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CHD BMX: Straight Outta Hull

Words and photos by Adam Lievesley

CHD are a new and upcoming BMX crew making YouTube videos of their everyday sessions. I’d heard a lot about the guys and seen plenty of the videos online, but wanted to find out more.

The crew is from Hull and make some sick videos so I thought I’d meet up with them at Rockcity Skatepark, shoot some photos and try to find out a little more… I got chatting with CHD leader Mike Chudley.

– CHD, what’s it all about and where did it all start?

“CHD is basically just a crew of riders that I’ve also turned into a clothing line. It started off about 2 years ago when we started making stupid videos that were absolutely awful, haha, but at least we thought they were funny.”

– You personally don’t ride BMX , so why did you start a BMX brand?

“A lot of people ask me this to be fair. I used to ride BMX about 3 or 4 years ago but I’m just better at skating… There’s not much else to it I suppose. Because everyone else rides BMX and I’m the only skater it just works out to stick with CHDBMX.”

– Do you think you will ever convert to BMX?

“I bought a BMX recently to make things easier when we’re riding street and going on trips. A skateboard just doesn’t keep up as you can imagine, haha. But because I surround myself with riders it’s like I’m fully involved in the BMX world anyway, but I just ride a skateboard instead. I think I’ll always skate.”

– When did you realise that CHD was becoming more established as a brand?

“After I left college last year I put 100% of my time into opening an online store and getting started with merch. More recently when I released the CHDBMX summer line in July 2016 I was actually taken aback by how much people were interested and buying into the brand. I guess it’s become a proper job for myself now then!”

– You have some pretty talented riders in your crew especially Ben Towle, he must be a real help in making videos and getting CHD out there.

“Yeah I think it’s sick how everyone is genuinely pretty good at riding haha. Then Ben is on a another level. If anyone has seen Ben riding in our videos you can tell he is definitely going somewhere in BMX, I’m calling it. I think the fact everyone is pretty good but not ridiculously insane then the people watching can relate… Then Ben is there to spice the clips up a bit, haha.”

“Ben is definitely going somewhere in BMX, I’m calling it.”

– What’s your plan when making videos do yo plan them out or just film everything?

“Very little planning goes into the videos at all. I mean, I have ideas all the time but I guess that’s just down to me as the filmer to sort that out. As far as going out riding ,we normally only plan stuff for the following weekend or something, pretty last minute sort of organisation. Apart from big stuff like Barcelona, that gets planned and booked pretty far in advance. Shoutout Raz, haha…”

– What does the future hold for you guys?

“The plan is to just keep producing videos, keep producing clothing and have a good time doing it! Everyone isn’t going to be riding BMX forever so let’s just take advantage of it while it lasts.”

– Where can we keep up to date with all things CHD?

“Subscribe to the YouTube channel.

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“I want to shoutout Rockcity for letting us have private sessions for filming and stuff, it’s appreciated. And shout out to the boys.”