A BMX History Library chapter · United Kingdom section

Craig Campbell

The first rider outside America that Haro put on the payroll, and one of the people who worked out what street riding was going to be

Legend Bike Co · BMX heritage series

In 1983, Bob Haro came to England looking for a British rider to represent his company. He watched a contest at Harrow Skate Park, picked out a teenager from Essex, and signed him. That made Craig Campbell the first rider anywhere outside the United States on full Haro sponsorship, at a moment when Haro was more or less inventing the freestyle industry.

Five years later, at a jam in a San Diego suburb, the same rider put a 540 into a wallride in front of a crowd of American riders who had not seen it done. Eddie Roman, who was there, wrote later that all of them fell over.

Essex, 1983

Campbell grew up near Southend and came up through the British skatepark scene at exactly the point when freestyle stopped being a sideshow to racing and became its own thing. Britain had skateparks left over from the 1970s boom, a handful of contests, and a magazine culture that was about to explode.

The Haro sponsorship changed his life fast. In a country where BMX was mostly Raleigh Burners in the front garden, a British teenager riding for the American company that had put the word freestyle on a frame was an event. He became a name inside a couple of years.

Pro-Lite, Skyway, and the British circuit

In 1984 he won the UK King of the Skatepark. In 1985 he took the UKBFA British Pro Freestyle Champion title.

That same year his connection with the British brand Pro-Lite produced a signature frame, built by Freewheeler. It is recorded as the best-selling freestyle bike in Britain that year, outselling the two brands behind it. A British kid, on a British-built frame, with his own name on the down tube — that had not happened in freestyle before.

He moved on to riding full factory for Skyway, on the famous Skyway mag wheels, which was about as high as a British freestyler could climb without leaving the country.

Then he walked away from it. In his own telling, the British contest circuit had gone corporate and repetitive, and it did not suit him. He dropped his sponsors, took a job in a sound mixing studio making music for television commercials, and rode for M:Zone, the Croydon shop, instead.

1985: Pipeline

His first trip to America came in 1985, to ride the King of the Skateparks contest at Pipeline Skatepark in California. He has described the shock plainly — nothing in Britain was built like that, and he was riding against the best in the world on their home concrete with two days of practice.

He finished fourth, behind Eddie Fiola, Brian Blyther and Mike Dominguez. Three of the biggest names in American freestyle, and a teenager from Essex directly behind them. He also pulled cancan X-ups there, which he says nobody had seen at that point.

London street, 1986 and 1987

The part of Campbell's career that actually changed BMX happened on the streets of London, not in a contest.

He rode with Jess Dyrenforth and Nick Philip, who went on to found the clothing label Anarchic Adjustment. The three of them were skateboarding as well as riding, and trying to work out which skate tricks would go on a bike. R.A.D. magazine covered both sports and put their photos in front of British readers. Freestylin', the American title, ran a piece on the London street scene.

They thought they were the only people doing it. They were not — there was a group in California working along the same lines — but they got there independently and at the same time, which is how new disciplines actually arrive.

Campbell also says he did the first peg grinds, on vert, around 1987, and the first nosepicks on vert. Those are his own recollections in a magazine interview rather than a documented result, and we present them that way.

His last significant British appearance was the Holeshot contest in London at the end of 1987.

California, 1988 to 1991

Dyrenforth was already in the United States getting paid to ride shows. He phoned Campbell and told him to get on a plane. Campbell went, along with Nick Philip and Lee Reynolds, and stayed about three years.

In America he rode for Ozone alongside Pete Augustin, Craig Grasso and Chris Day, and later for GT. He lived in a house with a spine ramp in the backyard, which in 1989 was a new kind of ramp, and by his account he and Chris Day invented a pile of tricks on it. He rode the 2Hip contests that Ron Wilkerson was putting on — King of Vert in Austin in 1989 on a half pipe built on a barge in a lake, and Meet the Street at the Brooklyn Banks in Manhattan, which Wilkerson ran in the street with no permission and a lot of charm.

Santee, 1988

The first recognized street contest was held in Santee, in San Diego County, in 1988. Campbell had been riding the streets of Redondo Beach for months in preparation. Dave Voelker was the local, throwing enormous wallrides off a dirt bank.

Campbell put a 540 into a wallride. He won the qualifiers. He could not land the trick again in the final and Voelker took the win — but the trick was out, and it was more than a decade before anyone else made a habit of it.

He calls it his finest moment on a bike. Eddie Roman, who was in the crowd, put it in print years later: Campbell was the first to do wallride 540s, and it marked a change in what street riding meant.

January 1991

The GT contract ran out and BMX went into its early-1990s collapse. There was no living in it. Campbell flew back from Los Angeles to London in January 1991, at twenty-one, and became a DJ instead — through the whole of the 1990s, then into music production.

He has said he regrets quitting that young. He has also said, of the years that followed, that things got out of control and he had to slow down at the turn of the millennium. He is straightforward about all of it, which is more than most people in his position manage.

