Bubba Harris on the cover.
This issue has a Bubba Harris and Warlock interview.
Bart de Jong, www.fatbmx.com, may 2005: With competing magazines working on their umpteenth issue, you are getting used to the way their set up is and what you can expect. With Twenty BMX it's still fresh. We received issue # three in the FATBMX mailbox and it has a racer on the cover. Don't be fooled though because this AA Pro racer knows how to do X-up flips, tailwhips and he cranks turndowns and lookbacks at the local Vegas concrete parks. It's Schwinn's Nate Berkheimer who also has the pro interview inside. For the old dogs, Twenty brings a story on the Joe Kid premiere in Hollywood (home of the editor). There's a big feature on the PIG contest that only seemed to take place a few weeks ago. Flatlander Justin Miller is a force to be reckoned with. Page 40/41 shows you what he's all about. The magazine seems to cover what other mags don't so it's no surprise to find an interview with Holland's one and only AA pro Robert de Wilde on p. 44. The Filter section is the photo part of the magazine. Trial & Error is the how-to section (X-up). Two cents is an article by the injured Biz. I.D. is some sort of Bio page that features Jamey Dakis this time. Wrench brings a how-to install cranks. Some product and bike stuff is followed by a Recon on Fuzzy. The Preview section does reviews (Empire-Megatour 4) and the mag ends with the Contrast section featuring Steve Crandall and Chris Moeller on the same page. All in all 92 pages of BMX.
Bart de Jong, www.fatbmx.com: Kevin McAvoy and Justin Kosman keep firing out these Twenty BMX mag babies in a timely fashion. They'll be at number 20 in no-time. Mike Saavedra gets the cover. I thought it was Corey Bohan at first. Twenty has a lot of racing in it. Hopefully the BMX racing community appreciates that and buys the mag. The Pump section brings news and small articles like the one on Scot Breithaupt and Greg Romero. It moves on to the SubDivision 2005 report and continues with a Snafu road trip in the OKC area. Mongoose race Joey Bratford gets interviewed and the August issue comes with a Mongoose/Hyundai team poster. Twenty BMX covers the CFB in Oklahoma and that's quite quick as the comp happened only last month. Riding the Curve is a racing article with Matt Pohlkamp, Kris Fox and Ryan Roberts. It follows the riders during a race. Don't forget to put your filter on your camera. The Filter photo section brings you big pics (on the big size paper mag). Footjam how-to, check. Ariel Greer gets an interview that starts on page 64 and ends on page 65. It's more of a BIO and they call it I.D. in Twenty. Greg Romero puts in his Two Cents on page 66 and if you don't know how to install headsets, turn to page 70 + 72 for the full instructions. 10 stems get reviewed in The 10 Spot article and more products make it in the Newest Gear section. Kyle Weisenberger gets that page with all the Polaroid photo's of himself in different situations. There's always some funny stuff in these. DVD Reviews of Off The Map, Soul # 27, Orchid, SIN and Transit 5 can be found on page 84/86. The contrast article is in pink this time and compares Samantha Cools with Kim Hayashi.
Full page race cover representing our finest on the glossy front page. A huge Christian Bercerine interview inside and a ton of other stuff to read on the crapper.
Bart de Jong, www.fatbmx.com, august 2005: It's been quite in review land. It's not that we have not received the magazines or DVD, it's just that we have had no time to check them out. Twenty BMX magazine seems to come out on a regular basis. The September issue is another good issue. The mix with BMX racing and Freestyle might not be your thing but maybe you can give it a try. You can either learn something from racing or as a racer, you can pick up some tricks from the freestyle dudes. The cover has racing on it. This might be risky business but it shows the Twenty people have got balls. The big format gives you bigger pictures, even the photos in the Pump (news) section show up rather big. There's and article about the MacNeil West Coast Tour, a Cristian Becerine interview, a report about the Dew Tour round in Louisville. If you want to know what the future holds for Mike Lundy, turn to page 50, that's where the interview starts. Do you know what BMX Purgatory is? Don't worry, I didn't know either. More on this on P. 62. 63 and 64. There's a TD how-to, a Torey Kish I.D., Jason Carnes is putting in his Two Cents and twenty also shows you how to cut your stock bars and put the grips back on. There's a bunch of products featured in the Showcase/Inventory part and those Recon photo's are always funny. Some DVD reviews (LD/Props) and a Contrast last page thingy with Muth and Napolitan wrap up the September issue. Go check it out.
KC Badger is on the cover doing a sweet turndown at the Red Bull Elevation dirt contest.
NBL Grands.
Brian Castillo.
Colombia competicion.
Vancouver Metro jam.
