988 and issue 3 came out. It had the following content:

The cover was shared by Jeroen Hoogaerts (RIP) and Bart on the skateboard. The issue had lots of art again, made by Joachim Mulkens and Speed One who showed up with new drawings during school breaks.

We visited a secret spot in Germany which is not so secret these days: The University of Düsseldorf with all those brick banks. 1988!