He started riding again around 2010, twenty years after he stopped. At the 2009 world championships in Germany he had already made an unplanned comeback of sorts: watching a Haro reunion show, Brian Blyther pulled him out of the crowd and handed him a bike, and Campbell — no pads, no practice — rode at the quarterpipe and broke three ribs. He DJ'd the after-party anyway.

His advice to riders, from that same interview: fly while you can, because that feeling of being invincible on a bike will not last forever.

Where the record runs thin

Timeline

• 16 July 1969 — born near Southend, Essex.
• 1983 — Bob Haro sees him ride at a contest at Harrow Skate Park and signs him. First non-American rider on full Haro sponsorship.
• 1984 — wins UK King of the Skatepark.
• 1985 — UKBFA British Pro Freestyle Champion. Pro-Lite signature frame, built by Freewheeler. First trip to America: fourth at King of the Skateparks, Pipeline Skatepark, behind Eddie Fiola, Brian Blyther and Mike Dominguez.
• Mid-1980s — rides full factory for Skyway, then quits his sponsors and rides for M:Zone in Croydon.
• 1986 to 1987 — develops street riding in London with Jess Dyrenforth and Nick Philip; covered by R.A.D. and by Freestylin'.
• Late 1987 — last major British appearance, the Holeshot contest in London. Spends a year working in a sound mixing studio.
• 1988 — moves to the United States with Nick Philip and Lee Reynolds. Rides the first recognized street contest at Santee, San Diego County, and lands a 540 wallride.
• 1989 — rides 2Hip King of Vert in Austin and Meet the Street at the Brooklyn Banks. Rides for Ozone with Pete Augustin, Craig Grasso and Chris Day.
• 1990 — GT contract runs to its end.
• January 1991 — quits riding, returns from Los Angeles to London, becomes a DJ.
• 2009 — pulled out of the crowd at a Haro reunion show at the world championships in Germany, rides, and breaks three ribs.
• 2010 — riding again, photographed wallriding in London for Dig.

Where this sits in the bigger story

Street riding is the biggest thing in BMX and has been for thirty years. It did not come from a federation or a sponsor. It came from a small number of people in two places — southern California and London — riding skate spots on bikes in the mid-1980s and comparing notes by accident. Campbell is one of the Londoners, and the reason he matters is not the medal count. It is that Haro reaching across the Atlantic in 1983 to sign a British teenager was the first sign that BMX freestyle was going to be a world sport rather than an American one.

He sits in the same generation as the riders documented elsewhere in this library who built the discipline from the ramp side — Ron Wilkerson, Brian Blyther, Mat Hoffman — and he shared contests and ramps with all of them. Wilkerson's 2Hip series is where Campbell's best-known trick happened.

Britain kept sending riders after him. Jamie Bestwick went to America in 1999 and owned vert at the X Games. Stephen Murray went the same year and won dirt at the X Games and the Gravity Games. Both of them left for the reason Campbell left in 1988 — the ramps, the contests and the money were over there. Campbell went first.

Names in this chapter that deserve their own pages and do not have them yet: Jess Dyrenforth, Nick Philip, and R.A.D. magazine, which did as much for British freestyle as BMX Bi-Weekly did for British racing.

Sources

Dig BMX, "Re Print: The Craig Campbell Interview," digbmx.com, reprinted 26 March 2015, originally printed in Dig issue 83, July 2011; interview by Grant Smith, photographs by Richie Hopson — the Haro signing in 1983 and the ProLite and Skyway years, the decision to drop his sponsors and ride for M:Zone, the London street riding with Jess Dyrenforth and Nick Philip, the R.A.D. and Freestylin' coverage, the 1985 Pipeline trip and fourth place behind Eddie Fiola, Brian Blyther and Mike Dominguez, the cancan X-ups, the Holeshot contest in London at the end of 1987, the move to California and the three years there, the Ozone team with Pete Augustin, Craig Grasso and Chris Day, the spine ramp house in 1989, the 2Hip King of Vert in Austin and Meet the Street at the Brooklyn Banks, the 540 wallride at the first street contest in Santee in 1988 and Dave Voelker's win, his own claims to the first peg grinds and vert nosepicks around 1987, quitting in January 1991 to DJ, the 2009 Haro reunion crash in Germany, and riding again in 2010. Eddie Roman and Craig Grasso, quoted in the same Dig feature — the first-hand account of the 540 wallride. Wikipedia, "Craig Campbell (BMX rider)" — date and place of birth, the nickname Camps, the professional team list, the UK King of the Skatepark title in 1984 and the UKBFA British Pro Freestyle Champion title in 1985, the 1985 Pro-Lite signature frame built by Freewheeler and its sales claim, the disputed rocket air, the 540 wallride credit, the 1987 sound studio year, the 1988 move to America with Nick Philip and Lee Reynolds, and the end of the GT contract, drawing on 23mag.com, FatBMX, Ride UK and the 2Hip history page. 23mag.com, "Craig Campbell." FatBMX, "Re-up: Craig Campbell interview (UK Ramp Rider special)," 13 January 2009.

Checked and unreachable at the time of research: bmxsociety.com and bmxmuseum.com.

Last reviewed: August 2026.