Birthplace: UK
TIOGA RHYNO LITE FRAME.
Mark Noble: The Tioga Rhyno Lite frame was a great model, and my BMX mentor of early years (1981 / 82?) had one, so as an impressionable kid, I had to get one too. It was great. A weird gusset, shaped down and toptubes, and the same geometry as a Raleigh Aero Pro. One of my favourites, of all the bikes I've had through the years ...
Mark Noble: It was good, for the time: and I have many good memories of it all, since I've been riding and going to comps since 1985. Freestyle was so young, so it was all brand new and experimental - the fundamentals of the sport were being developed, every day. What worked? What didn't? What was good? What was bad? The very essence of the sport was evolving all the time.
Competitions have their place in riding, and in the early days some keen parents started the association so their kids could ride more comps. Comps were good, though as riders got older, they figured out comps weren't for them - and some people figured that 'compulsories' and 'riding times' and 'uniforms' weren't for them. Comps changed and improved, but some riders left them and did their own thing. Riding developed so fast: street jams, halfpipes, street courses came, back garden ramp jams - and the structure of the UKBFA didn't fit these new developments. Riders evolved, riding itself evolved and changed, and freestyle became more 'free'. So, as with framestanders, ACS Rotors, and wheeldiscs, the UKBFA just faded away.
Mark Noble: The first magazine I have contributed to was 'Freestyle BMX' magazine and I started reporting contests in 1986. I was going to every single comp back then, and photographed and wrote about every one, then began testing bikes, doing interviews, putting more and more input into the magazine, and eventually took it over and ended up running it shortly after - 1989 I was editing it. Rider-run!
4th place 17+ flatland @ 1987 worlds in UK.
Mark Noble rolling freak squeaks on the cover of Freestyle BMX UK june 1988. Photo by Kris.
WORLD CHAMPION.
World champion @ 1988 Tizer worlds in UK.
Mark Noble: The Tizer Worlds... plenty of good but vague memories. Luckily I have a magazine to look back on so I don't have to rely on my memory alone... it was a good time. Dennis McCoy blasting, Carlo Griggs going seriously high on dodgy quarterpipes, a ton of foreign riders, strange places to stay. An odd contest for sure, but good riding for the time. I remember sitting with John Yull having a coke, waiting for the results to come out, getting anxious as hell. Then the results were added up, and I won. 17+ Flatland. I have the trophy downstairs here at 4130, in the Warehouse. Unfortunately, since I was shooting photos for the magazine at the time, I don't have any of myself... sorry.
THE ENCHANTED HOUSE.
Mark Noble: It was a crazy place with crazy stories. My time there was very brief, during a fleeting visit in 1988, or was it 1989? Anyhow, staying at the house at the time were Lee Reynolds, Kevin Martin, and some dude on the couch. Me and my brother shacked up in the lounge for a bit, and shot a bunch of photos for the magazine back then -- Freestyle BMX. Photographed the usual suspects: Lee Reynolds, Chris Potts, Ron Wilkerson, Eddie Roman, all those guys. Got to witness first hand some unbelievable vert riding, just on the backyard ramp... it wasn't the best quality vert ramp either,but it was a highly influential place.
(Did you live there ?) No... just stayed there for a bit on a working / riding / photography trip.
(Anything more to tell about this experience ?) It rained, which was weird at the time.
Freestyle BMX became Invert in august 1989
Mark Noble: We changed the name, when we relaunched the magazine and started bringing in skateboarding as well. We kinda mixed it up a bit, we had good skate photographers, the whole scene was changing, and it was so small, and people were getting into both. And the name Invert covered both, so it fitted. It worked out well too, for the time being. We had fun with it.
Mark Noble on the cover of Invert july 1990. Photo by Kris.
Invert becomes Ride BMX UK.
Mark Noble: We launched 'Ride BMX Magazine' in summer 1992, because we just wanted to grow a pure BMX magazine. It made sense - times change. It's not called Ride BMX UK though - that is just the nickname people give it to differentiate it from the American version of Ride BMX. The proper name is Ride BMX Magazine... and since then the magazi deluxe ne has not stopped growing.
Interview: FAT zine issue 26.
Mark Noble, bmxunion.blogspot.com, december 2008: I've been toying with something with Deluxe for a couple of years now - at 4130 we almost launched a magazine with the same name, around '98 - it was later launched as Level Magazine, which we did for a couple years. I've always fiddled with frame designs and so on, for years. I did a prototype flatland frame with Proper when they started out, years back. So, with the name in mind first, I started work on it at the tail end of 2006 - I say 'work', but back then Deluxe was just a creative project, something I could do as a side thing, on weekends and evenings, just designing and making things with some mates etc. Bit of a laugh really, nothing serious, a bunch of people in the industry do it, several of my old colleagues at the magazines did it - so I figured why the hell not? We printed some T-shirts, drew up some frames and bars, got some friends involved, got stuff made and people are stoked on it, feedback was really good. Deluxe started out as just a creative project really... I had some creative urges, besides putting everything I had into making the magazines at the time - I worked my frickin nuts off for that mag company. But now the magazines have been taken out my hands and there's nothing I can do about it, Deluxe BMX is now pretty much full-time for me, almost - I have some other good projects in the works too.
www.fatbmx, august 2008: Congrats to Mark Noble and his lady on the birth of their third child (daughter this time).
Mark Noble, espn.go.com/action/bmx, january 2009: For the past two decades or so I have launched and edited BMX magazines ranging from small-time titles to something you may just have heard of: Ride BMX (the British one). Those years were good times, but now it's past-tense like water under the bridge. Through all those years I've seen and done most things in BMX and travelled the world reporting it all through print publications, but now there are different outlets to work with. And I ain't done yet! So, I'll be helping out at ESPN Action Sports, working with Brian Tunney and Cody York to ramp up the BMX coverage online.