Bart de Jong was born in Aarle-Rixtel.
Bart: Paul and I always wanted to ride motocross but could not afford it. We rode motocross on regular bicycles and made tracks. We painted bikes green (Kawasaki), red (Honda) or yellow (Suzuki) and pretended we had motocross bikes. There was no BMX at the time in Europe. I started riding when I was 4 (1973). When the first BMX bikes made it to Europe it was clear that it was the sport for me. I rode my first BMX race on a regular bike and won that one (1979). Later on that year Santa Claus brought me my first BMX bike.
Early BMX racing champion days.
Bart: My first official licensed BMX race was a race in Schijndel, Holland in March of 1980. Most memorable BMX races entered were the Open European Championships in Beek en Donk ('82 finished 5th in expert class), the 1983 IBMXF World's in Slagharen (Finished 6th in 11-13 open class) and the Dutch GP in Waalre that I won in 1982.
Bart (3) and Paul (5). Photo: Dad.
Bart. Photo: Dad.
Bart: With our dad heavily involved in the organisation of the 1982 European Championships in Beek en Donk, Paul and I got in touch with the SKYWAY team. The Vice President, Andy Patterson and Mike Salido were staying at our house for the race. From the few BMX Plus! issues that we had, we had learned a couple of words of English and used that to talk to the stars. I remember Andy doing wheelies on my mother's 'Holland-rad' when we rode home together. This guy was my hero, he won the race and gave me his padset. Yes!
Bart: Paul started experimenting with freestyle. The BMX ACTION trick team had come to Europe and inspired him to learn the rock-walk, see saw, front and backwheel hops and the no-footed curb endo. No pegs to be seen on the trick bikes! I was still concentrating on racing and got a 6th place at the World Championships in Slagharen in 1983, beating Steve Veltman.
Bart: As soon as the BMX racing scene got too serious and doing 'kick-out' jumps were not allowed on the track anymore, Paul and I got purely into BMX trick riding. We had the wedge ramp tricks going with the coasterbrake. Doing kickturns like Rich Sigur was our goal. The first axle pegs started coming in around this time (1985) which made doing tricks unfair because it was too easy (e.g. hopping tricks). Soon enough new tricks were developed that were only possible with the help of pegs and gave them a place to stay. With the Skyway connection in the pocket getting our hands on the latest freestyle equipment was a piece of cake. 5 cm. wide axle pegs and the Skyway Spinmaster were sent our way directly from Redding California. They never sent the removeable platform though.
Freestyle Force
Bart: The quest for freestyle shows was there and we started the 'Freestyle Force'. We made hundreds of FF stickers by hand and put them on people's bikes, numberplates etc. Our shows usually consisted of flatland and kickturns since the 'quarterpipe' didn't fit on dad's trailer.
Bart, Ride BMX UK january 2005: It's hard to understand how we had to progress in the mid-80s. It was either making up tricks yourself (the best way actually) or look at the magazines that were available. That made for some interesting situations as me tried to balance in the elbow glide position not knowing that the rider in the picture was actually rolling. The lack of English knowledge didn't help either. Video made things a lot clearer as you could see the moves but it was not common that everyone had a VCR at home. We didn't have one for awhile and were stuck with the magazines or watch them at friend's houses. There was another problem: NTSC to PAL. The American videos didn't play too well on the PAL VCRs that were around. If you were lucky and had a TV that played both systems, you got the black and white version with no sound. Hey, at least you could see the riding! Solutions to this were to find a BMXer on an American military base. They somehow could use their 110-volt NTSC equipment and watch every VHS tape that came from the USA. My new friend Jim lived in Volkel where his dad was based. He had the RAD video, RAD TV, Thrashin' and the GT video. Right when the Oorkin' videos were coming out Jim's dad was transferred to another base and my BMX video friend was gone. With the Dorkin' videos not available in PAL, a solution was found in Germany. Find someone with an NTSC set-up and then film the actual TV with a VHS-PAL camera on a tripod. Then borrow someone's VCR, plug it in, and make a copy. Needless to say, the quality was rubbish but that didn't matter much. The Dorkin' videos showed a lot of progression in BMX freestyle, way more than the magazines could ever bring us. We would still be balancing that elbow glide right now...
Bart, Ride BMX UK june 1993: FAT Mag is something that my brother and I started against another Dutch mag called 'BMX Tricks', and FAT means Freestylers Against Tricks, the other mag. We did that because Tricks wasn't good anymore, they didn't give freestylers coverage, it was all about racing, and we started to make a 'zine of our own, us freestylers, we wrote a lot of crap about Tricks, it was pretty silly. After we did the first, people started asking about a second, we didn't really want to do a second issue, but, it was just for a joke, but people liked it so much we had to do another issue.
Tizer worlds.
Bart: The first BIG freestyle contest I entered was the Tizer World's in England in 1987. It was the first time I stepped in a plane and "team Holland" was representing well on and off the ramps. These World's were unique, they lasted a week and there were different locations. We traveled in busses to different venues every day. A real experience to see the hardcore English riders in action. Good time and a real eye opener for me.
Dutch Freestyle champion.
FAT-JAM.
Bart: We started this years ago. I think it was around 1988 that we did the first one. We started with a street session with ramps, pallets, cars, washing machines, rails etc. and later it turned out to be a dirt session at our local trails. It's usually dirt jumping during Saturday and something else on Sunday. We've done lake jumping on Sundays, motocross and this year it was a miniramp contest on Sunday. Saturday night it's party time at OJA.
