Steve Crandall

Coffee sipping pilot of a red FBM frame and a Nikon camera.

Posts from Steve:

“A small but satisfying restoration of the natural order of things…”

Shared Perspective- Bryan Tarbell

Lee Hopkins, wall carve, Massachusetts

Everything is a journey, the good ones adventures, and to be able to preserve a perspective, an understanding of what the life and light combined can create, is something I think Is important.

Taking a picture is one thing, a photograph to share with people, is something else all together. Bryan Tarbell share’s his perspective with me, as well as many other’s, and it inspires me to live, not just breathe, eat and shit, but to see the world, to explore, to share my ideas, and more importantly, his photos remind me how exciting the world can be.

– Steve Crandall

Lee and Buspy, synchronized carves. Massachusetts

Mark Burnett, Upstate New York

Jack Hartje and Dylan Pierce, over under, Upstate New York

Steve Crandall, bus trip, Upstate, New York

Gary Ginch and Eric Holliday, bus aided exploration, upstate New York

Trevor Ashworth, nosey 180, Massachusetts

Jake Reid, double peg with commitment, Massachusetts

Providence Rhode Island Carnival

Trevor Ashworth, rail 180, Massachusetts

Pedal Cab, Central Park, NYC

Greg Bloss, corner carve, Connecticut

Jake Gayeski, feeble 180, Massachusetts

Jake Gayeski, street waves, Massachusetts

Lino Gonzalez, wedge to wedge, Massachusetts

Gary Guilliams, pocket table, Upstate New York

Brett Silva, rail hop, Massachusetts

One week on the road…

One week on the road, and I feel like I need twice as much coffee to get my brain spinning the way the old bus wheels do down the highway, maxing out at 55 miles per hour, maybe 60 on long open stretches…

This past mission, drifting up the coast in no name towns outside of DC and through Maryland, landing in weird towns in New Jersey, based around Dupont factory working hours, and another tripped out version of the American Dream gone fucking wild.

First things first, we met a bartender named Pick with 7 fingers who opened beers with 2 of them, across from a factory that makes teflon, outside of Philly. He didn’t mind our company, and we enjoyed his. The Factory was at about 10 percent capacity as it was not long ago, but it left a shadow that was pretty ominous.

Darting across the bridge into the City of Brotherly Love and up the Turnpike into the Lehigh Valley, The mountains, and summer time tree tops were a brief pause from the ghettos and industry of an old city, to the decline of another major steel town gone bust.

None of it seemed to phase anyone, pizza delivery guys did burnouts in hot rods, kids played in the streets, bad tattoos covered peoples skin, the place was half a mess, we loitered hard , and fit right in.

Under bridges, in drainage ditches, on hilltops, in the woods, and in alleyways we kept our eyes peeled for that American dream again, I saw glimpses of it everywhere, like Animal Chin was leaving a crumb trail of old ideas,day dreams and hopes, behind for us to find our way.

Camped out in makeshift shanty towns, in and out of old warehouses, in parking lots, showering under spickets, and in cold waterfalls, eating lakeside off of an old grill we found its remnants, in each of us, as our shared time revealed through friendships, something we had, but needed the road to re-discover.

Driving north into the darkest stormy parts of the night, through the Pocono Mountains, I white knuckled shitty driving conditions and even shittier roads, in between diesel fuel fill ups and more parking lot loitering, watching nickel and dime drug dealers argue over open invoices, I was home on the road. Landing this time in Upstate Ny.

Nothing earth shattering, but it meant the world to me, and when I parked, it was like I woke up, rubbing my eyes, hoping to dream some more.

It’s is still out there, it’s not always pretty, and it’s not always convenient or popular, but it’s still alive, it’s moving erratically between the lines, and i think it has wheels on it.

“How ’bout GOD BLESS AMERICA!!?”

What the fuck is a BACO?

