Jake Rawnsley | Photo: Sam Baggette

Intro words by Bertie Buck

In the novel The Dice Man, the hero makes every decision from the roll of a dice, making him extremely unpredictable.  Before he discovered the way of the dice his life was boring and unfulfilling, but the chance and infinite possibility changed his life. As his fame grew he gained followers and investment from stock brokers, hoping to introduce that very important element of chance.

Similar qualities are present in Jake’s personality and riding. Ashley Charles once described his riding as erratic, and unpredictable. Jake openly admits he goes into some lines not knowing what he is going to try. It is this element of chance and unpredictability that makes his riding his own, interesting and at times scary to watch.

No matter what’s going on in my life, however much I am stressing about work, I know with confidence Jake will be out there not giving a fuck about any of the things that worry me and doing the same weird stuff as he always has. The anti-hero, the Big Lebowski of bmx.

Street Phire: Who do you ride for?

Jake Rawnsley: At the moment I ride for Skavenger through 4Down, Demolition through Elephant Distribution and Southern Structure Clothing, I guess kinda BMX Plus too. I must have been riding for around 7 years for BMX, used to ride MTB when I was young and didnt know what was good for me.

Rail Hop | Tea and Biscuits Tour | Photo: Banners

SP: We’re starting to get the travel bug here at streetphire so the question is what’s your favorite road trip you’ve done?

JR: Must be the Tea and Biscuits tour as its the only proper one i’ve done. It only lasted two days before I tore my ACL but it was amazing to ride with the Demolition and Volume teams. Good time and so many hobnobs and cups of tea.

I’ve been on a fair few day trips with good mates and they’ve always been fun. Never really had much of an opportunity to travel with my bike yet.

SP: I know you’re from Bournemouth and i’ve rode there before with you guys but what’s it like living, working and riding in Bournemouth?

JR: I love it down here, nice relaxed town with happy vibes. I grew up in the countryside (Suffolk) and Bomo (Bournemouth) is the largest town i’ve lived in, I don’t think I’ll go much bigger. Im working as a chef in a small student bar called Buffalo’s, we do mad tasty home made burgers and plenty of other tasty stuff.

Riding wise its awesome the scene is HUGE so many good riders and its going to get even better with the new indoor park. The street isn’t amazing, its all real balls out stuff or something you have to think about a lil more kinda guess its made me appreciate more creative riding

The Snake Charmer | Bournemouth | Photo: Bertie Buck

SP: What do you mean by creative exactly?

JR: Well I guess street for me is a way to release creativity, I think a lot of people watch all the American web edits and see all these perfect spots. Unfortunately we don’t have much like that here, gotta make do with what you got. I like to try and ride something that people havent thought about. Just try and put a different flair on my riding. I don’t know if you saw the article on TCU a while back about “set up riders”?

http://thecomeup.com/cnr/zach-krejmas-tom-white-the-birth-of-the-set-up-rider/

I guess the jist of it is I like the the set up to determine what trick I do, rather than have a trick in mind and go out searching for the spot

SP: What’s your favorite trick to execute?

JR: Haha oh god, I hate that question. Probably stretched out oppo t-bog or a nicely dipped 3. Always changing, I had 4 pegs on for a while and all I seemed to do was rocket manuals everywhere.

SP: Did you sling a b’s while rocket manualling?

JR: Might have, I was trying fakie to half cab rocket manual 180’s, that was fun.

Oppo T-Bog | Photo: Bertie Buck

SP: You’ve been plagued with injury the last few months, what happened there?

JR: It’s been pretty much a year and of minimal riding! I tore my Gastrocnemius (calf) muscle really bad this time last year which took me of my bike for about 2 months. Then got hooked up by Elephant Distro and they took me on the debut Tea and Biscuits Tour with some of the American Volume and Demolition pros. On the second day after riding for a couple of hours up in Liverpool I ended up snapping my ACL and destroyed all the cartilage in my right knee, it felt like a gun went off inside it!

Whip | Kings Skatepark | Photo: Oli Hilyer-Riley

SP: That sounds like one hell of a painful experience..

JR: Last year was just injury after injury, horrible stuff.

SP: So when are you back on your bike then?

JR: Hopefully about a month from now if the physio all goes well.

SP: When you’re fully back to action what you got planned for this year? Any trips, videos, interviews?

JR: Well I plan on coming back stronger than ever, decided im gonna get in the gym (never been in my life) to get back to strength, then gonna go hard! Probably go and visit Bertie. I want to film a full edit back in my home county of Suffolk. As far as trips are going I’m pretty sure the boys at Elephant have something planned out. I can’t wait to get back out there. Been resisting the urge to hang out at the park, I know i’ll fuck myself over again haha.

SP: We wish you the best of luck with your road to recovery and can’t wait to see you back on the bike in the next few months! Thanks again for doing the interview with us and now you can check out Jake’s Skavenger setup below:

Bike Check | Photo: Sam Baggette

Bike Check:
Frame: Skavenger El Blanco Loco, 21″ (Short Version)
Fork: Skavenger Flat Iron
Headset: Stolen Impact
Stem: Attila Frontin’ (for pure street heritage)
Handlebars: Stolen Devient 8.5
Grips: Demolition Missile
Tires: Demolition Momentum
Rear Wheel: Demolition Bulimia Hub, Demolition Zero rim
Front Wheel: Demolition Rogue Hub, Demolition Zero rim
Cranks: Stolen Team 2.0
Pedals: Demolition PC
Chain: Stolen Balland
Sprocket: Demolition Merit
Seat: United Value
Post: Animal
Clamp: Animal
Pegs: Currently none but usually have 4 Demolition Dumbchucks

Bike Check, Closer Inspection | Photo: Sam Baggette

SP: Be sure to check out Jake’s edit from last year, such a good style of riding.