Maurice Meyer

Thanks for the tips guys. I'll dig a little and see if I can find some citations. It seems like the graphites had a sort of slow leak to the market. I haven't seen much at all on them in the catalogs I have and don't really recall much more than a mention in an advertisement. Has there ever been a feature ad with nice big photo of a graphite?

There is a lot more I'd like to do with this but at some point, you just have to get the first draft out. The main point of this page is to try to piece together the history of Tuff Wheels during the 80's. I put some other stuff in there and may do more along with getting into the 90's but the 70's and 80's were the hey days of Tuffs so I went with that for now. I tried to keep as much of the "I remember when" stuff out of it and just go by printed ads and catalogs. If there were questions that I couldn't answer, I filled in the blanks a little but tried to indicate that I did that. Anyway, let me know if you have any information to clarify more of the story. http://mauricemeyer.com/cgi/mm.pl?datafile...20Tuff%20Wheels

Awesome story Ric! Man, I have to say you really hustled for yours. Good for you. I always felt like I kind of hung back more than a lot of you older guys (a couple years). Just for context, I want to add that Rick's begging OZ to come to the park was not standard fair for the day. I mean, people at the park were super welcoming to new riders but during that early time where most people were from a 10 mile radius, there was some jockeying going on by the little teams we had and I have to admit that most of us with a photo shoot lined up wouldn't have immediately thought to invite anyone else. Plenty of actual SF locals were kind of ticked that Ron got the cover since he had maybe been to the park 3 or 4 times tops at that point. Good thing Ron turned out to be the real deal! Ric, that Freestylin' coverage definitely helped me get with Skyway so thanks a million for that! Now, does anyone have that BMXA photo of Rick's Camaro trip to Upland? That is a great photo.

Rick, I obviously owe you a HUGE apology. Can't think of a bigger bonehead thing I've ever done to someone. I am REALLY sorry for putting your private business out in public like that. I feel like a complete idiot falling for the rumor and doing that. I hope you'll forgive me for that. If it's any consolation, I can definitely vouch for the overall coolness of the old school BMX scene and honestly can't think of any better medicine for life in general than just riding with friends. You really need to make it to one of the OS events. I think you'll be surprised at what you find. I couldn't make it this last time around because of family commitments (young baby) but a couple years back I went to the yearly event put on by this site and it was amazing. The night ride at the beach, the event itself, after party and ride at Alvin's ramp. Really great time. You should definitely make it out to the next one if you can. Again, my apologies for posting your mail on a public forum and putting what you confided in me out there. I'm really glad you're back.

You know, I've been setting up to do this for a while gathering pictures. It really needs a static page to gather all the information though. I was hearing rumors of a BMX wiki a while back and kind of holding off for that (plus general slacking) but if you guys are into it, I think I'll just start an basic page on my site and cross-reference with this thread. I'll bet between us, we can get a pretty good profile of the history of Tuffs going. We definitely need Waza in here. What I'm thinking is that we can get it in pretty good shape then ask the guys at Skyway if they can review it. That way, any open questions might find an answer. I think the timeline is going to be a little rough and there are rough edges in the production where they may have used some older hubs they had for a while with the new outer just to deplete the stock. I think the biggest thing to keep in mind will be to remain subjective and not jump to conclusions. Say things like "no reports of a white Tuff with stamped sidewall have been made" rather than "they never happened." If some better place to house this information comes up, we can just move it there later. Oh man, now I'm committed huh...

Notice how Vander is riding a Hutch in that shot? I wonder who's bike that was.

Man, I had a really great time. Made me realize that I'm going to have to get a new school bike that's a cross between flat and street. The 24 is great to ride but I wanted to hit more tricks!

GG, you have the whole set! That's really cool! First time I've seen another one of the Pat Pend ones. I bought this single front a few years back just for the novelty factor. I'd love to get a rear to go with it. Yeah, they are a lot different than the production ones. For example, the well inside the rim is a lot more rounded. I don't really have too much more to add though on that wheel. Have been sort collecting Tuffs and related materials though and found some interesting things. I don't own all of the stuff in these images. I grabbed them here and there when I saw something I thought would be interesting in a page dedicated to Tuffs. A wiki would be great for something like this. Take a look at these. It looks like when the first Tuff II's came out, there was no stamping and the braking area was shorter. Looks like they made the rim taller and added the stamp shortly afterward. Here are a couple rare variants - Mongoose stamp (I bought these on eBay) Couldn't pass that up. I mean, the little Mongoose guy's name is Maurice! Andy Patterson (wish I had a set of these.) When Tuffs were selling like crazy in the UK (1985 I believe) Skyway started making wheels there. But, there was some problem with shipping the riveting machine so the UK wheels had the hubs bolted in with the repair kits. Pink OE wheel with a metal flange. Didn't see this back in the day. Red OE wheels. There's a whole timeline of hubs and colors and outer wheel types (stamped on the spoke or the braking surface) that needs to be put together because there is overlap in hubs and color productions. I mean, there isn't a clear line between when one hub started and the other ended. For example, when the first plastic front hubs came out, the rears still had metal flanges but then went to plastic. Also, one thing I find really strange is that I've never seen a white wheel with the rim stamped but, there were definitely white Tuff 1's. The coaster brake arms vary but I've seen what seem to be older ones in the new style flange but that's hard to say whether it was done by the owner. I also have a Tuff 2 with no serial number although a seemingly older wheel it came with has one. Weird things happened... Then there's 24's, 16's, graphites and custom wheels: I started trying to document this and listed these hub and rim types (stopping before the plastic hubs): Rim types: Tuff 1 Pat Pend Tuff 1 unstamped Tuff 1 stamped Tuff 2 unstamped Tuff 2 brake area stamp no serial number Tuff 2 brake area stamp with serial number Tuff 2 rib area stamp with serial number Tuff 2 graphite brake area stamp with serial number Tuff 2 graphite rib area stamp with serial number Tuff 2 Hubs: front - steel square front - steel star front - aluminum star front - graphite square campy front - graphite star campy front - graphite star sealed rear - coaster steel square rear - coaster steel star rear - cassette steel star rear - freewheel aluminum star rear - graphite square campy rear - graphite square campy flip-flop rear - graphite star campy rear - graphite star seale