We caught up with the legendary rider/filmer/producer Chris Rye, and asked him a few questions about the new Baco Documentary…

Who was involved with Baco, who are the main players, who was on the peripheral?

Around 1988 Chad DeGroot and I started building these weird little ramps and calling them Bad Ass Coping Obstacles…or Baco I, II and III with each new ramp. Just silliness really. In 1990 we met met Mark Hilson and Mark Fluette, who were from the Appleton, WI area about 30 minutes south from us up in Green Bay.Â

The four of us sort of formed the core of Baco then, and put out our first video ‘BacoVision” not long after. A couple years later we started hanging out with Dave Freimuth a lot and he became more less the 5th core member. I think we were drawn to his luscious golden locks. There were a lot of other friends we considered ‘Baco members’, dudes like Kuhrt Emmerich, Jeremy Verhulst, Krt Schmidt, Jimmer Rienstra, Kerry Gatt, Dylan Worsley, and later guys like Jason Enns, Dave Osato, Andrew Faris, Ruben Alcantara, Brian Kachinsky and other dudes we would to put in the videos.

When did you guys get started, what was the catalyst for starting to make videos?

At that time video cameras were not something the average person owned or has access to, but Chad’s parents had a VHS cam that you’d film with up on your shoulder. We took that thing around with us and would film all kinds of weird stuff and of course our riding and skating too. By the time we had met Hilson, he had a VHS camera of his own, which him and Fluette had used to make their first video ‘Thrashin Menasha’. Then we all sort of began pooling footage and the Baco name from our ramps got used for this new video featuring all of us called BacoVision. The next video was called Baco 2 and it just went from there.

How many Videos have you guys made to date?

There have been 10 Baco videos spanning about 15 years, and now with the new ‘Push It To 11’ documentary that makes it 11 total.

Did you guys have some early influences?

Definitely. Mark Eaton and the Plywood Hoods probably stand out the most, as they were primarily flatlanders like us but also dabbled in ramps and street too. Ells Bells made it ok to be weird and keep people guessing. Eddie Roman made you want to have the newest cams and editing equipment so your videos would be of good quality. We were always stressing over video quality back then, just the fact that VHS was not that great to begin with, but then you had to make multiple dubs to add music and make copies for people to actually see the vids. So we were always aware of each generation number and the loss each time and would be careful to make the least amount possible when we were editing.

What was the climate in BMX like when BACO was in it’s prime?

Excitement. Wonder. Discovery. Progression. Fun, and then more fun. There was always something new happening, a new contest, a new trick being invented and pulled for the first time. New bikes being made stronger and better with rider-owned companies taking over. There was no internet, so in addition to magazines, videos were the life blood of what was going on. We never considered it a sport or an industry back then, we just did what we wanted and that was it. We edited our videos with a random Baco style, which set them apart from sectioned videos and gave us more of an opportunity to add in antics and funny shit as well. Even though we were primarily flatlanders, we always had new street and ramp clips in the mix from either us or other people, which gave the vids a broader appeal to more than just flatlanders, or even BMXers for that matter.

Can you tell us a little bit of the Transition/ offshoot evolution from Baco to the wildly influential Props Video Magazine?

In between Baco 5 and 6 around the year 1993 we had met some of the Chicago dudes, one of which was Marco Massei who had made a video called ‘A Few Good Men’. He was a fan of the Baco videos, and one New Years Eve all of us went down to Iowa for an overnight lock-in at Rampage. I think it was then when Marco and I got to talking about starting a video magazine, which at that time didn’t exist in BMX. Since my background is print and graphic design, and not necessarily video or editing, I had previously been talking to Krt Schmidt about starting a print magazine that I wanted to name Props. When the vid mag idea came along, I ditched the print mag idea and we used the name for what became Props Video Magazine. Not sure many people know that.

You guys just put out a blu-ray Baco box set with all the past videos and a new documentary ‘Push It To 11: the Bits of Baco’. What was involved in the project?

