 Which part of the U.S. are you in? In Arizona. Okay. I'm guessing it's pretty hot there. Actually, it's been pretty nice lately. It's in, well, it's in the 80s, 90s. Next week, it'll be in the hundreds. So I don't know, that's Celsius for you guys. It's like 30 something or whatever. It's just going to be hotter than the UK full stop. No matter, no matter what time of the year. Yeah. Yeah. Did you, did you see the Andy Ruffle podcast? Oh yeah. Yeah. He's a good guy, isn't he? Oh yeah, Andy's a good bloke. I only like Andy. He moved himself off to Florida. Because I think he seems to be having a lot more fun in Florida than he was in Vegas. So yeah, if you watch his videos, he's always on his mountain bike or he's doing something, you know, he's always doing something. Yeah, Andy was a BMX legend for all, all of us when we were kids. But then again, so were you guys? Yeah, but Andy was the one everyone saw. So it was pretty easy for you guys to fall in love with that cat, you know. Yeah, because did I gather I was reading that fascinating article your wife Jane sent me that they didn't, they didn't give you a mention in the credits. No, the only mention is a small little thing at the bottom. It says, thank you to everything bicycles. Everything bicycles were the bike company that supplied the core hire bicycles for the movie. And they were, um, they wanted to know why they weren't going to get paid for the bicycles. Yeah. That let's put it this way. How we did nothing for free. Yeah, but little did he know that that was going to launch a new car or QR as we used to call them. Into the, well, globally. Well, let's put it this way. I myself had done two or three movies that never saw the light of day. And then when we filmed this. We never saw most of the, well, I did, but most of the other kids never even saw the character. You know, we were just riding bikes. Through this thing with this aluminum. Yeah, it was a ducking system, aluminum ducking system with a blanket wrapped around it. Stuffed in that little thing. And that's what we were riding around with, not the doll wasn't even in there. Oh, wow. How come you had head, headwear on and headphones was, was that. Some technical thing. No, it was. It was just the way they wanted to make the kids look. Okay. They didn't even work. And I broke one set of them. So. Because of when we, we did the car scene when we go over the car. They shot it once. And then they shot it again. And then to do it in different angles. And there was this one point where. They were holding us by the rims at the top of the hill. As we were pointing down. To get a close up of us coming up over the car. And as racers, me and Bob. We're in front. And then we both heard action. And we both went to go. And the guys, the grip guys that were holding the bikes, didn't let go. And we both went over the bars. I landed on top of the car. It was funny. It's just one of them funny thing. You know, there's got to be video of all that too somewhere. You know. Was that Bob Harrow. Yeah. Yeah, I got a Harrow freestyle in the garage here. Yeah, I saw it. I saw what you've done and stuff. And I saw that video of you riding. In the car park. Today. I show mainly. Right in my BMX. With my son. Yeah. My love for BMX is never. Faulted. I wouldn't say that I ride a lot. But I can still do a few tricks. But. I think ET. Was. I don't think you can explain it. It's one of those phenomenons in life that you, it's impossible to explain to another generation. But the moment in that film. Where was it the feds or the CIA, that they're after the little alien and. All you guys hopped on your bikes. And the, the, the film just, it just took off. It just became for a young man. You know, a teenager at the young teenager at the time just became magical. And I. I challenge anyone to come out that cinema and not want to have a BMX. Immediately. And then of course we had the BMX craze. That's a little bit of a rough rough there. Tim March, a lot of. Famous names in this country. We're leading the way. And we're incredibly. And skilled writers. And. We, we just. Road are BMX is all day. Every single day all day long when we weren't at school and. the actual act of riding the bike although that was great it was just the feeling at the time. Do you get me Robert? Yeah well like with me you know back then the only way of getting around was on your bike you know and I was on my bike as soon as I got up and I got outside we were out on bikes doing something riding in the fields or just riding to the beach or riding somewhere going to a friend's house but you were always on your bike you know so you you did what you could when you can on the bike and like I said the movie was so it opened a lot of eyes that what are these little kids on these bikes doing you know it didn't really show the BMX racing or nothing but it excited the people for the little bikes. Yeah very much but we were quite fit back then weren't we? Yeah it's not like today even like with my kids they didn't really ride they didn't ride bikes at all almost they would really truly he got a computer when he was seven and that was about it he started doing computer stuff he didn't want to play baseball he wanted to be on his computer and doing stuff like that which was okay with me because they were learning the whole time you know they were good kids I bought them bikes took them to the track you know but they like went no I want to go home playing on my computer you know what can you do it's a different generation. Yeah they've grown up with BMX and stunt biking and X games and all this kind of stuff it's always been there for them hasn't it whereas for us when you were young you had cycling to get somewhere then you had racing biking which was your Tour de France stuff and yeah not many people were going to get involved in in that sort of thing it was it just wasn't what many people did and then of course this this new wave of riding came out and just took the world by storm. Yeah in fact like I said especially with England they took it to heart and they really built up I mean I'd say because the movie came out in 81 82 83 84 you guys were on it you guys did it you guys and then you guys much more than it was the United States you guys had commercials you did TV shows you did you know a weekly series you know you had a lot of stuff going on with the racing part of it that really brought it to more of the masses in your country you know yes it means that all the kids saw it on ET and they looked at it you know and they saw it they saw the thing in chips you know and they were like oh they're interested but you guys brought it to perfect you know they they brought it to the people and they did it you know and I love the way you guys you guys were riding the rain you guys you know you guys would just ride whenever and it was like when the Americans came over and they were like oh it's raining they probably thought no races and you guys know we're ready to go let's go do this. Yeah the bikes were something else so Robert weren't they they were so well made for their time um oh yes you know and you gotta remember there was only a few manufacturers of bikes today like in the United States I think there's 172 different frame manufacturers so back then you had four maybe and then every year you may get