Todd, that is so rad that you wore that shirt and that those guys did that show out there for the troops. I mean, that's the kind of stuff entertainment legends like Bob Hope and Marilyn Monroe did. Never ceases to amaze me how big this stuff is getting. That photo of you, Chad and Catfish is really cool in that it's like people I've met through different aspects of BMX coming together in the most unlikely of places over the one thing that connects so many people - BMX. Sometimes I forget how big that is since it's kind of always been there but when you meet people that don't have something like this, you can really see what we have. I met Chad somewhere in '99 or so when I dusted off my beater Street Beat and headed down to the San Jose Ramp club for the first time. Chad and Joey Garcia would just destroy that place transferring pretty much anywhere they wanted. I remember thinking "why doesn't this guy ride vert?" Well, he certainly does that now. The thing that was cool to me about Chad and all the the other SJRC guys was that they were immediately cool to this old guy with the funky 80's bike who was nowhere near the level of rider they were. Bought my first new-school bike (Hoffman Condor) from Chad at the ramp club one night. So, we met riding. Catfish is an all time classic and we haven't even met in person. When I first started working on the Curb Dogs page, the OS BMX scene wasn't nearly what it is today and I wondered if people would even read that page. Well, the first thing I did was Google things like "Dave Vanderspek" and "Curb Dogs" to see what kind of stuff was out there. One thing I found was a brief message on a young guy's website - catfishcatfish.com - that said reference Curb Dogs. I think it was one of Catfish's posts. His website was really basic self-made HTML setup which was essentially a blog - probably before the blogging sites were up - but it was a damn funny blog. And he didn't need a flashy site because he had some hilarious stories. Mostly about stupid shit that went down in ghetto-ass Youngstown Ohio. I could relate to that stuff big time. The stories about OPC or the white trash neighbors or the little neighbor girl's crappy dog "dognuts." Hilarious stuff. And now, that guy is all over the place traveling the world with BMX. How cool is that? We met online through BMX. Then Todd and I meet in the OS scene and he organizes one of the biggest super-stokes for me by re-creating the first orange Street Beat replica which I rode. And gave it to me at Brian P's Summer Slam. Going out to Philly and Brian's was rad enough but to be given that bike was too much. Thanks again Todd and to everyone who pitched in. So we met through the OS scene. And here you guys are all together meeting up over in Iraq!!! That's freakin' nuts! Dude, I'm so stoked to see the Curb Dogs shirt over there in Iraq among all those brave mofos in uniform. My brother is a disabled Vietnam vet so I know a little bit about what those guys put on the line and whether you agree with the politics or the purpose of the war or not, there's nothing but respect for the people that put their lives at risk. You stay safe out there Todd and give my respects to those brave soldiers if you would. This totally made my day.

Skip, that rules. Thanks for posting it. Do you have this stuff all scanned and posted anywhere? I would love to see them all.

Yeah, having rode many sets I have to say that they didn't hold up too well. The lighter colors just seemed more chalky. Black Haro tires were about the best I ever rode for freestyle but my favorite all around tire was the Snake Belly. Dig that Santa Cruz slasher logo! Talked to Kieth Meek the other day.

Here's my 1984 TA freestyler. Full story here: http://mauricemeyer.com/cgi/mm.pl?datafile...Skyway_TA/index

Yeah, as far as I know anything with the graphite hubs (any generation) in wheels other than black were custom for sponsored riders and not sold. Parrey at Skyway handed me a white wheel with a sealed from hub one time and I though "cool, they're going to make sealed hubs now" but I think it was really a silver flanged hub for a graphite wheel. I have this pair of coaster brake graphites. Brett Downs got the rear wheel from Kevin Jones who had been given 3 sets back in 86. I matched the second gen Campy front wheel to it but a third gen sealed would probably be more appropriate. I'm pretty sure everyone's seen the red, white and blue customs I did from the super-score of hubs from Skyway.

Looks like an awesome time. I'm so bummed to have missed it.

And, a player to ladies.