jokerw

Gravity bike racing is still big, down under. The Aussie boys are doing it up with a lot of really trick custom built from the ground up bikes. In Indonesia, there is a huge scene also, but the bikes there are more like the modified bmx frames we know. the Aussies website and FB page: http://gravitybike.com.au/ https://www.facebook.com/gravitybike?ref=profile

Are any of the "organizers" of these races active today with vintage bmx?

I haven't been here for quite awhile. I'm not OG bmx, not even a little. I found this site while looking for GPV info back in 2005. Lurked for quite awhile, then really got invovled when the Mel thread moved here from Vintage. I started racing bmx for the FIRST time in 2007 at age 49. I haven't been racing bmx for about 3 years now, and had quit visiting bmx sites regularly. I became a FB user in 2011, still following many bmx racer friends there. Yesterday, I was "moved" to come back here and check things out. I read this thread, "scrolling down", a couple of others... and then, the thread on Kevin Harlow/Powerlite/Cruisers. BAM! I was grinning from ear to ear while reading it. Kevin & I became friends racing cruisers together in the old man's class. I had met him at the national in San Bernardino in '07, but I wasn't racing, just spectating. Between he and Rob Raymonde, I've had hundreds of conversations about bmx history, learning from two of the oldest OG racers still going. Rob's stil racing, Kevin's taken this past year off, but he's riding mtbs. So anyway, last night I did the unthinkable, I shared the thread on Kevin's FB page. His past has been "discovered" by many who know the Kevin of the past few years, but not the Kevin of OG bmx. Hopefully, these people will explore this site a little more, giving it the exposure it deserves.

To quote Flounder from "Animal House", "This is going to be great!"

Inspiration

sidehack

My latest email from Eric had these slides and some text that I've paraphrased for this post: Jon I finally converted the ' Yarnell Slides ' taken by Russ Okawa to cd. They've sat around since '75. So even with some correction for age, there are some color issues. The head-on jump shots were from a summer of '75 photo session, and the race shots were taken in the spring. In our area at the time, no one was a photographer ( no Mels... damn! ). Now everyone walks around with a camera in their pocket. The cross-up pic, as far as I know , is the only photo that exists of the hundreds I did over the years - 99% of them at jumping spots in Sylmar and Santa Clarita. It figures the only one on film isn't all that great, but it's better than nothing. I never showboated at races because I thought I'd be wasting energy; but I sure enjoyed watching some of the great stuff the other guys were doing. In this race photo, that's Byron Friday in front of me, and Scott Rockwell is in the background. I don't know if this last pic is post-worthy, but if you blow it up you'll see something interesting. Look at the angle of the front wheel in relation to the rear wheel - can you say "frame and fork flex! " - no wonder I snapped that frame! Considering what I did on that Webco, I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did.

Mel is pretty tall....

They're great on the track, but they're not known for being durable or long lasting, tread-wise. On the pavement, they'll have a short life.

My daily lunch hour rides 1990 Klein Rascal and my 1990 Nishiki Alien ACX I also race a Schwinn Matt Pohlkamp Pro Modified cruiser, just no pictures of the bike only. There is some unflattering race footage of me though... http://www.go211.com/videos/24913/

So, yesterday I go into this hubcap/bicycle shop, looking for a fork for my Schwinn cruiser project. There are some pretty interesting bikes in there, one of which was an AMF Avenger. OG paint and looking pretty original component-wise. I saw those forks and thought that they'd look pretty good on a cruiser. My knowledge of old school stuff is pretty minimal, so I search the site for AMF and I find this thread. This sweet bike is worth a bump.

When Eric sent the pictures, some of the captions didn't make it. Here is some more commentary from Eric:

More from Eric continued: In the Tom Gerardi photo, I think the smiling spectator in the middle is Mel. Robbie O'Hare (33) and Perry Kramer (51) are trying to avoid Tom. Alan Witt had the interesting nickname of 'squirrel'. I threw in some JP and Doug T shots for the hack fans. Even if the Thom Lund shot is already posted, it's worth looking at again.

More from Eric: Jon. These first pictures are already on the thread. The tire stack shots were in Phoenix Az. on 3/29/75, and the mudhole fiasco was the next day in Tucson. I was only going to tell 2 stories from that weekend, but with passing of Russ Okawa, I am adding another. The first, and funniest memory was from practice in Phoenix. I was taking a lap, and as I went by JP, who was standing on the side of the course, he yelled "Hey Airheart! Your gonna have to go faster than that!". The next day, When John George's dad entered the Father's race, John blew a fuse. As everyone can see, John's premonition was correct. His dad was somewhere in that mud. In the falling tire pic, that's Danny Garcher and the unknown blond guy, (Maybe one of the old Canoga guys can tell us his name.) directly behind Butch. Also Tinker Juarez's sisters are more visable in the first picture than the second. The date for this weekend I got off of John's wikipedia page; I didn't remember the exact date. I also found an error regarding Costa Mesa '75 that I will address some other time. I'm throwing in a JP and Doug T. shot for the 'hack fans. This last story is awkward, but it shows some of the things Russ did behind the scenes. I had talked to Russ about riding for Canoga, but he said he had a better deal that I should look into and hooked me up with Ron McCloud of Granada Schwinn. A couple of weeks before this race, I agreed to a deal that was almost equal to what became a ' factory ride ' and was a much better deal than I could get elsewhere ( free bike, fees covered, and I was getting paid ! ). At Phoenix, one of Canoga guys told me that Russ was telling people that I would be the next top rider. Only yesterday, I realized that he knew that when Ron taught me about spinning, my results would rise to another level, and they did. Russ had his flaws, but he had a huge impact on bmx and mountain bike racing, and his photos captured the birth of a new form of cycling.