Bart de Jong, www.fatbmx.com, november 2005: Now what does [twenty] have to offer you this time? The Red Bull elevation contest to start with (cover). Justin Kosman went to Colombia for a BMX race and reports from there. Colin Winkelmann 1976-2005 R.I.P.. The Pump section alsways has a bunch of good (party) photos. Some people will hate it, the rest don't. X-Games 11. If you missed it, [twenty] fills you in with 2 pages of photos, results and some text. The Dexter Hub (Cheap Profile) is featured in [Showcase]. If you're in the hunt for a pair of shoes and you can't decide, this issue isn't going to help. They show 10 pairs which makes it even harder to pick one. Metro Jam Vancouver, check. NBL Grands, check. Brian Castillo in 500 different looks; covered. Find the Sean Logan [I.D.] (bio) on page 76. Mike "Hucker" Clark shows how to do a nosedive 360 on the next page. Robbie Miranda puts in his [two cents] on page 80. He's damn right. We're missing those days where you actually had mud on the BMX track and you had to put your leg out (MX style) in the first turn when you were going speedway style. Racers want it so smooth these days that you could actually ride a "10 speed" on the BMX track. Put the MX back into BMX. Bad to the Bone Covert bikes: Your bikes suck. Win Greg Romero's pink aluminium Revtec race bike with scary forks when you subscribe to [twenty]BMX. Details on page 84. Products featured in the [inventory] section are: A'me grips, Demolition F-1 sprocket, Answer forks, FBM Deployer frame, Sun Light wheelset and the Eastern Jane bike. More next page with the HARO Group 1 SX Pro XL race bike, O'Gio bag, XpedoF1 pedals, Shadow hubs, Felt Cranmer bars and the Super* Elect stem. Tell Leigh Ramsdell to take some funny shots and you'll get this [recon]. Ruff Draft and Half and Half get reviewed and the [contrast] last page interviews are with Bubba Harris and Mike Day. Convinced? Get it.
Bart de Jong, www.fatbmx.com, december 2005: Issue 8 of twentyBMX arrived at the FATBMX offices and it´s another good one. The best thing about Twenty mag is that it is so current. The news section even has some NEWS that we have not heard about yet. The ABA Grands took place at the end of November and the mag has gone to print and was sent from the USA to Holland only a couple of weeks later. I like that speed. The news section tells us that Markus Wilke is riding for KHE. That was news to me. UGP is making shoes and Mike Saavedra´s trails are no more. The 6 days in Vegas report shows a bunch of stuff that was going on in the week of Interbike-Vans let it ride jam weekend. Baco A Go Go deserves a full page for the costumes alone. RedBull build/off gets a page, Backpack essentials is an article on products that should be in your backpack when you go out riding. The Grands get 6 pages of race coverage with loads of racer interviews. Aussie Corey Bohan gets a big interview and also made the cover. If he had not maxed out on his photo contingency for 2005, this will help. Confused USA racers in Japan and a Dutchy won......haha. Rich Hirsch in ANOTHER advertisement? Does he make the ads himself or something? A bachelor party report with lots of riding going on. Meet Chad de Groot. Damn sweet photo of Huong Tran on page 64. Biz is back (p.65). Parslow goes frontflip crazy (p.66). Crazy German on page sixty eight (Wicke) and also Bagley gets a big photo in the FILTER section. Eugene Collins grabbed his bike and started swimming towards LA after Katrina hit his hometown in New Orleans. Interview/BIO on p.72. Premium's Ryan Mills also gets a BIO which is called TWO CENTS in Twenty magazine. Greg Hill gives away some sprint tips straight out of the Speed seminar clinic book. Products are presented in the Inventory article. Check the Circus Sprocket. It was a project that Colin Winkelmann was working on and are out now through System Cycle for fifty bucks. A portion of the proceeds will go to the Colin Winkelmann Memorial Scholarship Fund at Woodward Camp. Tyler Brown travels the world and took a few shots with his digi camera for the RECON page. Reviews on videos, most of which are new to me hint hint. The last article is the Contrast article. This time it´s TJ Lavin and Josh Stricker.
Kevin McAvoy, www.fatbmx.com, january 2006: H3 Publications has ceased production of Twenty BMX magazine. It came as quite a surprise to Justin and me, Kevin McAvoy, although we were aware of the sufficient risk in launching a project of this magnitude, we were under the impression that financing was in place for 2006. It’s obviously very disappointing to us, as we felt we were on the right road, developing Twenty into the premier magazine encompassing all aspects of BMX riding. It’s unfortunate that we couldn’t have launched at a time when BMX magazine sales across the board were stronger; H3 is a startup, and doesn’t possess the deep roster of other titles that larger publishers do, so they couldn’t support Twenty until the market came back around. Regardless, we had a great time putting the magazine together, and we thank everyone who supported us, from H3 for giving us the opportunity, to our advertisers, to the many readers who told us they liked what we were doing. We even thank the handful of haters who, by their very identity, unknowingly confirmed that we were doing the right thing.
Justin will continue to shoot kick-ass photos, and I will hopefully sell my soul to a corporate giant and be consumed by a world of lustful excess, deceit, and depravity. Or I might start welding frames together; it all depends on the health plan. Thanks for reading; we’ll see you around…