Damn, a lot of stuff. The box set portion alone was a huge project, more from an archival and technical aspect in that all the best quality 1st generation masters had to be tracked down, fixed up a bit and then encoded for Blu-ray. All the videos previous to Baco 7 were done with analog deck to deck editing, so each video had 2 masters essentially. One we called a ‘mic mix’ master, which is all the 1st gen edit sections with background sound and our random little audio samples we’d insert, then the main master which was a dub of the mic mix and the one with all the music mixed in.

For the box set, all the 1st gen mic mix masters were captured into the computer to serve as the visual portion, then the main masters were captured to serve as the audio portion. Then the 2 were synced up and rendered out for new 1st gen masters of each video, which is the absolute best quality available compared to all the 3rd gen VHS copies of all the original videos that are out there in the wild. On the box set they all look really really good, better than anyone’s seen before. Then of course all the bonus sections had to be assembled and put together. Blu-ray itself is a highly technical thing to work with, so building the menus and authoring everything is a process I had luckily already learned having done the Road Fools box set project last year.

Blu-ray was of course the medium we chose to deliver all the content on, as it holds 10x what a DVD holds, has a more modern menu standard and allows HD material to remain in its native format instead of having to down-res to SD for a DVD. The 11 hours of content all fit on one Blu-ray disc clean and simple. I believe Mutiny put out a Blu-ray video some years ago, but to my knowledge no one else is doing them today in BMX which sort of poses a bit of a challenge with what people might expect. But with all the PS3s, PS4s and Xbox Ones out there, players are a lot more common than people might think.

Then the documentary…it took a full year to finish on its own and ended up being 80 minutes long, which is just the sweet spot length for docs. It was sort of a independent project to the older videos but at the end everything got merged into the full box set. There was something like 20 hours of interviews we shot and 200 hours of b-roll from all the Baco tapes going back to 1988. It was pretty insane really, I never even had time to look through all the b-roll, but did get through a good portion of it. From a filmmaker’s perspective though, all that b-roll was an absolute godsend as it was the ultimate archive to tell the story. The doc also features hundreds of photos, which all of us contributed to tracking down, with everything getting scanned in high res mostly from original negatives or slides. Again, just a pure joy having all that imagery available to help piece together the story.

Baco is a really fun story full of amazing bike riding and music, interesting characters and personalities, funny antics and weird pranks. Original, unique stuff you just can’t duplicate. The right set of people coming together at the right time doing cool shit. It’s also a great and fun history lesson for newer school riders who have no idea any of that even happened back in the 90s and early 2000s. That general overall vibe seems to have been sort of lost in today’s instant-gratification BMX world so hopefully people will see and understand what I mean when they check out the movie.

Any good stories from filming the Documentary? Was the response from the people you interviewed pretty positive?

Damn, where to start. In total we interviewed more than 40 people, which is quite a large group for a documentary. One of the co-producers, Rick Wagner, and I, took a trip out to Cali last summer and shot a bunch of interviews there, then we got a rental car and drove to Texas Toast and shot a bunch more off the cuff interviews there in Austin. Toast was a lifesaver because there were a lot of riders and industry people already assembled in one place, which saved us a lot of time and expenses traveling to get people on camera. We also shot a lot of interviews around the Midwest. It was a real joy visiting with so many old friends, some of which we hadn’t seen in awhile. Everyone was more than happy to talk about Baco, their memories of it and how the videos influenced them and others when they were growing up.

One funny story was when we showed up at S&M to interview Sean McKinney, who works there. We walked in and right inside the lobby was a sketchy little plywood bowl and the office ‘furniture’ was made of particle board and cardboard boxes. Moeller was standing there and said hi to us, and I’m not sure he had any idea who we were. Then we heard someone attempting to play the Imperial Death March theme from Star Wars on some kind of horn, who turned out to be McKinney blowing into a long plastic horn-like thing. Once in the office, there was this skinny little corridor that lets you get out into the warehouse. McKinney was standing in there blowing the horn and blocking the office girl from getting past him and out back. She was obviously annoyed she couldn’t get by and rolled her eyes looking over at us, sort of implying, ‘Jesus christ, I have to put up with this shit everyday.’ Lol.

