News / Author Archive

  fits*This article first appeared in Ride UK (#68) and is reproduced here by kind permission of Ride UK. Suppose you went out tomorrow and bought a brand new car, suppose for some crazy reason you bought a Ford. On the front and back it would say “Ford” and even the middle of the wheels would […]
  What the hell is a Hidden Headset?*This article first appeared in Ride UK (#73) and is reproduced here by kind permission of Ride UK. What the hell is a Hidden Headset? Good question. And surprisingly hard to answer. Fifteen years go when I became a born-again BMXer, headsets were utter utter shite. You had two choices, a Tioga Beartrap in a […]
  Avoid bicycle maintenance bloodlust*This article first appeared in Ride UK (#72) and is reproduced here by kind permission of Ride UK. A few months ago I did a tech column moaning about how the parts for your bike often don’t fit together very well, hopefully some people found it interesting but I later realised that it wasn’t a […]
  Lard Inspired quest for reliability and tranquility*This article first appeared in Ride UK (#71) and is reproduced here by kind permission of Ride UK. The last tech column had a stupid name. It’s not the name that I gave it so please don’t blame me. It was entitled “Truth” originally but for some reason it got changed to “Build Your Own […]
  Wheel Truing*This article first appeared in Ride UK (#70) and is reproduced here by kind permission of Ride UK. With Tex taking a very ‘tech’ approach this month I thought I would go back to some basic stuff and do a good old fashioned tutorial. I always said I wouldn’t do this. I always said that […]
  Stretching*This article first appeared in Ride UK (#69) and is reproduced here by kind permission of Ride UK. This month I want to discuss something a little different. BMX has been around for about 30 years now and so have I. In that time riders have come and gone as you would expect but there […]
  Dropouts*This article first appeared in Ride UK (#61) and is reproduced here by kind permission of Ride UK. I seriously thought people would be sick of this technical column by now, but it seems not. I always aimed for it to have a little useful information in each, presented in a reasonably entertaining way. Unfortunately […]
  Punctures*This article first appeared in Ride UK (#63) and is reproduced here by kind permission of Ride UK. I guess we have all envied after skateboarders once or twice. Usually when your back wheel has just had a little brush with coping and is making that awful hissing noise. Just then the idea of rolling […]
  Frame Design Details*This article first appeared in Ride UK (#64) and is reproduced here by kind permission of Ride UK. Over the years there have been some pretty wacky frame designs. Hutch, for example, used to make a frame called the Trickstar. This was loved by a lot of riders of the day, especially flatlanders, for its […]