used to. i too miss those days. saw the bmx action trick team on tour and all the other factory teams from back in the day. watched the movie 'joe kid on a stingray' and it was like my life from age 12 to 18. good post.
I'm no racer but when the weather's nice I sometimes ride my '85 Hutch XL24 to work. One of my best buds builds and collects old schoolers. He's got some ultrasweet minted out JMCs, and GT and Champion cruisers.
I remember seeing that car in a road fools 9 commercial. Im ridin a Dirt Brothers Industry patriot frame (Vic Murphys old company).
...I used to ride flatland for General bikes back in the 80's..still ride a few times a month..heres some of my current rides!
first real bmx: torker with CW bars, mushroom grips, layback seat post skyway tuff II mags (black w/ red snake belly tires) 3 piece crank now: DK 24" cruiser with sun rims, and all dk components. and a '67 schwinn stingray deluxe lowrider, that i built, flat black of course. pain is temporary, glory is forever and chicks dig scars, just turned 32 and gonna go ride my fat ass around town very soon.
i raced bmx in so cal from 1975 to 1979 and was sponsored by DG. i'm sure the land where all the tracks we raced then are now apartments,shopping centers,undustrial parks,homes,etc. irvine track off of jeffrey road/405 fwy santa ana elks club western sports o rama on lincoln ave. fountain valley track next to the drive in movie theatre. van nuys track next to a disco and a huge flood canal. la mirada park azusa
fuck ya great thread.grew up racin all over socal early 80's through last ridin at the vans skate parks with ognc in the early 00's. best movie ever RAD.now just cruise the beach cruisers with the little ones around the hood.thanks for the memories.
p.s. from what i remember there were a handful of bikes back then. stripped schwinn stingrays were common but heavy, (we used to take stingrays, remove the fenders,chain guards,banana seats,handle bars, put ten speed seats on them,"square bars", "nobbies", and that was it. then there was a bike frame called a stroker (had square tubing and was extremely heavy), huffy was around but VERY cheaply made,then later came mongoose with motomags,redline,DG,etc.
I grew up with a bunch of the Dirt Bros. (Jimmy Arrington, Brad Blanchard) and Dave Voelker in my neighborhood, so it was impossible not to ride. I have hundreds of photos of those guys before they started getting magazine press. I still break out my DK S.O.B. on occasion and pedal around at the high school behind my house. I must be getting old because a pedal to the shin at my age puts me out of commission for the rest of the day... LOL
had the old 'goose out this afternoon......remember the guys around that had the "big dollar" redlines and pk rippers ...thought man thats what i need.....haha never did end up with any of those.....we did have some generals , haros, dyno's and stuff ....lots of fun ...we built a quarter pipe my senior year...nowadays...my brother and cousin and i usually go to cincy and ride in town .....lookin' like fools .....hah thanks brandon
Ha! My little bro built a Stroker once... just to be different. Ended up replacing the frame with a red anodized Race Inc. frame, but of course it cracked at the seat clamp like they all did. I think my first BMX bike was a CyclePro that I scarfed up for $7.50 at a police bike auction. After an ACS Motomag and a paint job, I rode that for about a year before I came upon an old square-back Redline frame. I laced my own 7X Arayas on Bulleye hubs, put a Cro-Mo Tioga crank on it, CW pro bars and a set of Shimano DX pedals (still have round divits in my shins from those things). Some rich kid just had to have it, and I sold it for $50 more than I had in it, and he gave me his Kos Cruiser for $20.00 two weeks later. Geez - those were the days.
I remember Dave Voelker from Lakeside, Ca. He raced with a buddy of mine. What ever happened to him? Oh Yeah, BMX ruled my life from about 8-14yrs. Man the 80's were great I have started collecting some olf 80's bikes because they are so cheap now. I have 3 GT performers and one Dyno and a newer Specialized Fat Boy.
Wow, i had no idea there were so many dirty ol bmxers on here. I ride a Vic Murphy sinature frame from Dirt bros. I lived at the dirt house and Vic has been my best friend since I was 7 yrs old. I am part owner in Dirt Bros.I designed and built Dirt bros frames for 2 years. I was the guy that built the red white and blue model A in Vics interview , and If you ever get a chance to see the Dave Voelker video, Vic is interviewed while sitting on the front tire of my model A. Brad Blanchard still rides and is into cars. He has a camaro daily driver and I helped him build a 67 chevelle a few years back. Jimmy Airington also still rides and is the proud owner of a nice 69 chevelle. Vic is currently touring with Nascar, doing bmx stunt shows and preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ at all of the nascar events. one of the talented guys at Salinas boys is brandon Caquila, He rides for Failure bikes and is building some of the coolest cars on earth with Cole Foster. Enclosed are a few shots from my place when Vic and I were doin DBI. Thats my weak attempt at a table, I aint no Vic Murphy. DIRTBROS 4 Life, Jim Sibley
Oh yeah, here's some of me recent-like: Right after we finished the pro set at my local track(I don't get this stupid that often).
Real men have 20 inches! Or at least that's what we used to say. I rode quite a bit until the cars came, and then we drug them all back out and started riding again in the early 90's. Broke a lot of old-school GT Performer stuff since we weighed a little more. Then I had my Redline and my brother's Schwinn Predator with the rock-n-roll seat and YO! stuff get stolen and bought a few new frames like a 2-hip Stoutboy. Kinda tapered off again. Got into mountain biking until I moved away from the local trails. Would like to start that back up again and bust off some of this taco-belly that I've been working on. I still have my last bike, a Basic Small Town Hick, I just chased down the maple leaf sprocket after nearly 10 years of searching.... It's a flatland frame but I used to ride street a lot with it. I also have a '69 Huffy rail, but that's a musclebike...whole nother ballgame right there...
