Former Basingstoke BMX champion from the 80s returns to track
A WOMAN BMX veteran from Basingstoke who became the World, European and British champion in the 1980s is returning to tracks 34 years after retirement.
Sarah Jane Nichols, who lives in Bramley in Basingstoke, has started practising BMX again at Andover BMX club and is preparing to compete in the 30+ female class that starts next April.
The 52-year-old was inducted into the British BMX Hall of Fame as the first pioneer female racer at a red-carpet ceremony at Birmingham National Conference centre in November this year.
Sarah said that moment combined with a day out at Andover BMX tracks encouraged her to refurbish her old bike.
“I was invited along to the Andover BMX club to take my old bike to show the kids and talk to them,” said Sarah, who works as the head of housekeeping at Sherfield school.
“There they invited me to try a new BMX and go around the track. The new bikes and tracks are so different from the 1980s. I peddled around and thought ‘this is still really hardwork’.
“But oh my God, I still enjoyed it and it is still so fun.
“People at the club were also said I have still got a little bit of something. So I bought my own bike. I have been going for training twice a week to Andover club since May. It is the closest club to my home.”
Back in the 80s, Sarah was seven-time British, four-time European and one-time World champion.
She got hooked onto the sport after her parents gifted a BMX bike as a Christmas present when she was 10.
“Before BMX came out I used to ride schoolboy motorcross. Then BMX came to the scene and those bikes started turning up at motorcross tracks. It suddenly became a really big craze,” Sarah recalled.
“My parents took me to the first BMX race meeting in Southampton and I won it. I got sponsorships.
“BMX was on tele all the time, and there were magazines. It was huge back in the 80s.”
After ruling the sport for seven years, Sarah quit in 1988 when she was 18.
The sport was slowly dying then, but BMX is resurging again now because of its inclusion in Olympic Games.
Sarah said BMX has changed a lot now.
“When I started the tracks were a lot flatter and there were only one or two jumps.
“But today you need a bigger skill set. You need power, skills to manage the jumps, upper and lower body strength etc.
“But it’s still a great sport.”
