old school

There is no doubt, Manny created the first mono-shock in mid 1974 and the Mongoose prototype which we saw at it's first race didn't show up until late 1974 or early 1975. My recollection of the exact month is cloudy. I have no "ax to grind" on the subject, but credit is due to the originator. The Mongoose was a great bike at the time and certainly developed the style further, but it was not the original. I was there.

My name is Ed Sorlino, I was the manager at Manny's Cyclery in Westchester in 1974 for most of the year and early 1975. Rich Cantrell, his little brother,"Wildman" Jim Rios and maybe another kid raced on the team before it got the "Mudsuckers" name. We raced at Soledad Sands, Palms Park, at the very first race in a lot somewhere in Westchester for some civic event demonstration and one of the first or second national or regional events in Tucson, Arizona. Manny and his wife Dottie would lead the pack to the races in their new Dodge van & I would carry the equipment in the yellow Chevy Luv truck. I can not believe I just came across this post, WOW! One more item that has always bugged me and most people don't know or remember, Manny with some help from me were the inventors of the mono-shock bike. My re-collection is that Manny took a Schwinn and cut-it up and installed a single rear shock from a motorcycle to create the original. The boys tried it with some degree of success & we constantly played with he set-up to improve it. I left the business at that point and lost touch with everyone. The "Mongoose" bike which the drag racer Tom "the Mongoose" Mcewen created was a rip-off of Manny's idea. Mcewen had time, facilities, contacts to develop it faster and Manny got jack for his creativity. Manny was a real innovator for the sport and truly one of the biggest supporters during the infancy of the sport. Hello Manny, where ever you are.

OK traveling right now. Yes I remember Perry Kramer. As soon as I get to a scanner I'll do the map - also, I'm so curious now that since I live in L.A. during the winters, I'll go over and walk the track. That will be fun. I'll try to scan the "Mudsuckers" chapter from the book too. Manny Jardine owned Manny's Cyclery, it was on Westchester on Sepulveda (right now it's a "Hairvisions" salon). The mudsuckers were hardtails, and Manny welded custom frames with the sprocket box really high so he could put long derailler crank arms for more torque, and a slightly smaller front sprocket so we could get fast off the line. On long tracks, we'd have a standard sprocket but we could still get off the line. Do any of you remember that South Bay BMX park where we would do Grand-Prix style starts? I think it was Redondo. We would have to "run" to our bikes for the start. It was a long track compared to Palms, I think 1/4 mile.