McKinney is of course a character, so he took us out back in the warehouse to set up the interview shot slapping high 5s with the machine shop workers on the way back. Then he got to talking to Wagner and found out he used to work at Standard back in the day, and started throwing his arms around and said, ‘This aint no Standard Country!’ referring to the once, long-running Midwest-Cali feud between Standard and S&M. Wagner thought McKinney was going to punch him for a second, but then tensions eased up once we started talking about Baco. Then McKinney started making fun off all the pseudo-homo stuff from the Baco videos and told us to shave our “super 70s power muffs”. That was probably the most entertaining of all the interviews in terms of environment. There are a lot of golden outtakes of McKinney and others that never got used in the documentary but may go into a blooper reel for the web soon.

Shout Outs?

Just everyone who we interviewed, put us up for the night, shot interviews for us, borrowed us equipment or helped us out in general. The documentary and box set took a long time to put together, and the feedback on everything has all been super positive so that makes it all worth it. Thanks everyone!

– The Baco box set is available atÂ http://bacodesigns.com/product/baco-collectors-edition-blu-ray-box-set/
– The Baco documentary ‘Push It To 11: the Bits of Baco’ is available on iTunesÂ https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/push-it-to-11-the-bits-of-baco/id900370326 and other networks like Amazon, Google Play, Xbox and Hulu
– Baco on Instagram @bacodesigns

Crandall Shrugged

This is a re-publish of an article featured in the Albion.

I am not posting this to shed more light on my ego, but to show gratitude for their efforts in making a great magazine, including me in it’s final issue, and for showcasing the beauty of shared efforts, talent, hard work and community that make up FBM.

The following is Steve Bancroft’s interpretation of FBM, and I, after a few days spent hanging out. Although it may be a bit generous, I am honored, and humbled. Thanks man…

“Steve Crandall, the owner and founder of FBM Bicycle Company, is the most important man in BMX today. Without him and a small handful of other prime movers, BMX as we know and love it would be in a horrible state.

FBM are the only believable bicycle company in BMX right now, the only one with a message worth pushing: a wholesome message promoting living a honest, hands-on, shared and fulfilled life ‘“ the good life.

Steve Crandall reminds BMX what is important, he keeps it in check, he stops it becoming too lazy or complacent. He is a Guardian. A Defender of the true spirit of bike riding and it’s founding values.

It’s a role he never asked for, but through 20 years of swimming against the tide and upholding his beliefs while most of the BMX world was slipping the other way, it’s a position that he has bestowed upon himself. Like how in Greek mythology Atlas carries the Earth on his shoulders, Steve Crandall carries the future of bike riding on his.

Steve Crandall would never go on strike ‘“ so ingrained is his version of BMX that for that to happen he’d have to die ‘“ but if he and a select few other industry heads were ever to withdraw their efforts and influence from BMX then things would quickly slide into a dystopian mess…”

Words and Photography by STEVE BANCROFT

Crandall met me at the airport of his hometown Richmond, Virginia. After a boring flight it’s great to see such a bright and friendly face. It’s a mischievous face. Even if it was disassociated from the images of unbridled fun and mayhem, with its wonderful enthusiasm and sparkle of energy, it is a face that is impossible to dislike. We shake hands, hug and head out to the car. Dylan is driving us as Crandall’s personal means of transportation is limited to a BMX, a Harley Davidson motorcycle or a 40ft matte black school bus, none of which are practical for an airport run. As I’d come to realize over my stay with the founding owner of FBM Bicycle Company, his approach to owning vehicles is mirrored in the way he lives his life and runs his company: his apparent theory being that the most practical and efficient way of doing something is rarely the most fun or rewarding, but if you connect with like minded people and work as a community then things become easy and exciting and you can accomplish whatever you want.

