Living in England I think we’ve all had a thought at one time or another throughout the rainy winters of how good it would be to have a private undercover spot to ride. Well for some they make it a reality and Ant & Kelvin from the BMX Barn have done just that. Now they have been branching out their invites in return for some clips. When I heard they were doing their third instalment I had to go and find out some more about it…
Video: Ant Pearson & Kelvin Waterman / BMX Barn
Photos: Martin Grainger
“If you have a group of you and are all into it, put your money together and build something special… you won’t regret it”
Easy Guys, so lets start with the obvious…for anyone who doesn’t know, what is the BMX Barn?
Ant: The barn is a 6ft high 24ft wide mini ramp, wall one side and various add ons, this is our 5th private ramp we have built and the first one we have had indoors.
And who is involved?
Kelvin: Our local crew all had a part in someway or another when building the ramp, but as far as filming and editing that comes down to Ant and myself.
So when and how did it come about?
Kelvin: When we started building the ramp it’s was just an idea I mentioned to Ant; Invite people down and see what they could come up with when being limited to just one ramp and it grew from there between us. We wanted to keep it simple so we weren’t filming over multiple visits and definitely didn’t want it to turn into a competition of who’s done the most or craziest thing in there… basically no one ups! Just invite people who bring something a bit unique or creative and see what they can put together.
I feel like the mini ramp is almost a lost art with the current influx of local concrete parks. Are there any other ramps that have inspired this ramp?
Ant: Yeah the biggest one being the Braun ramp, at that time the ramp started to travel around Europe and we started to ride it, we had a 5ft spine mini which was quite steep. After spending some time riding the Braun ramp we came back to ours and it felt pathetic so we pulled the whole thing down and started fresh with a 6ft high, 24ft wide spine mini ramp. Unfortunately that ramp inevitably rotted away and after some time looking to rent a building to rebuild the spine we came to the realisation it’s way to expensive and our scene is to small to support it financially, so we ended up scaling down to the mini we have today.
What is your main plan with the barn, any grand future plans?
Kelvin: I think we have made the most of what we have with the ramp and space available, that said we are always up for building things or adding bits on if someone has an idea or trick they have in mind, I think that comes across in the edits.
Yeah I think the use of space for this ramp is perfect, Who has come so far?
Kelvin: Owain Clegg was up first, Martyn Cooper & Tom Justice did a split edit and most recent was Issac Lesser (you can scroll up to see this one)
Ahh, Owain and the open loop! Can you tell me a bit more about that and how it came about?
Kelvin: There’s a little bit of a story behind this one, Owain originally wanted to do a full loop so had one made, Ant travelled down to assist him with the build and once Owain had done it he let us take it away so we could do it back home, since then we’ve all been in a group msg text about wanting to get together build and try an open loop at some point. After we built the ramp we realised you could build one in the ramp fairly simply without having to build a massive landing, Ant and I built the take off, sent a picture to Owain and that was that, we set a date to film, he travelled down 4hours filmed with us all day, sent the open loop the same evening then drove the 4 hours back home that night. Owain is as BMX as it gets and was inspiring to watch.
I think plenty of people would agree it that last statement! Who else is planned to come?
Ant: I like this question, this is where I get to put people on the spot that have committed. Jack Clark, Jack Watts, Will Jackson, phil Aller & Paul Jeffries, Mike Hulluck, Mark Webb & Billy Hughes, Tall Order team, Alan Sibley, Anthony Pill & Pete Marseille, Martyn & Lola Tamblin I’m probably missing some, sorry for the names I have missed
And who would some dream visitors be?
Kelvin: Alex Hiam, Kevin Peraza, Pat Fallico, Mark Webb, Kriss Kyle, Boyd Hilder. Anyone who is a bit unique and would bring something a little outside of the norm.
Any learning curves with building this one compared to other ramps?
Ant: I wouldn’t say so, we are all tradies anyway and have the skills and tools to build them, they may look a little daunting to build but they are super easy. Biggest mistake you can make is getting the transition wrong, on our 6ft spine we spoke to Drainer who built Southseas one, we really like that ramp and apparently it’s a little mellow due to the metal fabricators getting the bend wrong so we have a true 8ft transition
A lot of you guys being tradies explains why the ramp is so solid then haha, do you have any words of wisdom for the younger generation or people wanting to do what you’ve done/ build their own ramps?
Ant: Yeah, get it done! If you have a group of you and are all into it, put your money together and build something special, you won’t regret it. We all have such fond memories of the ramps we have had over the years and the good time we had on them.
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