Council Estate Mods.

Byker Style

What goes through the mind of a youth to think that sticking a pair of orange 26 inch elastomer suspension style forks on to a BMX is a good idea.

Chrome is something I can understand. I remember Ratty leaving his S+M PBR at Team 2 Street at Ninth Ave one too many times. As a form of revenge the bike recieved an all over chrome paint job courtesy of Sweet Jerry. Ratty-totally un-stoked, spent easily a week in my kitchen removing Silver paint from his tyres, grips and every other conceivable component with Nitromors. The full silver paint job in the above case is a little glam but I can get away with it. It's the front sus where I stumble. The geometry of this bicycle is ridiculous, it must corner like a bitch, the rider hasn't even shifted the bars forward to compensate.

I can imagine the scene, having freshly chomed up his Mongoose the lad takes a step back admiring his handiwork but he would shake his head, perfection is but an inch away, "you know what this really could do with? A set of Suspension forks so I can take any stair set in the Byker Wall by storm."
His aim was achievable, he snook into his cousins shed with a monkey wrench removed the forks from his Motorworld MTB and installed them dry to his silver dream machine BMX. This time standing back grinning ear to ear he would speak aloud "yes, that is perfection."

The collective mind of the council estate works in strange ways, strange enough for it to be perfectly acceptable to wear one Nike Tiger Woods glove, to wear your electronic curfew tag on top of your white sock like a badge of honor, to discard used heroin syringes where your families kids play, to be topless in January enjoying the slightest hint of sub zero sunshine, to gurn your chops off for 3 days every weekend and forget about your kids, to get your current lovers name tattooed on your leg above the previous ten like a shopping list, hit list or list of sexual conquests and to modify every form of transportation from mopeds, to hatchbacks to bikes until they become almost unrecognisable from their intended forms.

Modification of clothing in the council estate is frowned upon, if you have a rip in your tracksuit and you sew it up you will forever be branded a tramp, only modification of skin, mind and transportation is encouraged.

Council estate bikes have always intrigued me, I've seen 12 inch wheels fitted to the front of 26 inch full suspension bikes, Motor scooter front ends fitted to 20 inch mtbs, 3 foot seatposts fitted to pink 14 inch girls bikes and every other bastardisation of a bicycle you can imagine. As long as you can pop a sick gear 1 wheelie the bike is considered legit by the collective consciousness of the terminally unemployed.

When I first built my 80's Peugeot CPX up in 92 I can remember envisioning it as a stealth gloss black assassin bike akin to Kitt form knight rider or Street Wolf with cleaned up white mags and a silver lightning bolt on the top tube. This vision was a million miles away from its blue and rusting frame with Cdub bars and one yellow mag wheel. The black vision I had for it embarrassed and repulsed me thinking back later in 95 when I was a hundred percent into BMX fashion and up on all the cool components and styles. Conversely this imagined and modified Peugeot sounds super cool again.

I guess cool has everything to do with your point of view, your peer's attitudes and your subjectivity. I still wouldn't rock a MTB fork on my BMX even if Carmine did it himself, said it was Shithawks certified and sincerely swore down that it was definitely the next big thing.