another two so maybe total of 10 at the time you know you know it wasn't it was like today I mean everybody and their uncle builds a bicycle you know I think they're analyzed the problem why people say they're not making any money in the industry is because the pie is broken up into so many pieces that you know like in the old days there's only a couple people so kuhara redline haro gt so it was a very small park so they were they uh there was more kids purchasing those bikes so they had more money to promote the the bikes and the kids I mean I can remember when the kids were traveling all through the United States or Europe or South America nowadays none of the teams can do that they can't afford to do that you know it's just a cost thing now and the sport is very niche. Yeah can we Robert can we go back and and start from the beginning because I'm just fascinated to hear how you accidentally ended up in et and as far as I'm concerned became the star of the show. Sure like I worked for everything bicycles kuhara bicycle brand in the United States uh Howie Cohen was the owner of it we were it was really funny my situation there I I met him in 78 um started working like all do you remember the brake levers with the sleeve on it they had a little rubber rubber sleeve on it vaguely I always remember mx levers with the two fingers yeah well I used to bend all those we'd get them from Japan straight just regular levers I would bend them and put the sleeve on them throw them in a box bend them put a sleeve on them all day long for you for a couple of years I do stuff like that or put stickers away or put send stickers out and stuff that for then I started doing more and more stuff for them in 1980 it was probably late 80 81 when the et thing came around I was working part-time for them but mostly stuff whatever Howie wanted me to do and then one day he asked me to come in his office and he had all these things but it still didn't say et it was just all these concept big pictures about stuff and he what do you think of this and I said yeah and then he told me these a couple other things he said well we're going to build these bicycles for this thing and but you need to go there so I went there the first day to show them colors and stuff so I drove out to the studio didn't really know who this Steven Spielberg cat was at all at all so I drive in the studio and I talked to them and they had the storyboards on the wall and he was telling me all this stuff and I said oh really yeah and we started talking and he showed me what they wanted the kids doing I said there's no way these kids can do that and he kind of asked me how was you know and I said because I ride these bicycles all the time and then he go and I and I think I suggest that I have my bike in the back I can show you a little bit and so I grabbed my bike out of the back we walked out I think Kathleen Kennedy was with them too but I'm not positive and there's those loading ramps those concrete loading ramps they used for trucks there was one of those and his Porsche was parked right by it so I come by and I pedal by fast and I do a couple jumps off this thing and I saw that thing so I go oh let me see what he would do if I did this so I jumped over his car and land and he said that and I said that's why you won't be able to get these kids to do and then they asked me oh so you know more kids that could do this and I said yes and at the time Ascot BMX was running Ascot BMX would run on a Wednesday night 60 motos so you're talking a thousand kids are probably there you know so one one Wednesday night Kathleen Kennedy and a group of other producers and people with check boards you know boards they can write on and information sheets and stuff kind of came to the track started pulling kids off the track asking them questions writing down things saying please can you meet us on Saturday at this place so they picked out about I'd say 10 or 15 kids and they wanted them to meet in the valley where they ended up shooting this bomb horror wasn't even involved at this point I don't know what I truly don't you know how he got put into where he was put in at that point we showed up at the thing for the thing I thought I was just going to be there to take care of the bikes and stuff once I got there the lady the producer comes to me because you got to go to wardrobe excuse me I gotta go to wardrobe for what oh didn't you see your thing and then on my thing it said stunt double and I said oh okay so I went to wardrobe got all set and that's the first time I think I saw Bob you know so we they eliminated about more than half the kids told them they can go home now and stuff like that picked out a group of kids which ended up being the group of kids that did the shooting and that's how it all started out you know it was pretty simple you know for me I mean I and then shooting we shot so much more than what they showed you know I mean there's a really interesting story about they thought we couldn't do certain stunts so they hired a stunt man a true stunt man he was a little guy he was probably fourth four foot five or five you know not that tall he looked like a little kid body wise but when he turned around he looked like an old man you know it was just funny and it was this scene we were in a second story uh house it unfinished house and what the object was is the rider was going to go up a set of stairs and out the back door or out the top window onto some wood down another set of wood and then off to the road okay so they said it all up they looked we're all sitting in the background going he doesn't look like he'd ride a bike he just didn't look really awkward you know and they said action and he took off out the window and he just went whoo straight to his head he shakes it off oh it's okay it's cool I just misplaced something you know I didn't get my putting right or something so they set it all up again he goes out he tries it again does the exact same thing this time he rocked himself I mean he was like uh and they were like oh we're gonna have to cut you and then one of the kids David Lee pretty much said I could do this because it was his character I could do it in one take without a problem and they said you sure you know and they were like well can you sign this extra paper in case you get hurt and all those stuff so they set it all up again he did it perfectly right out the window onto his back wheel down to the second tier down to the ground boom one shot 30 seconds blam gone they never used it you know yeah there's a lot of things you know and if you want I watch the movie and I can find flaws in it all the time you know if you look carefully like when we come off the car and go around the the houses if you look really carefully just before they cut when we go around houses you'll look at the person that's riding the ET bike do a complete endo and if you look really carefully just before they cut you'll see his legs flying in the air yeah and you can't notice it because the cut is so fast but things like that I noticed because I know I was there and I things like that it's just funny stuff you know and like I said when we filmed it we filmed other stuff you know that never shows up or it ends up on back then videotapes that you know never get produced or anything so we just thought oh this is some