Just got my sub in the mail, and checked out the 30 year retrospective. Pretty cool stuff, but a few timeline faux pas:

Pg 53: They say "BMX Bikes go head to head with motorcycles: surprise, they're faster"
Actually: The feature was "Who's RADDER?" And the spread was one of the first glimpses into what would become FMX. *Point given to the fact that they use that "they're faster" thread throughout the timeline, but for accuracy sake, just seemed weird."

Pg 53: Top right, they say that Redline is "30 years young" in 2008
Actually: Redline is 35 in 2009, as stated in the ad on pages 6 and 7 of that issue

Pg 54: They say that in "1988: Eliot and ET pedaled into the spotlight aboard a Kuwahara"
Actually: ET was released in 1982

I hate when people post hyper-critical stuff like this (so, I'll bash myself in the head with a roll of quarters in a minute here), but I just wish they did more with the amazing opportunity of the 30 year anniversary. With the best, and most complete BMX archive in existence (covering racing, freestyle and product for all of the 30 year history), there is a real gem of a coffee table book sitting in those file cabinets.

Anyway, despite the above, great job on the issue (if anyone from the staff reading)!

Best,

M

Theres an episode of the brady bunch where bobby is in desperate need of a trophy. He enters a icecream eating contest. His folks load him and themselves into the car. Bobby is sitting on the back seat of the convertible.

He raises his hands in the im gonna be champ mode. the other kids in the bunch cheer him on as the car pulls out of the driveway.

Then after the contest (where bobby got it handed to him) they have a shot where the car is pulling back into the driveway. Total blunder in that bobby and his folks are now in the family stationwagon.

Now that my friend is a faux pas.................

I dunno, maybe it wasn't. Maybe it was product placement. They might have figured most people wouldn't notice and it was a way to get two different cars in one episode. It is no accident the Brady's drove Chryslers, lol.

Sorry for the digression.

ya but remember when greg bought that hoopty lemon!

it was a 55 or 56 CHEVY bel aire if I recall.

this is why i dont buy domestic cars.

Although i would love to have that car now. i would set it all up (better than greg did)

id get those wipers fixed and the horn and id be set.

cruisin' in style!

lol..............sorry about that.

Yeah, but what about the episode where Peter threw the "hero party" for himself and no one showed up? I think I'm pulling this back into BMX Plus territory now...

Yeah... and what about when tiger stole Kitty Carryall and Bobby got set up?!

Damn dog.

Wait...what were we talking about?

scott..........

is that really an episode or reiley youre talking about?



i kid i kid

I never had a subscription to bmx action. My subscription was to bmx plus. I think it was 1982ish. I had this awesome set of red bmx plus pads that came with the subscription. I wish I could find a set today but I haven't seen any. I received my newest issue but haven't had a chance to look at it.

Pretty sure it was the opposite, James. To my recollection, BMX Plus! never did any kind of bike merchandise, whereas BMXA had pads, Haro plates, wallets, jerseys, wing things, etc (all of which I rocked during that era--usually all at once).

Could it be?

M

If anybody has a right to hand out constructive critcism about Plus, it would be Mike.

Vhangstar

I have more Plus mags than BMXA mags. I loved them both. I'll be lookin out for the new edition.

oh, you broke my nose!!! hehehe

A coffee table book would be cool.

Preferably one limited to a small quantity & only available through select skateboard shops & laundromats.
-Bill

Wds, I enjoyed your sense of sarcasm. I was thinking the same thing, but you worded it perfectly!! HaHa...

Mike, maybe you and Towne could get together and contact Hi-Torque or whoever runs the show with that magazine. I'm sure that with Plus and all the other magazines they put out, they would have some sort of financial backing for such a project. And like you said, I'm sure the forgotten contents of those filing cabinets could fill quite a few coffee table books!!

In all honesty, I don't think "Plus" has the circulation it used to. Up until a couple of years ago I could find it in almost every grocery store, drug store, and even Wal-mart.

Now, not ONE store that I've been to in my city carries it. Not even our bike shop. I have to go to store that is known for it's HUGE newstand 30 miles away to find it.

But our local Barnes and Noble carries BMX World, Session, and Dig, but NO BMX Plus.

I never dug BMX Plus. I dont know why, but I just never liked the magazine. I really liked BMXA, and bought each copy as it came out (though of course, today, I no longer have them )

Maybe it was because BMXA was more "flashier".

OMG

I am so shallow.... LOL

The show that Bobby entered the ice cream eating contest was "Cartoon King".

How about just grab any issue from the last 30 years and put a hard cover on it--they are all the same....

MARCIA MARCIA MARCIA!!!!!!

wish i was a coke dealer a few years ago and new Marcia.
she has a new TELL ALL book about her past drug use and how she used to pay for it.

I was buying the new issue of the The Horse and Motorcyclist Retro (thanks Todd, for the tip on that one) and bought this issue of BMX Plus as well. I wish I would have taken thirty seconds to flip through it and saved the five bucks. What a joke. They can't even do themselves justice.

I don't think you are being hyper critical at all. I find it important to have an accurate history of the sport. Other established sports have it why not BMX? I think there should be an official or at least highly regarded source for the History of BMX from 1969 to right up to this very second. I would like to see something like The Baseball Almanac in BMX with the records of every sanctioning body and their results for every year on at least the national and regional level if not all the way to the district level including every race ever held on the local level going back to the days of B.U.M.S and Mackler's track. I just hope that the ABA and NBL have their records and the records they inherited from the USBA and the NBA respectively (and the NEBA, NPSA, IBMX, UBR, SDBMXA and all of the other sanctioning bodies that they absorbed) not to forget about the IBMXF and FIAC. That would be great and would further demonstrate the BMX is a serious sport (if being in the Olympics isn't proof enough). Every sport has to know its history.

It is incredible that the writers of that BMX Plus! retrospective who I would guess would have the original magazines at their disposal would get those facts wrong. I was heart sick when it was reported a few months ago that Challenge Publishing got rid of its stock of Super BMX magazines. We are losing the history of the sport. Having magazines in private collections isn't good enough. The kids and adults who are curious about them don't have access to them so they will be ignorant of the past and at best will get flawed tellings of it like that BMX Plus! article. Can you image the general press given that article as a thumbnail primer of the history of the sport?

Lets not get in a situation where some 10 expert will say "Stu who?" and it will not be joking! I don't want to read somewhere in BMX Plus! or anywhere else 11 years from now when BMX is 50 years old that Greg Hill was No.1 pro in the NBA in 1986 or that Eddy and Mike King were both on Diamondback or something just as ridiculous.

Oldtimer1980s

You are absolutely right Oldtimer, and this is the very reason that people like myself and Eric Rothenbusch who runs 23mag.com have been working on making as many of these of these magazines as possible available online. This will help ensure that the history of the sport is kept intact and freely available for all to access.


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