Montgomery Ward - Open Road BMX Shaped Object

Just remembering this "Open Road" BMX bike sold by Montgomery Ward. It was a fall day and my dad took me to Golden Ring Mall to see a movie. I'm not 100% sure but I want to say it was "Hangar 18" which was about the government covering up a collision that the Space Shuttle had with an alien spacecraft or something. If I remember correctly later in life I'd get flashbacks of the parallels between Hangar 18 and the Roswell UFO crash tale, in particular the Blue Room, which was supposedly the room where the aliens were kept, and was later memorialized by the sound system called The Orb. All of this is very loose as far a memories go.

Anyway, back to the bike. Before the movie we took a stroll through the MonkeyWards and went to the bike section. Dad knew I was going to ask for a bike for Christmas becayse I -always- asked for a bike, so I guess he figured he would get ahead of the game, and let me pick out the exact one I wanted. This was not the exact one I wanted. This one is:

Unfortunately this was out of our price range. In fact at this point in my life I had never even been to a real bike shop and seen a Redline in real life. But on this particular day it didn't matter, I was stoked that I at least got to pick out the exact bike I wanted from the row of stingray clones and ten speeds. This was the only thing even close to what I needed. Boy was I happy when he walked up to the counter and put it on lay-away!

The next few months were torture, waiting for Christmas day and my new ride. Soon enough the day came and I couldn't wait to take out my new bike and check out the other new bikes that all the neighborhood kids had gotten. Whether mine was nicer or not I was sure I was the only one with this model.

Overall, I had a blast on this bike, thrashing the bejeezus out of it until some point about mid summer when I cracked the rear Lester Allow Mag. This was an interesting failure...the bike would still roll, but it made a noise that said "when this thing finally fails completely, you are gonna end up bloody and hurt. I listened to that message and soon enough traded something or other for some spoked wheels from Crazy Gary, the neighborhood tinkerer and electronic genius.

Ended up getting a bit more lifespan out of it and of course as it grew closer to Christmas I started thinking about what I was going to replace it with, so it soon faded into oblivion like a zillion bikes before and after. Now that I'm, older it is very easy to see that this thing was most likely made in the same factory as the Huffy Pro Thunder series. Open Road, you were not the best bike I the world but I'm fond of the times we had together.

2020 Olympics Tokyo Cycling, BMX & Skateboarding Mascots!

Ladies and gentlemen, here are your 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics Cycling, Mountain Biking, BMX Racing and BMX Freestyle mascots!

BMX RACING

BMX FREESTYLE

ROAD CYCLING

TRACK CYCLING

MOUNTAIN BIKING

SKATEBOARDING

How freakin' awesome are these? I love them. Share this post!

Just an Awesome Vintage BMX Photo

Wish I could explain what some of these vintage photos do to me. It's more than just bike memories. They take me back to being a kid in general. Full of hope for the future, I really thought that I would eventually move to SoCal and be involved in the BMX industry. Things didn't really turn out that way but that's okay. I still like to feel the nostalgia for that time period when I can. The person in this pic is not me, but I've done lots of powerslides, has lots of tuff wheel mags, and ridden loads of shoes so long that the sides blew out.

Getting Microscopic with Vintage Buff, Duke and 944

What a rad photo! Let's take a moment and examine it a bit closer.
Making the leap is one of my personal childhood heroes Mike Buff, who we all know and love from the Bicycle Motocross Action Trick Team. There is no way to positively ID if he is riding his trademark white PK Ripper in this shot, but he often ran Baby Blue Landing Gear forks with the PH frame, and obvs whatever forks he is running here are white, so who knows. I don't see any fork standers so I don't think he had switched to riding a Hutch Trick Star when this photo was taken. Another timestamp for this pic is that the bike clearly does not have the Potts Modification as the front brake cable is clearly visible. He is roosting a pretty good launch to be landing on flat ground though. Almost certain that those are white ACS Z-rims he is running. 

The car is obvs a Porsche 944. Not much to say about that except that one of the riders I grew up with had one when we were in high school and I always thought t was a pretty sweet ride. 

The person leaning against the car is Dana Duke, who was at the time sort of the Flavor Flav of the BMX and Motocross scene from what I remember. I'm pretty sure he was an announcer for lots of BMX trick shows, and also heavily involved in the motorcycle motocross scene. But if I remember correctly he was much more than just an announcer and did all kinds of things to help promote and generate hype for both BMX and Motocross. Unfortunately he is also remembered as being the driver in a car/train accident than killed three passengers that were with him at the time, all of them heavy hitters in the motocross scene. Last I heard The Duke is still alive and shows up at events from time to time sporting some rad vintage Oakley gear. Not sure if he is actually doing any announcing or is affiliated with marketing of hype generating though. If you know of any up to date news post in the comments. 

Hollywood Miranda

One of the most iconic images ever published in BMX Action. Photo by Bob Osborn

Beer Bottle Opener Project - Monty the Rat

There is a bracket on my beach cruiser rat bike which originally held a reflector. Said reflector was removed within minutes of rescuing the bike, but the bracket has just sat there ever since. So I decided to try putting it to good use by hacking a regular old bottle/can opener combo.

First I bought the opener.

Sawed off the parts I didn't need. Notice the twist at the bottom. I used a vice to squash the twist out

Next I used the vice and a hammer to bend it to the shape I needed. 

Here is a view of the bracket on which the opener would be mounted

Next I drilled out the hole for the nut and bolt. This was probably the most tricky part. We have a drill press, but there wasn't a good way to clamp the opener that would allow proper hole placement. So the first hole was a bit of a compromise, and ended up not working at all. I gave it a second try, which included unbending part of the L shape for the drill chuck to have better vertical access. I didn't take the time to grab a pic of the drill press and clamp mechanism, but I assure you, this was the sketchiest part of the whole job. The drill press itself is fine, but my clamp mechanism was not pretty. IN the end it worked. Filed down the flash left over from the drill operation then headed to Home Depot and grabbed the bolt, flat washer, lock washer and nut I needed. Below is a pic of the finished result.

Next I tested it using a glass bottled Coke. Unfortunately it did not work as well as I would like. I had to work the bottle at an angle which made me end up spilling a bit out of the top once the cap came off. I also don't like that this particular opener ended up looking just like a reflector bracket! So, I am considering this opener version 1.0, and will continue working to refine both the look and functionality. All in all it was still a fun way to spend an hour or two and I literally spent less than $6.00 on the whole rig. Just want to get a version dialed in enough to work well for Southern Surf Stomp 2018.

Vintage BMX Nutbuster Pad Action

Installed a California Lite Perry Kramer Signature single stem pad on Monty the cruiser. I think I'm going to get a top tube pad also. Before and After pics below.