weird little movie that'll never get seen and then when we went to the premiere and we saw what the hubbub was about and in fact they changed the name between the time when we were filming to when it was sent out to the public at home we filmed it was called the boys life and then when they sent it out for uh for because we had to come back and do some pre-production stuff it was called ET at that point yeah so we like I said I was there from the very very beginning so I saw the changes so it was really strange and like I said we know I there's no way I thought this would be what it was until it came out and the way it showed on on the movies was amazing the drama the the the I don't know how you talk the way you would catch kids eyes little kids especially that it would awaken them because the first time I figured that out is when we were at premiere and we're sitting in this huge place with all these people and they're all people from the industry so we're sitting about halfway up in the middle and there's this group of families with kids behind us right behind us and when ET was dying remember when he was dying in the thing there's all these little kids behind us so come on ET please don't die please don't at that point you knew you had a hit when you can get interactions from little kids that believe what the story is you know you have a hit you know and it was it just it exploded so fast you know as someone that was in it I think I was kind of I didn't really catch it like the other people did but everyone I talked to at that time was so so excited about it and how it it showed bicycles kids riding bicycles BMX bikes that really threw the whole industry in this you know GT and horror they they think go hard every day about stuff like that because every little bike was exciting at that point what was it like Robert to I mean I'll say it again you were a major step for a lot of us you were the star in one of the most popular films of all time yeah it was like I said it was kind of different from me and especially in the group of people I was in you know I like like let me let me put it this way I race for years since 1973 but I was never a star racer I was a racer I made mains but you gotta remember in the in the era I came up all those superstars you guys remember are all the guys I raced so I hardly made mains back then you know but I always I was always there I always had a good sponsor I always was someone people knew so when the movie came out it was a lot of padding on the back and hey that was great but it never for me it never I I become like horror they they all gravitated towards Bob because Bob was Bob horror so and if you listen there's you know some of the points they kind of put Bob in the center of it he did it all it is this truthfully Bob was there he did his part and he laughed he didn't really you know I was there from start to finish you know yes there were there were some quite funny lines in that with you guys wasn't there was it there was long the one where he says can't he just he can't he just beam up oh yeah that is my favorite line yeah he looks at he looks at him we go can't he just beam us up yeah yeah those are great lines you know yeah well the best one is still when they're sitting at the at the dinner table and he goes shut up penis breath I was like oh my god they put that on tv are on the movies yeah yeah it it was an eye opener for us kids in the uk because the way americans it was one of the first films that put american way of life right in front of us and just a bit like when when the guys were ordering pizza at the beginning like we never order pizza nobody had the money to order pizza in ink well my family my friends your mum might make pizza and it wouldn't probably wouldn't be that that special but the guys just yeah we'll just order pizza and and all these what you guys call candy what we call sweets all this candy everywhere and these really expensive bikes and and then of course michael's driving his mum's car which was just a really nice touch in that film because it made you i can't really explain it but i don't know it just it just added so much value to to like it is like i say i have a lot of little fun moments that i can remember like if you remember when the van crashes into the park and all the agents are running towards it that scene had to be done twice the first time we did it the first time she did it the first time she did it she outran the cops by 40 feet she got to the she got to the van turned around they were like where are those guys those old men are like because if you watch the the actual take they use in the movie if you look really carefully she's hardly running she's jogging and those guys are running their ass off yeah things like that there were when that scene happened we were all sitting against the fence you know and we were laughing too hard yeah we were laughing way too hard and so they told us get off we had to get away we were too close did you get paid paid anything for your troubles well if you look at what a scale is we got paid next to nothing yeah we got i got i probably got a little more because i was getting paid by everything bikes goes plus the studio most of the kids i think took home about 350 bucks for total all of it yeah and i know haro got more i don't know what his deal was and i don't know you know but he got more because he was bob haro but truthfully i think it was like 350 400 dollars for each kid um plus it was scab work it wasn't they didn't you know that's why if you look at imdb if you know what imdb is right yeah the database the only name you'll see is there haro because haro went and paid the 500 or so to get into uh stumbins association so that allowed him to use his name on any print stuff so imdb has his name in there and doesn't mention any of us so that's how and that's how when people look up et and they look up things that happen they always go to bob because his name is in the in im bd and ours aren't you know there was a point um steven maybe a month later after i think i moaned and some people moaned he put a a full page ad in the hollywood reporter with everybody's name in it in a large ad full page ad but that was the only uh recognition any of the kids got or myself yeah that's crazy so i'm guessing i'm guessing you guys were covered up a bit because you were playing the friends like you were the stuntman for the for um uh elliot the little boy called elliot wasn't he yeah elliot his brother and then the friends greg and the other one yeah yeah yeah yes yeah we we all played the character like the guy with the ski mask is haro the one with the glasses and the headphones and the red hat is me you know we all we were all supposed to be similar looking to each rider but everyone had a kind of a disguise on yeah i get it now i get it and what how how was the car stunt how did that come about and because when you when you watch the movie they're coming down the bank but then the next thing they're jumping over the car so i'm guessing they put did they put the bikes on the roof of the car no no we actually the car uh those are what if you look now if you go back there's a couple people that went back to each scene and redo them all you know as now that was where they put all the houses those were housing levels you would jump down