Back in 95 myself and Fids took a trip to California to experience the American dream, we stayed in HB with Neal Wood, Chris Moeller, Steve Emig and Jason Timmy Ball, who’d moved to California the year before and was working at S&M bikes.
Fids was the first episode we did for The Union Tapes, and served as the perfect launch for what we were trying to do. This is a tribute to Fids, who left us on the 08/12/24 he leaves a legacy and a half.
John has been in BMX since the start, he’s been involved in a lot of projects both in front of the camera and behind the scene, we tap into all of that and more. From John’s start in BMX in the west London area to present days BMX projects.
Kurt Schmidt is without doubt the fakie pioneer, no one was doing fakie tricks like him in the mid 90s, we delve deep into that topic and as usual go right back to the start. Kurt grew up near Minneapolis in middle America, a long way from the sunshine drenched concrete skateparks of California but the lust for BMX was strong and these guys made their own thriving scene, mostly in Kurt's garden, where they constructed quarter pipes to rip on. I never knew just how deep Kurt's BMX roots were, he started way back in the 80s BMX boom.
Dan Price made an impact on the UK scene in the mid 90s but his true BMX roots go back much further back than that. We take a step back into the archives of Dans over active mind and uncover a lot of things most of us had no idea about.
BMX action bike was the real UK BMX bible back in the 80s, it set the standard for uk bmx mags in its approach to covering BMX and how the many themes of it grew.I don’t know where to start with this intro, this is the first person on the show that has never ridden BMX, but contributed so much to it and many people have requested I get him on the show.
The first pic I ever saw of some over tweaking something was Todd Anderson, who at that point in time-1985-was riding for Redline. I picked up a magazine in a mock 711 next to Faze 7 BMX centre in Waltham Cross, Todd was cranking a twisted lookback with his feet on the cranks arms, and his front wheel hitting his shin, I'd never seen this before, until that point a pic of a look back was anything with bars passed 90 degrees and the back end high.
Shaun Allison is a name that was on my original list of guests back when I first started thinking about doing this podcast, and I’m sure many people out there won’t have even heard of?
Jumping forward a decade or so from our last episode. I first met Owain in the 90's, he was a tiny chatty kid ripping around the boneyard in Chester and the surrounding skateparks of the time. Fast forward many years and this dude has never dropped off. Rode for a bunch of big companies, won contests, flew around the world, scoring multiple magazine covers, video parts, road trips and done all there is to do in the game of BMX. We get in to the start of his BMX journey, trips to Woodward as a kid, growing up around the Chester BMX scene. Changing up riding styles, and the in-depth street riding phase and why, riding all terrain, his involvement with BMX now, the obsession with collecting old BMX media, recent barn edit and the open loop. And even some UKBMX hall of fame talk in here.
Going right back to the start with this one, the northern start that is in sunny Manchester.
After doing a BMX 'zine for ten years (1987 - 1996) FATBMX made it on the internet. The year was 1998. Here to stay.