We pull up outside his apartment. He lives above a bike shop called Re-Cycles. The rusted steel steps that lead up to his front door are decorated with old wheels and bike parts. There’s a cat sat outside. His name is TopSpeed. The shop down below is owned by long time FBM associate Evan Venditti, who’s away spending the winter riding and surfing in Puerto Rico. So Ricky’s running the show while he’s gone. This is another typical example of the FBM mentality, to typical folk there is a distinct choice that needs to be made between being a business owner and being a thrill-seeking nomad, but under the FBM philosophy, by working as a collective with like-minded people, there is no predefined path.

Once inside there’s work to do. Not a lot, but some. We drop my bags off and head back out to the store to pick up fresh vegetables for tonight’s meal. Steve is having a whole bunch of people over to his place for soup. Making a big batch of soup and inviting 20 of your good friends round to share it with you is a very cheap and simple way to have a good time. With everyone present being of the same persuasion as Crandall, and with Crandall being a fun-seeker, it’s not long before the beer starts to flow and the stories start to come out. Stories from the road, stories of strippers, stories of Kelly Baker, stories of Mike Tag, stories of FBM. The best kind of stories. It’s a fulfilling evening of good food, good company, good conversation and getting blind drunk.

The next day we wake up and drink coffee. I ask my host if it’s okay to take a shower. He looks at me and with an unarguable sincerity says, ‘You can do whatever you want.’ I showered and we gathered our things and headed out the door. His comment resonated with me throughout that whole time and the entire car ride to the trails. And when I think about Crandall’s life and all he’s accomplished ‘“ from traveling the world, to making bikes, to filming videos, to organizing events, to influencing whole generations of kids – I can’t help but see how he wasn’t just confirming I could use the amenities in his apartment, he was espousing his whole philosophy on life.

The line is well tarped up and covered in autumn leaves, but with many hands is doesn’t take long before every jump is uncovered, swept, watered and ready to roll. These are Crandall’s own personal trails, a place he’s built over the last few years with a couple of good friends, a place where he can withdraw from being a public figure in BMX. A place where he can get back to what it is that has led him to dedicate the last 20 years of his life pursuing, promoting and living.

The line starts with a tight roller and berm section that winds its way down the hill before opening up and picking up speed for more spread out stuff towards the bottom. A rollercoaster ride of fast and technical into bigger and faster, twisting and turning the whole way down – it’s bicycle motocross at its finest and we spend the morning flying through the trees without a care in the world. Legendary Pa trail builder Dave King Ain’t Shit is in town and he stops by, and yet more stories are told, and yet more bikes are ridden.

The next day we take the six hour drive north to Binghamton, the home of FBM. We use the time to chat about how FBM came to be. Starting at the beginning we talk about how his dad was in the Navy, and how that led to an early life of moving around ‘like a gypsy skirting around blue collar neighborhoods’. He graduated high school at 17 with best friends Mike Tag and Jeremy ‘˜Magilla’ Reiss. Tag got an apprenticeship as a metal worker and Crandall all but signed up for the Army reserves, but before either of them got too far down those more traditional routes they were caught by the, ‘call of the wild’. Through their bikes they started to travel and meet new people. They took influence from an assortment of metal, punk rock and hardcore music, reading Go Magazine, looking up to Chris Moeller and going to shows. It was while devouring all this fresh information like a pack of ravenous dogs a seed began to take root. Doodles in economics lessons in the early 90’s started to hone in on the letters FBM, a parody of how all the big BMX companies at the time were owned by corporate dudes in suits: Fat Bald Men.

