– How did the paisley thing with Profile come about?

“A couple of years ago they asked me about doing a colourway. I remember thinking, Profile don’t really do fluorescent coloured hubs… So I asked about that, and they said, ‘Nah, we could do that tomorrow if we wanted!’ So I had to come up with something more interesting. I basically wanted the wackiest design possible, I found that really bright paisley and sent it to Matt Coplon and he said it was perfect. 

Because Profile make everything in house and the hydro dipping place is literally just down the road, they can get samples out really quick. 

More recently, I found this black and gold paisley style and hit up Matt again, asking if they fancied doing a run of it. 2018 is Profile’s 50th year and they thought the black and gold would work well for the anniversary. It ties in quite well because paisley got so popular in the 60s.”

A post shared by Profile Racing (@profile_racing) on Aug 1, 2018 at 5:00pm PDT

– Why did you choose paisley in the first place?

“You need a pattern that repeats itself. So when you dip the part, it doesn’t matter exactly where it starts, it still looks normal no matter where it sits on the part. 

I think this new version looks quite bling… It’s less in your face than the bright coloured one, but it’s still quite quirky. People like that stuff.”

– What’s going on with the double grip flange?

“I used to run these ‘Big Cheese’ grips when I was really young. They were the only grips which didn’t wreck my hands. They had stars on them – they were the hardest grips you could possibly get. Almost plastic. Any soft grips used to fuck my hands up for some reason, but these were good. So I took the flange from those grips and kept it on pretty much every bike I’ve had. That must have been 18 years ago, easy. Long time!”

– How long have you been running the BSD Donnasqueaks?

“Quite a while! They grip really well on concrete bowls. I’ve heard some people sand the middles down when they’re new, then when the tread is worn in they’re amazing. That’s why I run them for such a long time.”

– How often do you set up a new bike?

“I swap out the frame every year or year and a half, just because I feel like if it’s my signature frame it should look good and fresh. There’s no point running a knackered looking bike. I think refreshing things that often is about right. Swap a few bits out at the same time, like bars.”

– What’s your view on bars?

“I did run my own bars, the Verde ones. They were pretty small. From there I ran some Cult bars that had similar specs, and then Bas gave me a set of Tall Order ones, which again are pretty similar. They have slowly got bigger… as the smaller ones have been available less.

I think really big bars look stupid… I think they look completely out of proportion to everything else on a BMX. When kids run big bars, I think it looks worse when they ride. Barspins look worse. You don’t really ever see anyone with huge bars looking super stylish.

“I think really big bars look stupid… I think they look completely out of proportion to everything else on a BMX.”

Back in the day, trails riders used to run wide bars, which was OK, they weren’t tall bars. Nothing like those Perfect 10s… When I see kids running tall bars, it probably doesn’t help with their bike riding at all. Look at someone like Chase Hawk, his bars are tiny and his bike looks sick. Everything he does looks sick.

On our Verde Oxbridge frame, we made the headtube taller – I think we were the first company to do that. It means you can still have bars at the right height without loads of spacers.

I feel like most people have evened out around 9 inch bars. It doesn’t need to be extreme.”