each one they backed the car up as close as they can to one of those put a little piece of wood and we jumped from that piece of wood onto the top of the car so if you look at the cut we're coming down the coming down the hill and then you'll see the guy laying oh he's almost laying on the ground and he looks up and we jump over him okay and the next scene we're on top of the car that's where the cut is we jump by him they cut reset us put us on top of the back the car up and then we jumped on top of the car wow but that was that same thing where they they they held on to us too long and we both crashes into we crash into the car yeah i'd love to see that scene somewhere that's gotta be somewhere on film yeah i would i would ask the studio if they if they can let you have that yeah in fact there's a i've seen a picture of the aftermath of that scene there's a photo i think bob has it in his photo collection where he does slide shows that i'm sitting on the ground by the front wheel and they're all looking at me that's because i did a head plant into the car and broke the headphones and they thought i was dying and i was like no i'm fine i'm fine they're all you good yeah so it's it all kinds of stuff like that you know what was steven spielberg like uh quiet um i only got to see him mostly because we worked with what they called the second unit we were in a whole separate thing from the regular cast we would do all our all the stunt stuff was done by a guy named glenn randall you would know glenn randall from raiders of the lost art he's the big burley guy that fights with harrison ford on the airplane yeah he looks a bit like me that's yeah that no the that's the other one was chuck waters he looked just like you okay yeah chuck if you look remember what we fly the first time and the two guys are the two cop cars are parked apart in the road and we fly above them those are the two those were the two directors for our group if you look at the one cop on the uh i think it's on the right side that's glenn waters he's the big husky guy and the skinny little white guy on the other side was chuck waters and he he's another one that was in raiders all these guys are they all were doing raiders and then they did this it was really strange because i was like you look familiar what do i know you from you know now but yeah it was a we didn't just we saw steven i think two days they came out that the one where i slammed into the car he was there that day and then there was another day that we shoot in he was there and the next time we saw him is when we went into the studio to shoot the landing scene from the when we're all flying and then we all land and we do the slide that was done in the studio yeah that was like a sync synchronized slide was it from what i remember yeah and and what's really funny is we we did it in one take that's what you want they were they were amazed at all of us that we could that we listened basically but that's another scene in there is like when he comes and he lands by himself and he crashes with the doll that wasn't supposed to happen like that but it worked out better because you couldn't see the et doll when he crashed so they used that scene instead of the scene they actually wanted to use are you saying it it wasn't a real alien the whole time we were doing the outside parts the the the basket contained a aluminum l-shaped tube with a big white blanket wrapped around it and that's what we used for shooting when you see the principles and you see the actual doll in there that was a whole separate bike and that like when they're riding down the street and you see them talking just before the thing that was all done on a like a trailer all the bike all the bike kids were on a trailer and et and they were pulling them okay there's a lot of little things like that you know that i know but most of we would never know you know but yeah it was an amazing adventure that i never thought was going to become what it became you know it it was just a kid having fun on his bike and then it blew up the way it blew up because like i said when we did it we were all laughing at it we thought it was kind of oaky this is dumb you know this will never work people never see this you know it'll end up on some cutting room floor somewhere but when it came out and we saw it and it was so the production was so good on it you know each scene when we go around the house and then we pop out over here and then we're going down the the terraces and then we come up around the thing the way it was shot from where we shot it looks so good it was a great moment it was really heroic oh i like i said i've had kids for the last 35 40 years say how great it was and how how it moved them how it changed there there's plenty of olympic athletes today that tell you uh i wouldn't be on my bicycle today if it wasn't for the movie you know yes so chris hoy yeah yeah and i even uh i think it was uh sagan peter sagan even as mentioned it in something what was it like robert um watching the actors in in in the movie through the years because henry thomas went on to do quite some other stuff i'm not sure about the other characters but i'm sure they did they did well like i say the kid that i played his name was kasey melton he kind of disappeared after that movie he did a couple small things but he disappeared i think maybe he had issues i'm not sure um the older brother he's he's really right now he's uh doing a lot of what they call cons you know like comma con and stuff like that they show up with d wallas and the little midget that played or the little person that played uh et it was a kid that had no legs he he wrote around a skateboard they put him in the et suit and he flopped around a bit you know he shows up with those cons and stuff and they do autograph ceremonies and stuff like that but that's about it and d wallas has done tv shows a lot of things the doctor you see him a lot um drew very more you know what became of her you know yeah no she went through very more is when we went to the the first premiere uh we got there a little late because there was a lot of traffic it's los angeles a lot of traffic and her and her mom must have got there late too when we pulled up she was pounding on the door with her shoe let me in my daughter's in this movie let me in and that's the only reason we got into the premiere because she was screaming and yelling what was it like to see yourselves on the screen for the first time um myself i thought it was amazing you know but it wasn't see that therein lies the problem we were in the movie we did everything but no one knew it a very small group of people knew it you know and then when you would tell people oh yeah i'm i'm in that movie they'd be yeah right you know yeah so to be we like myself i was never a star or anything so all i can tell you is people always came up and said how they enjoyed the movie all this stuff and it makes me prideful for it but truthfully throughout the years it's only been the last couple years where people have noticed it how come in the how come in the last couple of years what what changed i think more to do with the people that now are in their older and they have grandkids and kids and say did you see this movie and this i grew up and now there's facebook groups for et thousands of them