They started to print their own shirts and stickers and FBM started to become more than fun sketches. It was at a gig one night that the movement was really cemented. A chance post-show encounter with The Minutemen bass player Mike Watt would spawn some- thing so powerful that 20 years down the line kids are still throwing toilets out of windows and setting their dicks on fire. What Mike said to a young and impressionable Crandall was, ‘Just start a band’. And ever since then FBM has been on a journey that’s seen it influence kids across continents, celebrate the bike rider spirit and fly in the face of the corporate world.

‘There was more in those four words than you can ever say. Mike Watt didn’t necessarily mean we should get together and make music. What he was saying was ‘˜don’t be a passenger, don’t just sit there and fade away, get out there and do it and share it, participate, get involved, don’t just sit there in the crowd and watch it all go by.’’

The more we talk about musicians and making a living out of doing something you love, the more the depth of influence from those early bands becomes apparent, ‘The bands we liked didn’t make music for commercial success. You couldn’t tell those guys to stop making music if it wasn’t working out. They’d be playing whether there was money or not. The parallels between those bands and what we were trying to do with FBM weren’t obvious at the time, but looking back now I know exactly what he was saying. I just hope we can pass our message on to as many people as possible, even if it’s just so some back- woods kid in Alabama can grow up to be awesome.’

We go back for a minute and talk more about Crandall’s personal history within BMX, through following BMX media for a long time I was aware of his rich heritage but hearing that in his early years he’d spend time around, and often worked for, many of the most credible scenes and companies of there day. I ask him to give a whirlwind recap of his BMX history, ‘Well we moved out to Indiana when I was about 17, we didn’t know what we were doing, we’d just met Stew Johnson at a race we’d travelled to. We became friends with those guys ‘“ there was no internet back then so we’d write letters to each other and send zines we’d made. After a while Stew was just like ‘you guys should come here and live’ so we did. When we first moved there we stayed at this indoor skatepark that Jody Donnelly was trying to start up. He was like ‘Yeah, come live here.You can set up your screen printing stuff and do whatever.’ It was pretty much a derelict building on an industrial estate with no power, no running water and there was no skatepark either. I remember one time washing off under rainwater coming down from a gutter. A little while after that we moved into the Fat House.

‘We lived there for a good while with no money. I headed out to Dayton, Ohio to stay with Colin Winklemann and worked at DK, I did that for a while. Then I stayed in Bethlehem, PA for a bit. Then I went to California late in 96 and stayed at the HB House, I didn’t have any money so Moeller threw me a bone and I helped out stickering forks with Freddie Chulo at S&M.Then I spent an extended stay out in Iowa helping out Rick Moliterno with some artwork at Standard.Then I moved back to Ithaca and met back up with Tag, that’s when we edited Live Fast Die. I have no idea how we crammed footage from all that into 18 mins. Before that we made Ring Of Fire, that was the first video, we made it with one single camera we owned, that was back in ’93, before that we’d film on these big things we’d borrow from Public-Access Television.We edited that at Chris Rye’s place in Wisconsin.We’d met those Props dudes while we were out in Indiana.’

The list of names and places mentioned in just a few short minutes astounds me: Stew Johnson, Colin Winklemann, DK, Chris Moeller, Bethlehem, Rick Moliterno, Standard Bykes, Props Video Magazine… It’s a reminder of how small BMX was back then, how tied in all the early companies were and how deep Crandall’s roots run.

Before the rise of the internet, magazines and videos we the main vehicles for transmitting BMX information, and with the magazines still enjoying an air of exclusive privilege, it was only right that the FBM dudes pick up a camera and make their own videos. After Ring Of Fire, Live Fast Die and then Albert St, FBM had cemented their reputation as hell raisers ‘“ the videos were fast paced with punk rock sound tracks and packed full of Fire, Beer and Mayhem. I ask Crandall how they ended up so wild, ‘We just recorded what was going on. When we weren’t riding we’d just film what we got up to.You can’t go riding all the time, you can’t always ride when it’s wet out or in the winter. We just tapped into that energy and how it was let out. When you have 20 dudes all sat in a garage waiting for the weather to clear… you’re not all just going to read books. We just kept ourselves amused with what we had going on.That energy is there no matter what.’

