Rest In Peace, Paul Buchanan

BMX has lost another legend… Rest In Peace, Paul Buchanan…

Cover Photo: Ed Doherty / DIG

I wrote a tribute for Paul over @digbmx. What I didn’t say in that is that I’m no stranger to the grips of depression and battle with it often. If anyone out there is in the same boat, I’m always here to talk, offer bad jokes and probably send an offensive text photo. Rip #paulbuchanan

A post shared by Brian Tunney (@briantunney) on May 17, 2018 at 2:10pm PDT

It’s always a bummer to hear about a rider passing away, especially one as influential and legendary as Paul Buchanan. Today we caught wind that Paul had passed away earlier this week. It’s not quite clear exactly what happened, but Brian Tunney‘s Instagram post offers some insight. You can check out his full write up on the DIG website — In Memory: Paul Buchanan.

Although we haven’t seen anything from Paul for quite some time, he was one of those riders who people still talked about frequently and his riding influenced a lot of riders and pushed BMX into new directions during his time riding for different brands, including Terrible One. Below you can find an old Prop’s bio with Joe Rich that has a Terrible One commercial featuring Paul that still to this day is downright amazing. We’ve embedded it to start at about the 9:20 mark where the commercial starts. You can also find the Terrible One “You Get What You Get” video that features riding from Paul at the bottom. After the Props commercial, we’ve embedded Taj Mihelich‘s Instagram post with some words about Paul…

Rest In Peace, Paul. You left your mark on BMX and will never be forgotten.

We lost a great one. Paul Buchanan was one of the first riders T1 sponsored. To me his riding was genius. His creativity, technical ability and all around burliness made him something really special. We (Joe and I at T1) wanted to support him. We knew he was never going to be a big contest rider (though he did ride X-games), he seemed to be happiest riding late at night, often alone, making up his own stuff without the influence of anyone else. And he did make up a lot of stuff. He was a huge influence on riders. He was quiet about it, probably no one filmed or shot photos but he brought new things to BMX all the time. – I’m strangely stuck on this memory I have of him standing out on the T1 ramp all alone with my dog Roscoe. He used to spend time back there with the dog and teach him weird tricks. He would never speak out loud while doing it. He’d just point and Roscoe would figure out what he wanted. He taught Roscoe to run up the big vert wall extension on the T1 ramp to retrieve things. That vert wall was amazingly high! That’s the image I have… Roscoe grabbing some ball off the top of that wall while Paul stands calmly at the bottom of the ramp pointing. – I found this bio I wrote about him back in 2001: “Paul seems really disjointed from a lot of the riding scene to me, but I think that’s a great thing. He is always testing and trying new things and I think that type of creativity is so often lost on a lot of today’s pro riders. Keeping his distance is a good way for him to maintain his own originality and his own direction. He’s able to take riding to new places that no one has ever thought of and that’s invaluable to the BMX world. In any event, I don’t think Paul is aware of any of that. I don’t think he has any idea how influential he is. The boundaries he has pushed and new directions he opens up have trickled down via the few people who spend time riding with him, to the rest of BMX. There are lot of trends and tricks in riding right now that start back with Paul, but I’d be willing to bet that not even he realizes it." Vid from @t1stagram and @stew1201. Not sure about the riding photo… @t1ers or @sandy_carson i think. From my old t1 files.

A post shared by Taj Mihelich (@tajlucas) on May 17, 2018 at 12:30pm PDT

Saddened to hear of one of the greats of bmx paul buchanan has gone, so elusive, with barely a photo or a video clip seen, and yet every time something did appear it was a total treat and memorable something perhaps today’s insta clip generation doesn’t get… a massive influence on many, actions speak louder than words perhaps. Section from @seventiesdistro from love to hate 2001, #terribleone t/shirt bought by me while in austin 2001 #rippaulbuchanan #bmx

A post shared by Gav Cope (@modebmx) on May 17, 2018 at 2:06pm PDT