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



Rammy the Rookie

Via the magic of Facebook, I've recently been back in touch with some old BMX buddies. I invited  Jason Ramsden and Tony Law over to the SKOOTER FARM practice track a coupla days ago.

Jason was an old ROBINSON team-mate back in 1981...and I ain't seen him since about 1982.

Both guys had a good day but Tony was struggling in pain due to 20 plus years of Freestyle MX abuse to his body.
However, Jason got into it really quickly, within minutes he was comfortably sliding the bike through the corners.
Jason was always a natural on a bike, tons of style and a total command of "Body English". He came away smiling and really stoked and can't wait to ride again next week.

 I know I said the SKOOTER FARM  team was fully subscribed but taking into account CAPTAIN HIGHSIDE is pretty much out for the season... I think there may be room for one more rookie on the team. I reckon a couple more sessions on the little track, maybe a practice session on a big track and then maybe Rammy could try a race or two......I hope so!

THE ORIGIN OF "SKOOTER FARM"......

On my recent trip to Finland I saw a lot of bicycle choppers being built. This made me think back to a project that me and Capt. Highside did between us back in the summer of 1995.

The Captain was actually recovering from a broken foot that was the result of his first and only vintage motocross race and to fill his downtime he began playing around with some old cycle parts.

When I saw what he was doing, I got involved and like most things I seem to do, the project "snowballed".

The Captain did all the engineering and I took care of sourcing parts, paint, cosmetics and graphics.

This bike was christened "Subversion" and I came up with the name SKOOTER FARM CYCLE CONCEPTS...little did I know this name would stick and that over a decade later would be the moniker for our fledgling dirt track team.

People ask me a lot what the name means..... so I'll try to explain:

"SKOOTER" is an outlaw biker term for a stripped down, purposeful motorcycle. Originally spelled "scooter" I decided to change the spelling to disassociate the word from Lambrettas and Vespas.

"FARM" is a word that suggests homegrown productivity, dirt, agriculture and hillbillies.

So I guess the jist of it is..... motocycles built in outhouses and then ridden around in fields by inbreds!! ha ha!

Anyway, back to the bike, the frame and forks are a heavily modified, stretched Raleigh Burner.

The front wheel was from a unicycle and the rear is from some old moped. Other trick parts are a Mongoose Supergoose stem, one-off custom seat, faux-springer forks and the bullet head light and tail light.

The little guy sat on the bike is the Captains nephew, Tom, aged 9, up at Sunday biker hangout Rivington Barn when the bike was first finished.

HELLS ANGELS IN CHORLEY???

You couldn't make this shit up!! Fantastic rambling anecdote from a mad Chorley woman.....anybody know her?

I like magazines....part one

Whilst up in my attic space, photographing the stickers for the last post, I came across my stash of old magazines. I've never been that much into books but have always really loved magazines. I think this started as a 5 year old when my Grandad took on the role of night watchman at a magazine distribution warehouse. The warehouse was located on the same grounds as the Joinery company he worked for. He agreed to keep an eye on the warehouse on the understanding that he could take a few comics and magazines, for his trouble, to give to his grandson. This was 1969-'70 and I vividly remember visiting my Nana and Grandads in St. Helens, Merseyside and him taking me into the warehouse every Saturday. The place was just stacked floor to ceiling with mags and comicbooks. As a 5 or 6 year old  I was mainly drawn to the comics, American Marvel and DC. I remember Gold-Key comics with Photo covers of 'Man From Uncle' and 'Star Trek'.

I also got 'Mad' magazine and 'Famous Monsters' magazine plus all the other FM ripoff publications.

I still have some of the 'Famous Monsters' today but regretfully, I sold all the other comics (200 plus) for 6 pounds back in 1980.

 As with a myriad of things, I think the internet has killed off the Raison D'etre of the specialist magazine. In the late 70's the only way of checking out what was going on with U.S. skateboarding was to read SKATEBOARDER mag. This was before the video age and you would just look at the pictures and try to imagine how the guy got up there.....and how he got back down and there was never ever any question that the guy bailed the trick. Nowadays, its all de-mystified, you are aware that Jake Phelps smashed his glasses within minutes of it happening and if you wanna see him do it, it will be on Youtube.

The old mags featured in these pics are just a few of the hundreds that I have boxed up. I have most THRASHERs from the beginning to the mid 90's. I also have a good collection of early BMX PLUS, KUNG FU MONTHLY, FAMOUS MONSTERS, EASYRIDERS, IRON HORSE, MONSTER MAG, AWOL, BACK STREET HEROES, 60'S PLAYBOY, 60'S MOTORCYCLE MECHANICS, FANGORIA, FLIPSIDE, MAXIMUM ROCKNROLL to name a few.

I think I'm gonna go back in the attic and find the issue of the English SKATEBOARD mag with the topless model kneeling on a giant skateboard!

UPDATE Fri 19th Feb: Here it is.......in issue # 9

I like stickers......

I am a sticker nerd. I just emptied out my sticker shoebox....I've had some of these for a really long time. Within the skateboard community, stickers were regarded as "currency".A fistful of cool stickers could get you a long way! A lot of these stickers have been given to me over the years, as a gesture of goodwill or whatever. I must admit I am not shy when it comes to asking "Give us some stickers!" I think the oldest ones I have are the BMX ones which I was given when I got to visit the 'Mr. Sticker' factory in California in 1981.The newest are the various Chris Carr related ones, which fellow Skooter Farmer 'Racin' Jason C # 99 won in an auction last year (2009) and then gave to me. Thanks very much Jason!