In-between conversations I think back to all the names that have been associated with FBM over the years, it’s a long list of some of the rawest dudes to have ever picked up BMXs. In Crandall’s own words ‘None of them were pussies.’ Just to satisfy a scenario that was playing out in my head, I ask who would win if all team members, past and present, had a Royal Rumble style wrestling match, ‘Kelly Baker’ he answers in a heartbeat, ‘he’s a different kind of beast! Dudes don’t want to tangle with him. I’ve known trained fighters who wouldn’t mess with Kelly.’

Throughout the 2000s FBM were responsible for some of the most creative and exciting projects that will ever be held in the name of BMX: Ghetto Jams, Brawlin’ At The Belmar, Limousine roadtrips, Gypsy Caravan Tours, Summer tours in a matte black school bus, Lords Of Fun motorcycle trips, Ghetto High Air Comps, 4/20 Bowl Jams, HCS Pizza Apocolympics and countless of other trips and projects ‘“ all promoting what they do, all encouraging participation and all fun as hell.

FBM is known around the world for doing things their own way. They make their own bikes in their own machine shop in upstate New York. Their tight knit team are unpaid and all perfectly aligned with the FBM cause. Together they travel relentlessly, spending large spans of time with each other: riding, building, cooking, camping and experiencing life first hand. They document and disseminate their antics to promote their products and ideas on a global scale.

Despite FBM’s influence stretching far and wide, it’s no secret that the company isn’t making millions of dollars. We talk about how it’s a struggle to go against the grain and how that struggle brings rewards of its own. The Dictaphone keeps running and Crandall keeps talking, ‘We know how to make money as a company, but we’d prefer to be broke and proud of what we do than making a bunch of money doing something we don’t believe in. For us the reward is in the process not the paycheck. We spend our money in our community. If we need to get shirts printed or someone to distro our stuff, then I’m going to hire my friends. If we’re going to spend the money anyway then we might as well give it to someone we care about and believe in.Yeah we might not be rich off it in a financial sense, but we enjoy what we do.

‘The way I see it, the day you got a BMX, you won the lottery. You could get a flat tire or your trails plowed or crash and get hurt, but even the shittiest day in BMX is better than the best day in the real world. It’s not about the tricks man.The real trick is to see how long you can ride a bike for without turning into a typical asshole.

‘FBM is a reaction to all the bullshit out there. The whole fundamentals of the punk rock we grew up listening to was, ‘˜here’s the establishment, we’re going to go in the opposite direction to it ‘“ who’s coming with us?’ That was our early inspiration. And we were like ‘˜Yeah man, we’re with you’. And that’s what we do. We grew up watching Moeller do the same thing to GT. He was like ‘˜fuck these guys, they don’t give a fuck about BMX.’ There’s a whole new establishment going on now and we’ve been around so long that some people today don’t even know we’re rebelling against it. These days there are all these people wearing store bought outlaw tattoos going around, but if you just live your store bought lifestyle straight out of the catalogue then you’re just another part of the system. And so-and-so pro rider is just the marketing tool for another nameless faceless corporation ‘“ and we’re not that. And if kids don’t appreciate that then it’s too bad for them.

‘You could sell 100,000 BMX bikes to kids that are going to quit in two years, or you could span that out over a longer period of time and actually do something meaningful with people who care about BMX and want to be part of what you’re doing, people that understand and appreciate it. That’s money in my bank, man. That’s currency for people in my world. The money doesn’t have any value if there’s no meaning behind it. The real currency is with doing cool shit and helping it be a healthier community, the more you share with people and do for people the more you learn about yourself, and if at the end of the day you learn that you’re a good person, then that’s valuable. You can’t sell enough Rocker Bikes to buy that.’