and uh people pass you know pictures through and stuff like that and like now i i get requests for autographs and we sign my number plate or i'll send this to you and things like that i do as many as i can when i can you know if you send it to me i'll do it i don't have an issue you know but truthfully the money i i never earned any money on the ancillary parts of it you know uh what i got when i got is what i got and the little fame that i got seems to be more now than it has that were in the past yeah you you and me both robert oh i know and i still can't i'm still amazed that you ran that all the way across the the continent it was like you're a nut yeah yeah across the uk yeah yeah that was fun that was fun yeah i'd like to do more of that but it's it's so time consuming and it really hurts hurts a lot put you put you in the pain cage for weeks after you do after you do something i literally takes me months to get the feeling back in my toes and stuff but uh hey but if you'd got um massive stardom or something you might have had all the problems that drew barremore had oh i i totally agree i mean i don't have my life is fine with what i had when i had it and i can look back on this time of my life and say i did this and no one can take that away from me free and it's really funny because here in the united states everything's giving they show the movie so everyone calls hey you know it's on are you watching it you know you know i showed it to my boy because i've kind of had like a second youth now that i'm a father i want to show all the films that i loved them all the films that meant something back in the in the 80s and whoa even some of them late 70s now um even the 90s but i want to show them to my my boy but he's just a bit young to kind of get it um we watched et i think he just i think he was just too too young so um but it's it's funny it like you said it was such a high quality production at the time and yet when you watch it now it it almost seems like a bit of a different you know i guess because you're young and you're watching this cinema and it's cinematic it's big you got the stereo sound the the bit where the the aliens creeping through the you know running through the ground that really you felt like what's going on you you sensed and then the when they had this sort of the um i don't know like the shadow government characters the cia or whoever they were the net probably not you know nasa or something and they've got the torches and you really they really felt like they're looking for you yeah and here's and you gotta remember that movie is made before the digital age yeah very much so so i literally it was the last movie like that that was made before the digital age so all everything we did was we did it you know so it's not so much you know faked out like nowadays nowadays they would make the flying part all digital you know and back then was pretty much if you would it it was stop motion as you would call it it was all miniatures and real people and miniatures so it's a different it was a different type of filming yeah i do all my own stunts that's why i don't do any i do my own stunts too sometimes they don't work out the way they're supposed to because i'm still racing today yeah i i i saw that in some of the pictures jane sent me yeah i'm 60 years old and still racing wow how is it oh i love it it's it's my escape from life is going to the race and even jane will tell you that once i get to the races i kind of end up being like a 15 year old i bet are you a elbow and people off i try not to anymore because the ground hurts a whole lot more than it did when i was 15 yes i never raced my i didn't have a lot of support growing up and my my bike was a real a real old thing i can't remember the name of it i thought it was anico for a while but they used to be quite a good brand amico so it probably wasn't um but i used to just do the stunts i could do something like 89 back hops 20 set 27 front hops i could cycle along and just jump up and do the 360 i used to we called it ruffle hop after andy's i could ruffle hop over about 11 people would you just get my friends to lie down and my god how how we trusted each other back then um so when i got to be an adult well adult ish um i was on ebay one day and i saw a harrow freestyle of the frame and even this is about 20 years ago about maybe 16 years ago now and even then it was 300 350 pounds so about five five hundred dollars just just for the frame i thought do you know what i'm having it and i bought it and i bought all original old old school parks all the mx brakes skyways um the layback i think it's a harrow layback seatpost the the straight bars um so yeah so i i i got my dream bmx but it took me uh took me 20 years to get it well that that you it's really funny because right now that's that's why the big bike craze right now is so big is because there are all these people that live in the 80s and the early 90s that wanted a bike that couldn't afford a bike and now that they're older and they have all this ancillary money they go out and they purchase these new bmx bikes but they're big bikes that fit them you know and that's what that's how that craze started because i know so many a lot of people tell me well i wanted this bike when i was in the 80s but my parents couldn't afford it i couldn't afford it but i can afford it now so they're buying a lot of the old bikes restoring them keeping them more as trophies than they are anything else yeah oh very much so yeah i love my bike i love the fact i still can go out on it and um i think it's good at 50 51 years old that um because a lot of people i mean i was in the marines and even a lot of marines they give up on themselves sorry if probably offended a load of people there but um you know they just like let it all go and you speak to them they they don't run they don't do any fitness they don't do anything and um um i i get it i guess it's easy easy to do if you get in a bit of a rut but i just want to keep getting out there and smashing it oh yeah well there's a lot of people like that especially right now there's a lot like in like i raced bmx in our class the three biggest classes for us there is a 51 to 55 class there's a 56 to 60 and 61 and over all those classes are full at the big races so there's plenty of people and then 45 to 50 and then all those groups there's plenty of people racing bicycles still you know that we're racing in the 80s brought their kid out to the track didn't want to stand around so grabbed a bike and started riding again figure and it when you get back on your bike and especially if you haven't ridden a while a lot of that stuff still in your head you think you can do all this stuff but it is so much harder than people realize but once you do it and you've done it before it's kind of like drugs it's hard to get away from it yeah in your system there's a video of Andy on youtube doing the 360 and he falls off a few times but i mean but then he nails it yeah but it was really funny because Andy didn't really ride anymore he didn't really show up and then just recently he started riding and then all right someone took him out on a bike and he loved it he went out and got himself a bike now he rides a lot more than he did you know in the past so it's good to see i'd like to see him come