A Few Of My Favorite Things

I used to sell all of my used parts and frames at the local BMX track, never really thinking that years down the road it would be cool to have some of that old stuff. As a teenager, cash was more important than parts I didn’t need or want anymore (I was a sponsored racer, so there were some good years where I didn’t have to worry about buying a whole lot of bike stuff). Broken parts I just threw out. Some parts I gave to friends who needed them, and I once traded a set of Redline Flight Cranks to a neighborhood kid for an electric guitar and amp (still have those). 

Some cool stuff I did hang on to, some things I acquired here and there, and a few things I have, I recently came across on eBay. I think there are some things here that old-school collectors and guys who have been around for a while can appreciate. So here are ten things that I’m pretty stoked to have…

(click on the photos to see better detail)

1. Elina Seats. I can’t remember if I actually ever used an Elina seat on my bike, but I think I must have. I found these in two separate bike shops through my travels. I love the flat contour and overall shape of these seats, but the yellow plastic and lightning bolt sticker just does it for me. This is classic BMX style and design at its finest.

2. 1975 Kawasaki BX200-A1. One day I decided I wanted a  vintage BMX bike for inside my house. Instantly I thought of the old Kawasakis with the rear shocks and started looking on eBay. The timing was perfect as this one was up for auction and I won it. I think the only non-original pieces on it are a couple of the stem bolts. Overall it’s in mint condition?the seat doesn’t have a mark on it and is as new as the day it was made. I keep it in my home office and find myself looking at it all the time. The blue Schwinn Stingray is a limited edition remake that Vans had made. I love this bike, too, but the Kawi is the real deal.

3. Kore Bash Guard. These were all the rage in the early 90s. My friend Timmy Strelecki and I ordered these from S&M and I remember being so excited when they finally arrived at his house. As you can imagine it weighs a ton and while it protected my sprocket I still broke chains left and right with it on my bike. Needless to say, it didn’t stay on my bike for long. I think it’s funny I put the “Built Street Tough” and “If It’s Hard Grind It” Vision stickers on it.

4. Jive & Star Wars Number Plates. The #5 Jive plate used to belong to Will Smyth  of Dig magazine. I was doing an article on number plates in Snap years ago and he sent it to me and said I could keep it. I thought that was really cool of him, especially since I had always been stoked on photos of him that I had seen in BMX Action and Go. That plate and the stickers he put on it totally captured an era that I look back on with great memories. As for the Star Wars plate, I found that on a little kid’s Star Wars bike somewhere and just had to take it.

5. Oakley B-2 Grips. These gems I got fairly recently while visiting Oakley one day. This guy I know that works there named Steve Blick gave me an awesome tour of the place and when I asked him if they had any old stuff that they kept, a big smile came to his face. He took me to a caged storage room and pulled out a couple of secret bins with a few pairs of these in them. Thanks for the gift, Blick.

6. Oakley 3 Grips. When I started racing my dad got into it, too, and raced in the cruiser class at the local track and at nationals. He had a 24″ Hutch and for some crazy reason he loved these grips and wouldn’t use anything else. When the time came that he was done racing (the bruised heart and broken collarbone probably helped make that decision) he sold his bike to a guy we knew from the local track. Later that day he showed up at the trails and I saw him take these grips off and throw them on the ground. For some reason I had to grab them. I remember a year or two after, I put them in my dad’s Christmas stocking as a joke. Now I’m really glad I saved these as they’re so crazy and not something you come across very often.

7. Schwinn Blue Falcon Prototype. To my knowledge this is the only Blue Falcon frame made with a 20-1/4″ top tube (which is shorter than the production BF frames they sold). It even has “20-1/4″ written in marker on the top and down tubes. I was given this raw frame when I was the editor of Snap, but I never built it up. I’ll have to dig up the background behind it, but whatever the reason is that they made it and gave it to me, I’m happy to have it.

8. Shimano DX Pedals. DX pedals are one of, if not the, most iconic BMX components ever. The DX design was spot-on and copied by just about everyone and still is to this day. These are like gold to me. All are 9/16″ axles and have original bearings and axles. And yes, those are two brand new sets still in the boxes. I’ve been running the blue ones on my bike lately?another great win on eBay. Supposedly Shimano actually wore out the mold, and that’s why they stopped producing them. If anyone has sets of these they don’t want I’ll gladly take them off your hands.

9. Sticker Board. My dad made this for me when I was younger. It’s a piece of plexiglass and he painted the red, white, and blue on the back. I remember putting a lot of these stickers on it and thought it was so cool. I always had it hanging on my bedroom wall. Now I have it in my garage. Favorite stickers on it? Probably the old Shimano head tube sticker and the Patterson Racing sticker. The Torker, Thruster, Jag, and Mongoose ones are pretty sweet, too, as are the prism ones.

10. My First Trophy. May 17, 1981, was the day that changed my life. That was the day Long Island’s first BMX track opened down the road from our house and I got this third place trophy in my first-ever race. I was seven and raced on a borrowed Torker. Looking at this trophy brings back great memories of a time when BMX was in its earliest stages (at least on the east coast).