junior bmx bandit superman.
Put the kettle on, it's a longun.

It was a lovely summer day mid way through the 1980s. I was but a young nipper of 5 or 6 and had been (as we all were then) riding around the nearby streets on my bike.

~wavy lines~

I remember my trusted steely steed well, it was labelled a 'Buster'. A Rayleigh I think but a quick search tonight turned up nothing of that bygone vintage marque. Nonetheless, it was a trusted steely steed indeed as I must have had it some time. The only modification from 'factory spec' was the removal of stabilisers after I'd learned to ride properly on only two wheels.

I felt invincible, as do most young pedal pilots riding on the crest of such an achievement. In my mind my bicycular prowess was worthy of a young Nicole Kidman polishing my helmet. Therein lies problem number 1. In those halcyon bananarama / bros / kylie & jason days, only the spectacularly safety conscious parents of nerds and tossers insisted they wore oversized bell-end headgear. I did not. A rambo stylee school-tie headband was as far as I'd go.

A precursor of the floppy haired stunty cunty bmx'ers of todays city centres and their fancy skate parks and spinny flippy tricks, in my 'hood we did things old skool. A bit of old plywood and a few hastily rustled up bricks would be stealthily fashioned into a launch ramp in the lane between the garages. The only adjustments to trajectory were in increments of brick height with fine tuning by virtue of bunny hop ability and take-off speed.

Problem 2 was that I'd already retired my pedal powered projectile in the garden-based batcave for the evening when the ramp came about. I would have to have a shot on somebody elses bike. The only one available to me was a right old bitsa (cobbled together from bitsa this and bitsa that). To say that it had impaired handling characteristics wouldn't begin to cover it. As I recall, the back wheel was slightly smaller than the front, fuck knows what if any brakes it had (you could always rely on a foot jammed against the back tyre and a bollocking later for wrecking another pair of trainers!). There are certain other methods of velocity reduction but I woulf ill advise their use. Read on.

The arena was set, the challenge awaited and the adrenaline built as I taxi'd to the far end of the runway. I had a bit of trouble turning tightly on the bitsa since I had to lean past 45 degrees to touch the floor, but once remounted I was off. My junior legs pumped like Gump. I struggled to keep my head low for better aerodynamics while precisely aiming, to avoid the rusted nails at the base of my lanchpad. The wind began to rush as I gained momentum, I lowered my stance on the final approach and heaved with all my might to gain every morsel of extra lift on the launch.

I soared. Probably 5 or 6 feet, but to me it felt like 150 at least. The rushing air blew back my hair and chilled my face and hairless chest. As I prepared to land, problem 2 came to the fore. Whatever inhuman fuckwit had cobbled this bitsa together, they had omitted to factor in the gravity defying nature of bmx'es and the metal fatigue and parts stresses caused by extendedly repeated launch/flight/land manouvres. The previously oversized front wheel was no more so. Indeed, it had left me several miles (sic) earlier, on takeoff and so it was that an emergency crash landing occurred with the forks making first contact with terra firma.

I was immediately catapulted headlong toward problem 3, with which I would become intimately aquainted. The road surface of that back-street was something I've not seen in many years. It was tar beneath, but coated in a shallow depth of sharp grey gravel similar to some commercial builing roofs. I still live within a couple of miles of the scene and it's thankfuilly been resurfaced in normal asphalt macadam stuff, much to the benefit of any young daredevil taking a spill there today.

To the ouch ("thank feck" I hear from those still reading!)

My memory of the impact is rather blurred partly due to trauma and likely exacerbated by years of cannabis abuse, but the aftermath is clear as day so I'll reconstruct...

The heels of my palms were the first part of my body to touch ground. I could tell from the heavy stripes of skin missing from my palms, all parallel and running from mid-palm to wrist, increasing slightly in width as they went and kindly overlaid with a film of dirt and frequent flecks of embedded gravel.
OUCH.

My hands must have been outstretched and flung upward, as the next point of contact was my nose. It's actually quite miraculous I had a nose left at all. Most of the visible skin was gone, I had a little bit left between my nostrils (that bit Daniella Westbrook dissolved with coke)and some left around the edges where it joins my cheeks. The rest was just a huge bloody mess, peppered like my hands with dirt and gravel.
FUCKING BASTARD OUCH
Thankfully it mustn't have been deep as I never received any surgery although I think it would have received a skin graft now as I'm 30 and the scar is faded but still visible.

I have no idea how, but one of my front teeth was pushed through my upper lip. Fuck knows where the tooth went, all I know is that I had a hole through the exact middle (still scarred) that took ages to heal. I now know the real purpose of milk teeth is that you get a second chance after (supposedly) learning that severe imact can dislodge them surprisingly easily.
OUCHY CUNT OUCH

It was also strange that I had only light road-rash across my bare chest in a semi-curcular 'rainbow' shape. As remarked by the patient nurse who sat for around 3 HOURS swabbing dirt from my wounds and picking out the larger pieces of debris with tweezers. With my only comfort being my mam's hand to hold and some "DOESN'T FEEL VERY FUCKING MAGIC - SHIT, OOH, CUNT, OW BE GENTLE YOU BASTARD" cream.

Length? As I said probably a few feet but it felt fucking transatlantic.

GC
(Greencloud Wanted to go fishing on, Thu 5 Aug 2010, 1:16, 3 replies)

Raleigh Burner?
perchance?
('tin'tintin, Thu 5 Aug 2010, 6:58, closed)

Grifter,then
striker & the little one was the boxer


although the later BMXs were Burners.


God I'm old
( bane, Thu 5 Aug 2010, 13:45, closed)

You had to spend a few quid to get a burner
My family being poor opted for the Grifter, what a pile of clunge, you had to pedal backwards to stop the bloody thing..
(bROKEN aRROW PUA HVI Master, Thu 5 Aug 2010, 14:05, closed)