out to the racetrack he's still i think he's 53 54 so he's still he could be in 51 to 55 cruiser he would have a good time you know it's fun because well more it's funny because i laugh we get on the gate at a big race and it's the main and you look over and it's like in that race all these guys in 1980 you know i think Andy's Andy's worried about turning up in cases pedal comes off again and and there's a tv camera there that is the best scene too i used to love those the Kellogg's races and you know the tv shows you guys did they were fun they were you know for the the early 80s they were just what people needed they were poppy they were funny and but they were educational to the point of teaching kids about racing and freestyle you were more on the freestyle end of it huh in the uk it was split 50 50 there was a lot of racing going on i actually had two two friends who were sponsored riders so they got all their bikes and everything for free and that used to that was just beyond belief for a lot of us kids um where did you go in the uk i grew up in um at this time i was living in the southwest so a long a long way from london a long way from the romford skate park did you did was there any tracks near you yeah they had a they they built a track there um it was a place called brentor and all the guys every saturday or whenever it was would go out you know those that had support it it all came down to your parents didn't it you know my parents were were split up several times and all this kind of stuff and i think by the time i got my bmx uh my parents have been divorced i had a step dad then and it it yeah it was quite challenging quite quite quite challenging really when your mum marries a psychopath not that i'll hold any grudges now but um and so i didn't really have that support robert which is why it's good now being a parent because i want to take my boy to the football you know i want i i want him to not have to go somewhere on his own and like i always had to do and so i didn't really have that support but i tell you what had i got into racing i i think i'd have been really good but let's not take any credit away from you guys because i've seen the way people go off the start ramp with just that killer look in their eye and then they just head or like hell for the first corner just to be the first into the corner then they worry about well they don't even break but shove a foot out and uh it's yeah i'm just full of admiration for that spirit well nowadays nowadays it's not even the foot out because you're clipped in oh really yeah you're you're you're you're strapped to the bike basically you're clipped in on on on a bmx bike so if you make a mistake the ground is the first thing that you hit i mean there's no there's no catching yourself at that point did you watch did you watch well did you have pride in your uh your uk bmx team did i have what sorry some pride for this year's uh olympics with well i got second and uh bethany i think was it bethany got first i sorry say that last but again you you got what well i'm just saying because i figure you guys are pretty happy because kai white got second in men's in the he got the silver medal and he got the gold medal for you guys uh yeah i i was uh away camping at the time and i i think i heard it on the radio um i don't actually watch much tv anymore so kind of i'm a bit i'm a bit out of that um unless some unless something pops up on youtube about it or or um i don't tend to know but yeah i did but was it good did you see it oh yeah you should have heard jane screaming because uh kai kai had had a great start i thought he was going to be first in the first corner and then he popped out and he was second he i mean he kept it close the whole time but it was great to watch but the best one is when you saw bethany's race kai was on the sidelines screaming and yelling and jumping as she's going around the track and she led it from start to finish she had she was the fastest girl the whole weekend besides probably at least but at least kept making mistakes so she didn't even make the main the only issue with uh bethany was her second jump would scare me every time she would land on that front wheel and i would think she's going to crash but she would pull out of it and man she had great straight away uh straight away speed and stuff it was it was amazing to watch she did really good and i thought everybody in the uk would be proud of her you know you know they she was on but good morning britain and a couple other places they had kai on that's nothing how old your your boy he's six now well it's about time to get him a nice bike and send him out to the track yeah he's got it we i bought him a really nice bike because something happened with bikes in this country especially bmx type bikes and that is when they started to become mass manufactured they become really heavy you know like back in the day you nobody wanted a heavy bike you wanted a bike you could pick up with one finger that was just how it was and so i bought him a bmx from a place called howford's which is sort of our most popular bike bike shop in the uk or all one of them i should say and um when i got it out the box i thought this is ridiculous he's six years old and this thing weighs i don't know let's just say like 20 15 kilos or something so i did some research and i found out that i wasn't the only parent that felt like this and there were people on website for him saying yeah i want to get a bike from a child but these bikes seem so heavy and and someone wrote back she should try this brand um and i read up about the bike and it said when you're learning to ride you want something that's easy to just get on and ride you don't want to be worrying about that you can't pedal it uphill and this kind of thing and this bike turn up i can't think of the brand now but it's a very it's an incredibly well made bike when you look at the ones in the in the major shops they're all you can see they've all been made in china and this thing is uh yeah this bike's really good quality and it was about five and a half kilos so this incredible difference yeah you you need to get together and find your local track and club and get involved you know and maybe we'll see you on the track you can come out and ride you know they have a 50 and over but do you guys don't mind losing not anymore i used to hate it used to just bother the heck out now it's if we're on the track and we're having fun we it's funny because in the older classes you hear a lot of chatter on the track yeah the way what are you doing don't do that you're having you know there's just a lot of little chatter between each us that never happened the old days it's more like get out of the way crack you know now it's like oh no you know how to use the brakes now all this other stuff just stupid chatter throughout the race because we're all friends we've been doing this for a lot of us some of us 30 40 years together you know yeah and isn't it great that you've got that bomb that that ties you to that that you know they have these reunions now at the ronford skate park and all the people that were there 35 years ago turn up and drink a few beers and then they go and break their legs on the skate park uh yes it's good um i think people like that don't they oh yeah the reunions are