‘I just want to share with the next generation of kids that you can make a good life for yourself through BMX. If you just get off your computer and get off your phone and live it for real for a little while.That’s pretty fucking valuable. More valuable than how many Nora cups you win or how many views you get on Youtube.You have friends for life and can take it wherever you want. BMX is too awesome to squander.’

The words caught by my Dictaphone during that drive are among the most profound and sincere its ear has ever heard. Hell, if it had a mind of its own the thing would send its own electronic message through its circuitry and amplify it out through its own little speaker. It would say, ‘Fuck yeah Crandall, you rule man. Never go on strike!’ [The Dictaphone caught 100,000 more words that there’s no room for here, but if you ask around you’ll find a more complete history of FBM easy enough.

We pull up the car outside FBM. From the exterior the dilapidated old giant of a building looks more likely to house a meth den than a machine shop, but once inside it’s obvious that despite all the drinking and setting each other on fire ‘“ these guys run a tight ship. The shop floor is swept clean, the machinery is all dialed and there’s a well-rehearsed production loop for the frames: from the cutting, notching and bending of the tubes at one end, down through to be tacked in a jig and on to the final welds. There is a hell of a lot more goes into making high end BMX frames but that’s the short of it right there. Uncut tubes of the finest chromoly come in one door and perfectly handcrafted frames of the finest quality go out the other.

Watching the whole process first had gives me a greater appreciation of bikes. It’s a painstaking undertaking that takes years of refinement and improvement to arrive at a final product. It’s no surprise these guys make awesome bikes though, the staff at FBM are all of the calibre you’d come to expect from a brand with such steadfast morals, Crandall’s partner in the company Mike Erb, John Lee, Johnny Corts, Dylan Cole ‘“ all rock solid dudes who not only understand the cause, they live and breath it every day of their lives.

With their frames being built there, the machine shop is the most obvious symbol of what FBM make, but that’s really just where it all begins. The same principals are rolled out across everything they do: hard work and creativity to build something awesome ‘“ whether that be bikes, ghetto jams, tour buses, motorcycles or any of the other countless projects FBM have seen through.

We stay the night at John Lee’s and in the morning Crandall has some business to discuss with his co-workers. After that we head out on the drive back to Richmond. We talk the whole way, in fact we talk the whole time I’m out there. The stories he has and the life that both him and FBM have lived could fill a whole volume of this magazine. FBM is bigger than one article, it’s bigger than one guy. FBM is an idea ‘“ and ideas are boundless.

We wind down my visit back in the woods, the pureness of a quiet session at the trails makes a fitting end. Sat at the top of the roll in with Crandall waiting to catch our breath for another run, I can’t help but smile. It’s not just the fact that I’m doing what I enjoy that’s brought on this sensation; it’s much more than that. In fact my euphoria could well be the result of the most important realization anyone has ever had. In a moment of all-seeing enlightenment, attained by merely sharing this mans company, I am bathed in the knowledge that everything will be alright: that so long as people like him exist, humanity will be just fine.

Whether it’s riding bikes in the woods, standing at a crowded bar, or riding shotgun in an otherwise empty car, the energy that surrounds Steve Crandall is nothing short of magical.The passion for bike riding, the devotion to his cause, the belief in what he does, the constant positivity… When all that is combined with a relentless quest for fun and betterment the product is one truly unique human being ‘“ a human being with the capacity to change the world.
His energy and optimism are so infectious that they make people sick all over the world. He fills them with so many ideas and opportunities, that their heads grow so fat and swollen with inspiration they’ve got no option but to just spew it all out ‘“ to cover the woods, the ramps, the streets ‘“ to spray everything with their own individual blend of puke. He spurs riders on ‘“ old and new ‘“ to keep pushing, to keep questioning, to keep thinking for themselves … to keep imagining a better world and to keep trying to make that world a reality. And that is not only the most believable message in BMX right now ‘“ that is the most believable message on the whole fucking planet.
If this world were to ever loose the values that FBM embody, then may God help us all.