Last week the sad news that Dave Beveridge has passed away broke, and I have to be honest it’s taken me a few days to get to grips with this heartbreaking news.

I grew up seeing Dave ride regularly at the UKBFA contests, he rode for Vincent Frames at the time.
Dave lived in Burgess Hill, just outside Brighton here on the south coast of the U.K.
One of my earliest memories, was seeing a sequence of Dave in BMX Action Bike doing a boomerang variation called the “swash buckle”. I remember going outside my parents house and learning that trick, and incorporating into my flatland routines for a while after that.
A few years later, we had a fortnightly BMX club in Petersfield. A lot of big name riders would visit the club from all over the south coast, Dave was one of those riders who attended, and he was always encouraging to me personally, and he laughed that I had learnt the “swash buckle”.

Dave was also one of the riders that I personally recognised as being good at both flatland and ramps from a young age. He kept in tune with both regularly making trips to South Bank to ride flatland at the weekends, or equally he would be seen at Chingford blasting the vert, and that’s super hard to do.
Dave loved BMX, and even when he stopped competing, he would always regularly attend events, King of Concrete, Backyard jams, Cologne all spring to mind.
The last time I rode with Dave was at the Flatmatters jam in 2012 in Hulme, Manchester. I was stoked to see he still had the flatland hunger, he talked about making the trip to the states during the winter to keep on progressing, from my memories as a kid watching Dave I was stoked to see the fire still burning bright…

We have lost a true BMX lifer, condolences to his family & friends from within the BMX community and outside.

Rest in peace Dave.

Effraim Catlow / Flatmattersonline