LONDON>COLOGNE 1994 by John Dye

Words and photos: John Dye


You don’t need a massive luxury wagon to go BMX roadtrippin’ – a SWB Ford Transit (hammocks optional) with the side door open will more than suffice.

I can’t even remember the first roadtrip I ever went on… It was probably to an old contest somewhere none too exciting. I do remember the first Euro roadtrip I went on though, it was a big deal: The year was ‘94, I have no idea how we managed to actually pull it off, it seems such an epic deal arranging a trip now. But somehow we managed to hire a van, book a ferry, find a map of Europe, save some money and gather up a crew of absolute clowns – guess that’s where we set the standard for all proceeding trips?
I think this for most of us was our first time abroad without our parents, school or some sort of governing force keeping an allseeing- eye on everything. I remember a bunch of us didn’t even own passports and only got them a few days before.
Can’t remember the exact amount of people in our van, but it was tight, I’m guessing ten riders and ten bikes or something like that in a short wheelbase Transit with no seats in the back. I think the crew was me, Adam Peters, Birdman, Stuart King, Lemsip, Joel, Fids, Dorcel, Dave Beveridge and Harry, Leigh Ramsdell also came with us. So 11 of us in there, but I don’t remember how that came about… Just bodies and limbs all over the place. All kinds of petty fights and verbal wars about who had the most space. It had never even crossed our minds that it was against the law to be carrying people in the back of a van with no seats. The people at the ferry check-in didn’t care either; the passenger passed out all ten passports, they checked ‘em by getting us to poke our heads up, and just let us roll right on in. I think we even smuggled Leigh through?
Once we were on the ferry the mayhem pretty much kicked in. People were stealing drinks, food, whatever was there that wasn’t nailed down to some extent made it back to the van. I recall stopping in Holland for the stoners to score weed too, and getting out and taking in the sights of a 3am Amsterdam was pretty f—king creepy to us under-travelled brits.
From there on the crew in the back was dropping like flies; I think I was sitting back to back with this kid Joel, and every time he fell asleep his head would rock back and knock on mine, I was getting pissed off and so was everyone. We were driving along with the side door of the van open, like a f—king carnival float ‘cause it was so hot. Anyone who looked in saw a bunch of snoozing geezas sitting up.
After a good four or five hours from Amsterdam we ended up in Cologne in a park, but it was the wrong one. From there we drove round the Cologne ring road for few hours. We must have stopped six or seven times, the side door of the van kept opening and we all would awake thinking we had arrived, but we would just be at another garage. It was f—ked.
Finally got there, the contest was f—king awesome and everyone who was anyone was there. We had tents and camped in some campsite type affair where everyone else was set up. It was an eye-opening experience. One day we drove with a few other English guys to Munchengladbach skatepark and had a splendid session on this mini with all these inter-linked hips.
On the way back to the UK things proceeded to get insane: I think Fids was driving back. Any garage stop was just an excuse for people – half of whom were now drunk – to get out of the van in their socks and steal as much shit as they could physically carry; Adam stole some little bottle of whiskey and was pretty happy about it, until Dorcel – the youngest guy on the trip – came back to the van with a full blown whisky bottle. Words were exchanged and bullying was applied for a swap of said bottles. A little bit down the road the booze had sunk in to young Dorcel and he decides he needs a piss, he is pissing out the side door of the van whilst we are driving along. Further down the road he has his fists up and he has turned into a whiskey bent maniac, grinning and demanding a fist fight in the van with Birdman. At this point the whole of the van’s occupants are crying with laughter, this 16- year-old kid is standing up windmilling for his life, but can’t reach anyone because we are all sitting down with our feet up against his chest. Someone bagged his head with sleeping bag, yet even this didn’t stop the anger carrying on. This riotous behaviour carried on for a few hours until he fell asleep and people coloured his face and ear in with a blue marker... that’s the trip that gets measured to all our Euro trips these days. Complete stupidity.

1994 set the bar, but John and the Union have been trying to raise it ever since – Union trips are almost as frequent as rounds of tea at Cyclone.

The Bicycle Union website

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