really popular they just had one out here you know for the nba which is the first organization that ran BMX racing and it's funny because all the people are there between the age of like 35 and 60 you know yeah and they're all talking bicycles you know well when you look at skateboarding um uh god what's the champ's name uh hawk tony hawk yeah tony hawk i mean god he's older than me now i think and and he looks a lot younger and he can still just pull off any trick you know any trick that he wants yeah well it's it's kind of like people always laugh are you can still ride a bike and said i've been riding bikes so long it's kind of muscle memory it's not so much how it's just i know how to do it it's in my head you know i can almost do with my eyes closed put it that way and that's like everybody else and like i said some of these guys they might not ridden for 30 years but they'll get on a bike and all that memory muscle memory comes back you know it it comes back pretty easy for stuff like that the tracks are different the way they run the races is different but it's still the same a kid and a bicycle on a dirt track you know yeah today tracks are now soil tacked which means they're sealed and they're hard like they're more like concrete tracks they're not so much dirt but they're they're made of dirt but they're sprayed with this glue material it's a reason why they do that is because especially like in england where it rains a lot they can let it rain in 45 minutes they could blow the track off and they can they run the races you know yeah but also if you look at the way i always laugh because i go back and i look at old races we pedaled five times as much as they pedal now now it's more of a what we call pump and pull you know it's not so much pedaling it's learning how to use the transitions and pumping through the corners and through the whoopsies and stuff so it's uh it's the same sport with a different way of doing it is it still just the one gear yeah well this year in the olympics one of the guys was running a two-speed it kind of has like a clutch system you would hold it in and would run into a certain gear then once you let it go it would pop into the second gear they had a thing like that in the 80s called a brown a browning two-speed that people ran it just a single gear on that type of track because like i said the pedaling is not as important as the actual once you get out of the gate there's points where you may not even pedal after the first corner it's it's the way the tracks are built you know so it's a it's a different sport in the sense the way it's written you know because in the old days you would pedal 60 feet hit a bump pedal 60 feet hit a bump and then hit two bumps and maybe some whoopsies and pedal some more nowadays that you pedal down the first straight away hit the first jump and then you coast you hit the whoopsies you you pump through the corners you pump through the jumps and you may pedal a couple times on the last corner or something but most of it is just momentum and learning to use the transitions and stuff and pedaling you know not pedaling pumping yeah i've got you it's a bit like when you watch motorbike motocross they um they really have to just get it right at the right moment and it will take them to the next almost to the next part of the track um well that's a lot of that skill is from BMX if you notice a lot of the top motocrossers now are former BMXers at one point because you learn to use transitions you learn how to not use that same as the scrub now everyone's scrubbing it's to keep low you don't want to go high because you lose momentum plus speed if you can stay low get the wheels to the ground and then go you have more speed and that's the BMX thing you're not really flying over things except the big jumps like in the supercross but most of it is wheels on the ground and you're using your body to hit transitions and pump through corners or pump through the whoopsies and stuff like that yeah it's it's it's a different sport from when you were in the 80s you know and stuff like that Robert my last question for you is um when they remake ET are you are you going to be the man for the job according to Steven Spielberg he will never remake ET that was a direct quote there's a script running around Los Angeles ET2 but will it ever come about I doubt it because he is pretty much put a kibosh on it right away because the story I think the story is based on his life that he you know he was a kid that no one didn't really like him and he found a group of kids that he could handle with and they used to ride bikes together they just they just kind of made it into the story and I think that he doesn't want to mess with the story because it was so popular when it came out you know it like I say I don't think you can catch the fire today with a movie like that like it did then because then we were much innocenter the kids didn't really you know kids went out and played today you can't get kids to go out and play for nothing okay so I look at it is this was a needle in a haystack kind of movie you'll never find anything like this again it it it brought people together it made a sport it uh it promoted kids having fun on bicycles all over the world and I think today you can't get that kind of thing because kids don't do that kind of thing anymore no I'm hoping my son gets more into crime because that'll get him out the house then wouldn't it well like I say I would I would go to your local track and you know start doing maybe a couple days a week or one day a week go out the track and see if his love of bicycles will grow and that's the only way because you have to laugh the love for the bicycle and the sport to do it because you're not gonna see it on tv you're not gonna you know you're not gonna it's not big enough to have no there's no more magazines there's no more so the people that are doing it do it because they love the sport or their family was into the sport in the young age and they love it that way because it's not like I say there's no bmx beat on tv yeah you know there's not andy doing his little tricks and stuff so these kids the first time they saw it probably was the olympics this year and I guarantee that excited a lot because I've seen the stuff that the I think it's where they pack them pack them bmx pack them bmx if you want to do a story those guys you know they've done some amazing things and pack them bmx is where Kai white came from you know and his brother his brother before him and they've made it all the way the olympics now an olympic silver medalist out of this little you know I think it's east london's area where the have nots live and they've they've brought a hero into their community that hero may be able to springboard more kids to race and that's how it works but with our sport we've hardly seen it on tv I mean in america we get to see you know what cornholing is no I don't know that one it's basically they they set up these these little ramps with a hole in the middle and they throw beanbags at it oh you got to get the bag in a hole right yeah yeah I saw stevo from jackass doing it on youtube last night okay you do like some flick it with your foot and then over your head and then it lands oh no this is just you just throw it and they have teams and international there