Props Video Magazine

Props Video Magazine was a BMX video magazine produced by Props Visual in the United States. It began in 1993 and was released as numbered issues on VHS, then DVD, for most of the following two decades. Each issue mixed contest coverage, rider profiles, bike checks, scene reports and road trip footage. Before broadband internet and the web edit, Props was the main way riders around the world saw what was happening in BMX from month to month.

Background

Props was started in 1993 by Chris Rye and Marco Massei, equal partners who ran it from a shared house in Elk Grove Village, Illinois, near Chicago. Print magazines covered BMX at the time, but moving footage of riding was hard to come by. Brand videos were rare and expensive to make, and contest footage mostly circulated on bootleg tapes passed between friends. Props filled that gap with a regular video release that treated BMX the way a magazine would: with departments, recurring features and a numbered issue.

The idea borrowed from skateboarding, where video magazines had already shown the format could work. Props adapted it for BMX, filming contests, visiting riders at home and sending tapes out through bike shops and mail order. Riders in small towns, and riders outside the United States, often learned about new tricks, new products and new names from a Props issue months before they saw them anywhere else.

Contents and sections

Issues were broken into segments. The mix changed over the years, but the main departments were consistent.

• Contest coverage. Footage from the big events of the period, including the X Games and the major pro and amateur series, cut to show the best runs and the atmosphere around them.
• Bio sections. A profile of one rider, built from an interview and a dedicated riding section. For many riders a Props bio was their first proper video part.
• Bike checks. A walk around a pro's bike, part by part. For many viewers this was the first close look at how pros set up their handlebars, pegs and brakes, or why they ran none at all.
• Scene reports. Visits to a city or region, showing the local spots, parks and trails, and the riders who built and used them.
• Road trips. Footage from team trips and from Props' own travels. This grew into the separate Road Fools series and the larger Megatour trips.
• Industry and product news. Short items on new parts and companies. These are now a useful record of what the industry looked like at the time.

Issues also carried crash sections, interviews and the occasional comedy skit. The tone was casual. Props was made by riders, and it looked and sounded like a tape passed between friends rather than a television broadcast.

Standout parts

Because Props ran for so long, its most memorable moments are spread across dozens of issues rather than concentrated in one. A few things stand out across the whole run.

The bio sections are the most revisited. Many riders who later became well known had early bios in Props, and for some riders a Props bio remains the most complete video record of their peak years.

The contest coverage from the 1990s and early 2000s is now a primary source. Props filmed events that had little or no other video coverage, so if you want to see how street, park and vert contests looked and felt in that era, Props is usually where the footage lives.

The road trip material is the other highlight. The relaxed, personality-led style of those segments became so popular that it was spun off into Road Fools, which is covered in its own article.

Impact and legacy

Props set the template for BMX video coverage. It showed that riders would pay for regular footage, and it created a shared visual culture: riders in different countries watched the same tapes and talked about the same sections. It also gave filmers a job. The Props crew became fixtures at contests and on trips, and the production values of the series improved steadily as cameras and editing tools got cheaper.

The influence of Props runs through the brand videos of the 2000s and into the web edit era. The rider bio, the bike check and the road trip segment all moved online more or less intact. Props itself wound down as online video took over, and the regular numbered issues ended in the early 2010s.

Old issues are still watched. Many have been uploaded online, and the footage is used as reference for how tricks, bikes and style developed through the 1990s and 2000s. For the wider context of that period, see BMX in the 1990s.

Related

• Road Fools: the Props road trip series
• BACO: a rougher, comedic Midwest video series from the same decade
• Web edit and the web edit era: what replaced the video magazine
• BMX in the 1990s
• NORA Cup: the annual awards for the riders and video parts of the year