Over the years the following people visited the FAT-JAM: Mat Hoffman, Todd Lyons, Jay Miron, Props, Leigh Ramsdell, UGP-crew, Chase Gouin, Day Smith, Paul osicka, James Sheppard and many more. 1994 was my personal favorite.
We now (2003) do two events per year. The "Mini-FAT-JAM" to kick off the season (March/April) and the actual FAT-JAM in the summer. It keeps the scene alive and motivates the locals to keep digging at the trails.
Commercials.
Bart: In 1988, Paul and I were invited to be part of a Coca Cola commercial shooting together with our friend Menno Fennema. We had to do tricks on our bikes, drink lots of Coca Cola and sat in a side-hack motorcycle. It was a good experience and really fun. I also once flew to the Canary Islands to do a Pro Specs shoe commercial (1991). I was chilling in the sun for a few days, rode for 20 minutes and relaxed some more. All expenses paid.
Bart: When I started riding freestyle you simply rode everything: flatland, quarterpipe and trick ramp (kickturn wedge ramp). With limited ramps available where I lived it was always possible to ride flat. Even in the winter it was possible to find a dry spot. I've always liked flatland and think the flat riders of today deserve a lot of respect for what they do. I entered flatland at the 1987 world's, the Tizer World Cup in 1988, the 1989 World's in Paris, 1990 in Trier and maybe even at the 1991 World's in Denmark where I also entered street.
USA
Bart: As a BMX-er you want to see the American action. For me the first time was in 1990 after I finished school and before I had to join the army in January of 1991. I saved up enough money to stay for three months. I had been exchanging letters with the DirtBros and some other American friends and couldn't wait to go. It was a really good time and basically what I expected. Riding in the sunshine during the day and partying every night. I made sure I spent the next 4 winters in So-Cal after that.
Bart: At the time there were different classes. I believe A, B and C. I entered B-class and got second in 1991 and won the class in 1992 in Budapest. I felt stupid being world champ in street and never put a lot of value to it.
Bart de Jong on the cover of Freestyle BMX magazine april 1993.
Interview in Ride BMX UK #5 june july 1993.
Freestyle shows in China.
Bart de Jong: It was an experience. We spent 3 weeks in China doing shows in stadiums. The Chinese people had never seen anything like it. It was a skateboard/BMX promotion tour that went from Shenzhen to Nanking to Shanghai. We either traveled by bus, train or plain, all of them were pretty sketchy. We were welcomed at hotels as the Olympic ski and cycling team. They had no clue. I'm sure in 10 years lots has changed in China.
BMX-ers on the trip were Chris Young, Rob Nolli, Stephan Prantl, Todd Seligman, Pat Miller, John Parker and Day Smith. We had to ride a synchronized show on sketchy ramps that were nailed together and were out of scale. Anything we did was new to them so we made it work to get a 45 minute show together.
8th place pro street for Bart and a free FAT zine for me. Thanks.
Bart: Started working for GT in May of 1996. During my USA visits I got to work at GT's factory for a couple of weeks for three years in a row. That way I got to know the American GT people. GT had opened up a European office in Belgium in 1992. I started working there in 1996 which was basically my first real job. I had been doing temporary jobs since I left school so I could quit and travel to the contests in Europe in the summer, work for three months, and then go to California for the winter. This came to an end when the GT job came along. In the beginning I was an assistant to the marketing director. This job turned into a BMX position running the European BMX race team, the European Freestyle program and I also had to work with the European magazines and distributors. It was a BMX job and I loved it. Very lucky indeed.
9th place dirt @ Worlds, Cologne, Germany.
Show du team GT Europe avec les anglais Zak "back flip 360" Shaw, John Taylor et notre Lionel Cardoso national, fraîchement recruté par Bart de Jong. John Taylor et Zak Shaw sur une aire trop petite avec un quarter et une funbox.
Lionel Cardoso au sol. Bart DeJong au micro.
IFN (International Freestyle Network), Paul de Jong (Paul's Boutique), Bart de Jong (team manager GT Europe), and Fat Jam fame are organising the 1997 worlds in Eindhoven.
Bart de Jong: I wanted to do this last issue of FAT 'zine to wrap everything up. It never happened because I was too busy at work (GT). Every now and then I did write a story and was hoping it would happen in the end but it didn't. The internet was quite new at that time, especially to me. Jos Wissink, a Dutch BMX freestyle friend was more familiar with it and asked why we did not make a FAT website. I told him I did not know how that worked. He offered to help and soon enough I had my text and pictures on the web. That was pretty cool. Jos is still the webmaster of FATBMX and he rules. We now (2003) have 4000 unique visitors per day and 4 million hits per month. Quite amazing.
EUROPEAN BMX CONNECTION was founded on 22 October 2001.
Consulting, market research, contest and show organising, announcing of freestyle events, judging of freestyle events, manual translating, running/setting up BMX race/freestyle teams, freelance journalism (articles and photo's), ...
Isn't it hard working for Haro and judging events in the same time ?
Bart: No, it is not hard for me to do that. When I'm in the judging table I switch the button and give points according to how the rider performs, not to what kind of T-shirt he wears. I have lots of friends riding in the contests, this would make 25 winners if I wanted to help out my friend with a better score. I have never favored a rider because he was in my team.
Interview: Cream BMX lifestyle #3 november 2003.
Bart at Sugar Hills. Photo by Paul de Jong.
Photo by Paul de Jong.