it's international cornholing I'm going to have a look okay they actually espn will show an hour of cornholing on tv but they won't show any bike racing cornholing it's it's sounds a bit rude doesn't it yeah James doesn't look like aunt sally at the pub yeah I it's like a ramp with the hole at the top if I'm if I've got yeah I saw stevo do it he threw the beanbag with his foot and it went it did something like that anyway but um yeah okay yeah but they go ahead they don't want kids to be happy achieving thinking adventurous individuals anymore do they they just want them to be right robots that just buy the technology and they lose all their thinking well that that that's the funny part we go to the nationals still all the time that's let's put this right we go to the nationals it's like walking into a different community no one's wearing masks no one's talking about anything everyone you know doing there all the kids are playing in the dirt you know parents are happy things are going on commerce is working it's the whole thing it's just things are going on and you wouldn't believe it as soon as you leave the air and you go you go out to the city and you see all the people wearing their masks and you know one's happy and everyone's seeing but when you're at the nationals the bike races it's like the biggest happy community you can believe yeah I bet it is I bet it is I feel sorry for these kids that their parents are buying into all this bullshit you know you got no chance in life if your parents getting you to wear that shit you know what it's upsetting you know well that's the worst part is it's are you doing a scaring kid for no apparent reason that right now the kids aren't the problem even the kids when they get it they don't get sick they get sick oh oh you you've heard we've cured the common cold and flu I cured that 18 years ago when I just started eating vegetables so it really is that simple people challenge me on this all the time but that's because they don't eat vegetables so they haven't found out for themselves if you eat veg folks in my experience never get sick ever well another thing is like I always tell people today's kids don't get dirty so they don't get they don't inhale dirt when you inhale dirt you tend to repel things easier you know what I mean all you see the kids that go to the races motocross races BMX races that are out in the elements in the dirt getting dirty they hardly get sick that's because their bodies used to it these kids that stay at home and they're on being a computer and they go out every once in a while those are the kids that get sick all the time yeah you know yeah of course the further we come out of the environment you know even you need sunlight don't you you need to move you need exercise you you need a bit of adventure you need you need rain on you you need you need cold you need to get cold now and again and and you need to you also need to go without food now and again um I mean when we were kids we we'd go out the house in the morning we wouldn't come back until the evening we didn't take these drinks bottles where we didn't have any of that stuff come come the afternoon you'd be so thirsty you go and drink from the river not not a good idea now folks not with Giardia but back then that's that's just what that's what we did you didn't take them that's like we used to always drink out of the hose and when you're drinking from a hose it tastes really good doesn't it because you're always so thirsty Robert listen it's been an absolute honor and a pleasure to chat to you um thank you for being a special part of my uh upbringing in fact I thank you on behalf of everybody else that's watching this that um that that loved that scene in the film and uh stay on the line just so I can thank you and Jane properly and and thank you Jane for for getting us in touch after seeing the Andy Ruffle podcast but um let's chat again sometime yeah and you know Jane her dad was one of the first importers of BMX bicycles into the UK her dad ran the hot shots company wow that's a famous name isn't it yeah it's coming back yeah so and uh just a little thing to tell you you always seeing the hot shots logo around again soon yeah that's good news yeah they're gonna make a return are they oh yes yeah good well I wish them all the best with all the best with that well I wish you the best too and all your fans and uh you're a pretty amazing guy yourself so I wouldn't you know you know I I pat you on the back because I don't know how you did what you've done and being a royal marine and all that stuff that's that's amazing stuff to me you know as I always say to our young people you get one life that's it you don't get two you get one you got a choice you can sit inside put you know on technology and you're gonna get to 80 years old and you're gonna cry and then you'll die and you're gonna think what have I done with my and I've met people like this I've met 40 year olds break down in front of me because they've done nothing with their life except go to a boring job um so it it's really simple for me Robert I'm not amazing at all I just really appreciate I only get one go at this so I'm really greedy to you know get out there and also you know as a father I I think your son's got to look up to and and love you and think that think that you're a hero and yeah it's it's the old social skills things yeah and you're sitting in front of the computer your whole life you don't learn social skills and that's what I always tell people go to the bike races hang out with these people you know it's a whole different culture it's like I always say when I go to the bike race or the motorcycle races we talk a different language you know there's a lot of bros and that's rad and you know I'm stoked you know and everybody knows what everybody's talking about but if you were to do the same into like a like a cocktail party or somebody were in there no one would even know what you're talking about you know it's like I said it's a different world when you go to the races and you hang out with like-minded people that believe in all you know the world and the way things should be you know that you know none of this you know I may her or him or whatever you know you know there's boys and there's girls they race hard they race together the parents are parents you know you know when a kid does bad he's told he's done bad when the kid has done good he's praised yeah none of this there is no participation trophies in racing you need to participate to get a trophy you know and that's the part that's the problem with right now the world is everyone's a winner and not every is a winner no and I don't blame the young people I don't even blame their parents I blame these wall streets psychopaths that they just want a cowardly weak population but and and it's working it's working you can see it's you know so yes Robert I was thanking you very much wasn't I this is the this is why I started a podcast is so that I could talk to legends and that's how it's worked out so thank you to you and Jane ever so much to all of our friends at home massive love to you all please look after each other get out on the bike and if you haven't got one buy one you can get them pretty cheap these days and if you can like and subscribe that would be wonderful see you next time