Takes me right to the spot.....

Just received this shirt in the post from Tim Stamp. It's a short sleeve repro of the MAX shirt that I wore in 1982.

It's a high quality screen print on a 'Super-Premium' Fruit of the Loom and a limited run of 20 pieces.

Tim also excelled himself last year with a repro BICYCLE MOTOCROSS ACTION MAGAZINE long sleeve.

The BMX ACTION shirts are long gone but the MAX design, at this moment, is still available. If anybody wants one, get in touch and I'll pass on Tim's contact details.

 

Faulkner Bmx Archive 1980-1982

 Dave Arnold, Craig Borrows and Alan Woods.....50 mph plus downhill session

Mike Pardon: Styling over Chorley doubles

 Dave Arnold: Southport Skatepark

 Dave Arnold and Craig Borrows in the background

 Mike Pardon: Cheesy grin

 Tony Law: moody punk attitude

 Dave Arnold: Textbook Kerb -Endo, Wigan train station

Dave Arnold(Left) and Mike Pardon (right) Southport BMX track 

 Dave Arnold: Chorley Bomb-Hole

Same session: Handlebar malfunction

 Tony Law Jumping, Terry Lloyd lying down, Fenwick Carr Peace sign: Chorley Bomb-Hole

John Lee #3 and Mark Lavery #11 Chorley BMX track.

Here are some photos from the newly founded FAULKNER BMX ARCHIVE. We have just set up a Facebook group for these Photos......Here's some info from that group:

A group set up solely to showcase the BMX photography of Stefan Faulkner.

A school friend of BMX'er David Arnold and a keen photographer....Stefan put himself in the right place at the right time.
He had a great eye for a good shot, capturing events at a time when no-one else had the foresight to document what we were doing....we were totally in the moment and too busy 'doing it'... we never thought for one second how great it would be to be able to look back at these photographs thirty years down the line.
These shots are all took approximately between 1980-1982, in and around the NW of England. Mainly Chorley BMX track, Southport BMX track, Southport Skatepark and some downhill shots from Rainford St. Helens.
For me, they are a brilliant snapshot of carefree, happy times.....when the only things that mattered were when the next race was, hoping you didn't get a puncture and wondering if the holes in your Vans style #95's would hold out until you could afford a new pair!
Stefan has said that he has a bunch more images stashed in his vault, hopefully over time, this group will act as a platform for him to show them to the world.

We salute you Stefan!

I feature pretty heavily in Stefans pictures and I'm very proud to be involved with this project.
This archive has only been in existance for a couple of days and already there is dicsussions about the possiblities of a photo exhibition hosted both here in the North West and a venue in the South.

See the Facebook page here



Bearing the fruit of your labour and toil......

What a gas!! Thanks to Captain Simo for these great shots

SUMMER FUN.....CAREFREE TIMES

Some nice shots from summer 1981, taken at Garswood slagheaps, near St. Helens. I was 16 and had just returned from a trip to California, bmx racing with Alan Woods. I had  just quit racing and was now semi-sponsored by ALANS BMX to ...."Do big jumps".

I went up to this location with a schoolmate I'd stayed in touch with, Stefan Faulkner. He didn't ride BMX but was really into photography. He took these shots.

I recently got back in touch with Stefan via Friends Re-united, and he forwarded the pictures to me. I hadn't seen these images for nearly 28 years.

When I look at these images it really does take me back to a very innocent, carefree time.I can almost smell the farmers fields that the cart track up to the riding spot cut across. I distinctly remember the feeling of total freedom,  having no responsibilities....not even the responsibility to have to go racing...which, in truth, I really wasn't that good at. 

I look very relaxed, mirror shades, short sleeves, no helmet or any safety gear.

The shots capture everything that is great about bmx to me, the sun is blazing, the dust is flying and I'm out there jammin'.......

Pre BMX dirt bicycle 1978

Here is a bicycle that me and a school friend Mark Scully built in the summer of 1978. This was during the fallow years in between barrel-jumping on our Raleigh Choppers and scraping pocket money together to buy the first Puch Murray and Mongoose BMX bikes from Winstanleys pram and cycle shop in the High Street.

As I recall, the bike seemed to take all of the school holidays to build and relatively no expense was spared (for two 14 year olds!).

It originally had 26 inch skinny street rims and convenional front forks.....but we wanted it to be more like the size of a Raleigh Grifter....so those are what the wheels in the picture came off.

We had a real problem with the rear suspension. Every time the spring compressed the chain came off the sprockets!!

we kind of solved this by switching for a stronger shocker and fitting a derailleur gear set.....but it wasn't that successful.

I can remember the sinking feeling of taking the bike out on its first outing and feeling really disappointed with how it handled.

Heavy, slow, cumbersome, spongy. These are just some of the words I could use to describe it.

We had plans of jumping over 4 cars on this thing!

God knows what happened to the bike but before long it was tossed aside in the garden with a puncture and forgotten about as the BMX became everybodies daily ride!

Incidently the very first thing we did with our first BMX's was paint 'em Kawasaki green.

Here a picture of Mark Scully and me from 1974, when we were 10.