Any of you old 20inchers that are interested in something a little more forgiving should check out Mountainbike Dirt Jumpers. Beefy 26" wheel bikes with rear gears and burly thru-axle suspension forks in front. Meant to jump and they do land a little softer than our little bikes.
I used to race at the "teen center" in Reseda,ca every friday night from 1979-1982 ....had a Mongoose and a Gary Turner that I would alternate running, plus I thought I was so cool, I rode a Gary Turner "pit" bike to school all the time (what a dork!).....then started learnin' on pops 32 5 window build and building my first car (a 56 ford pickup) with my pops and pretty much stopped the BMX.
Hehe, that's crazy, I had one of the first G-Boy frames, (yeah, I had to listen to gayboy jokes...) I assume that's what you're talking about?......placed a pre-production order and waited & waited, when it finally came it had a sticker on the top tube that said "STOUT". All Alum, chromed. The chrome flaked off in a few places, but that was thee lightest frame, 2lb2oz., early to mid 1979. Just about everyone in the BMX went on to fast cars & hot rods, I think it's just the natural progression of things. Wrench on your bike & trick it out, then when you can drive you want to drill out your car too....
I raced 25-34 year old Cruiser in NBL and 25 and over Cruiser in ABA in the early 80's. Hey Tred, I raced for Wooden Wheels. The original owner, Reid Rowlands, was NBL #1 in 1982 and I wound up #11 (I thought it sucked that I missed the Top Ten and Eddy King,who rode for Diamondback, told me that HE was #11 once and he told people that he was so bad that they had to give him two number ones!) I won one National in Lawrenceville, NJ. Easter Sunday 1983 Florida
I just gave my Homeless 20" to a kid to ride last year. Only rode for fun. I own a bicycle shop in Austin and ride mostly Mountain bikes and some street.....when I have the time. Since I got into the cars I have a really hard time getting motivated to get out on my bike. I've sponsored some BMX riders in the past, Love to watch a talented rider. I had no idea there were so many bikers on this board. Cool. -John Joyo...
Add me to the list also. Finished 5th at the milehigh nationals in Longmont, Co. back in 84. Still have my painted Mongoose motomag. Has skyway tuffII's now. Picked up a set of NOS Motomags still in the original boxes on ebay not to long ago. Paid thru the nose for those but i got a set. Still got my original plate still strapped to the Robinson bars. God i wish i could still do the tricks i could back then. I even have all my BMX action magazines still from April 81 thru 1987 when cars and making a living took over. Somewhere i have a school folder autographed at the 1984 Nationals in Rockford by all the big guys from the day. Stu Thompson, Harry Leary, Pistol pete, Hollywood mike, Brian Patterson and many more. Damn those are the best days you could have as a teenager. Wish i could relive them.
I feel kinda old, we used to just call it "trail riding" before BMX.Stripped down your stock stink-ray,and went at it.Problem was you kept breakin stuff! I put on a set of motorcycle bars, and everyone called me a dork. Later that summer everyone had some! Everything that broke got welded, eventualy you had to learn to weld and fabricate if you wanted to ride that hard. We built our own parts,and even monoshock bikes (heavy pigs) and sidehacks. When Motomags came out, I wanted a pair in the worst way, but couldn't afford them. But I learned how to build wheels with motorcycle spokes. I look at the stuff now and think of the crap we could of pulled with it. I doubt if we could ever have pulled the jumps they do now though.Amazing! Still have my OM Flyer from the only time I actually raced.Too much waiting and little league type parents took all the fun out of that. Catching air on my old mountian bike(no suspension) is still fun,but hard on the joints! Old BMXers never die they just build hot rods to annoy people in other ways! Doc
Great post!! I was a Woodward "local" before they had any ramps.Mike Miranda showed me how to take the gate!He gave me a "hollywood" jacket that I still have.
Well I guess since I started all of this I will post some pics of me riding. tire grab on a 3ft quarter rail ride those are both from a vid.
"pistol pete" loncaravich lived one street over from me in santa ana cal. in the 70's. we were just kids and all went to school together and hung around the fields near our house after school every day...everyone brought shovels and we built our own practice tracks. if you knew how to do a cross up,bunny hop, or table top you were cool. never in a million years did i think people could do what i see on tv today. does anyone on here remember any of the tracks i mentioned ?
Guilty...Its seems like its been forever. I remember riding all afternoon and then watching RIDE videos or RAD multiple times. Cru Jones was the man! I rode mostly dirt and trails, but tried to get some street riding in on occasion. I just started putting this one back together in hopes of trying to ride again:
If anyone remembers ol' Harold "McGoo" McGruther, he is actually a contributor on the HAMB's sister site, www.jockeyjournal.com. He's hung up the 20" and has had a bad case of chopper fever the last few years... Me, my claim to fame in BMX was that as a kid growing up in the late 70's in Pedro, I lived a block or four from Mike Buff's house. I was the kid with the cast in a photo of some issue of BMXAction where Buff was bunny hopping a bunch of us grommets from the hood. -Bill __________________ www.eldiablorun.com
No way...Stu Thompson, Harry Leary, Pistol pete, Mike Miranda, Mike Buff!!! What about Dizz Hicks, Hahaha!
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