Old to new! Koolstyler and boomer

[docs]

Sal thanks for your kind words, its no surprise you aint had time to read everything here for the last few weeks... you've had some sort of exhibition going on or something... Top work.

Tre, go for it and get yourself something you always wanted as a child. Take your time and learn how to dismantle and put back together in your minds eye what it is you want. it doesn't matter about how it ends up, its the process of building it that has you gripped and feeling all self important n stuff. Seriously, do it, you won't regret it.

Hurb, next time you are over at my place, I'd like to see this witchcraftery you talk of, tail whips and bunnyhops while half way up the half-pipe. Thank you for your kind words.

Floyd, same here, pretty much nail on the head. Never had the chance as a kid to care for something like this so with me still being a big kid I couldn't resist.

Chris, that is really sad and I can feel the hurt coming through your words. Some people. I remember a similar situation with a so called friend but nowhere near as bad as that tosser you speak of.

Thanks Rimmer, find your thing and go for it!

Overall, this whole process was so cathartic and pleasing, especially seeing the results a piece at a time, using old skills of bike building and most importantly sharing it with good friends is priceless. I recommend that you find that one thing which this process gives you, be it restoring boomers or car engines, share it with people and you get a buzz that isn't achievable in many other areas of life.

 

[floyd]

Everybody I knew in school had these BMX bikes and even the people that were cool with me look down on me because I didn't have one I used to drool over these things but the price was two to three times more back then than what they are now so a bicycle was like buying a f****** car the same thing with boom boxes I'm walking around with a f****** pocket transistor radio and I'm seeing some b****** with big-ass boomboxes so that's another area where I lost out by the time I got anyting modern it was too late lol. But I was still happy to have it.

I remember only having one f****** pair of shoes while everybody else I knew had a different pair every day of the week. I learned one thing when I was young is that your so-called friends will throw you to the side like f****** garbage when the mood hits them. Being poor and trying to have friends who aren't poor just didn't work out. These BMX bikes are great for the owners but for some just a reminder to some of how f****** poor they really were and might still be. Honestly if somebody offered me the nicest BMX bike in the world for free I wouldn't take because if I wasn't good enough for it back then then they can keep the m*********** now. As nice as these things are they just remind me of some serious douchebags in life. Too bad lasonic don't make bicycles the only company that makes something nice for poor people back then.

 

[floyd]

Please completely ignore my comments I'm just a bitter old man lol.

 

[jimmyjimmy19702010]

Please completely ignore my comments I'm just a bitter old man lol.

And here I was about to post about a 1981 Mongoose Supergoose I had back in the day.

I used to roam around the streets selling buckets of my parents' lemons (from their trees) to raise funds to go toward the bike purchase.

Forget I mentioned it.

 

[docs]

I hear ya Floyd, it all happened to me too, but you know what **** those guys, don't let their issues cloud what you love about being a kid, and remember, it was their parents that are to blame for bringing up douche bags to not have respect for other people. Everyone around me had skyways, araya, hutch, dave mirra's, etc etc but I'm so over them to the point that putting this together was a reminder of what I loved about them and not what got rubbed in my face every day by some shithead with rich parents.

 

[Lasonic TRC-920]

I could be wrong, But I think BMX bikes were among some of the first SERIOUSLY priced products marketed towards kids. Today there are ton's of high priced products marketed towards kids but back in the late 1970's I think this was a new thing.

My real dream bike and subsequent disappointment came in 1976 when the Evil Knievel bike came out...


This was/is my dream bike and was the one thing I wanted for Christmas more than anything in the world back in 1976 when I was 8 years old. But this was my first year in Catholic school and I was pretty much getting straight F's. Coming from public school, I was easily a year behind. That was the sales pitch of the Catholic school's back then, that your kids would get a better education because they would be ahead of the public system. Add in the fact that I am partially dyslexic, have never been able to retain what I read, was being threatened by my teacher and principle for not getting up to speed with the rest of my class AND getting my ass kidded every day on the playground by kids who had been at the school since kinder garden all led up to my parents deciding that I had not "Earned" the bike.

When Christmas morning rolled around and that bike wasn't there I was devastated. Everyone on the block had a new bike that year. I don't even remember what my crap ass gift was that year, probably farking socks! I was smashed.

By the time 1981 had rolled around and my parents friends kid was cutting up bikes, I had had enough and took things into my own hands. Come hell or high water, I was going to have a sweet BMX bike. So I went shopping for one at the local Arcade!

I found a sick ass polished Redline with all red anodized components just sitting in the bike rack out front with NO LOCK!

I didn't even think twice. Two other buddies I was with each snagged a bike and we were gone like the wind.

Over the next few weeks I swapped, sold, traded and dealt myself up plenty of new parts and mixed and matched up a sweet ass ride!

The first day I rolled my new pride and joy in to school...I got arrested!

Turns out the kid I lifted it from, his dad was the police chief and they were just waiting for that frame to roll up to school.

The cops made a total spectacle out of it. It must have been a slow day at the station because every patrol car was in the Jr high parking lot. They purposely waited for the last bell to ring before they walked me out of the front office on full display of the student body, in hand cuffs. Their goal was to "Make an example out of me". Needless to say, my parents were horrified.

But they achieved their goal, they made an example out of me and a HERO!

I was the coolest bad ass on the block, at least for a little while. I was "That kid who was in hand cuff's!" and that was good enough for me. Just another brick in the wall the wall.

But I learned more than that. I learned no matter what kind of pressure "Tha Man" puts on you in interrogation, you never give up your friends (and I never did and they never found those other two bikes). I learned that rich kids will get stuff they both didn't earn and don't deserve as the police chief simply bought his son ANOTHER new BMX which subsequently got stolen AGAIN from the SAME location just a few weeks later (the kid swore he had locked up the second bike at the arcade, but plenty of kids swore they saw it there unlocked right before it got snatched, he was the laughing stock at school)

But in the end, HE GOT ANOTHER ONE!!!!

So yeah, not sure what the moral of this story is....just a bunch of shait that happens!

Please completely ignore my comments I'm just a bitter old man lol.

You and me both bro

 

[docs]

Yeh you just can't account for some people, same goes for today really just on a larger scale. I hated being poor and the fact that there were such lovely bikes to be had I focussed on other things instead, I remember it was a tough time. I think this is why I had an urge to restore and own one now.

 

[Lasonic TRC-920]

Yeh you just can't account for some people, same goes for today really just on a larger scale. I hated being poor and the fact that there were such lovely bikes to be had I focussed on other things instead, I remember it was a tough time. I think this is why I had an urge to restore and own one now.

This thread is a serious motivator!

 

[Hisrudeness]

I can never afford one of these BMX bikes the only nice bicycle I ever owned in my life was my original Schwinn Stingray I got in the late seventies and I had it all the way through high school. I must have pedal to the moon and back in my lifetime on that Stingray. It had like a badass Mickey Thompson drag slick tire on the back it was f****** awesome.

Those early muscle bikes like Schwinn Stingrays and karate bikes from the 70s are a fortune now. I’ve got a Schwinn Orange peeler but it’s the 90s reissue but I have an early 1970 Raleigh chopper mk1 in bits in my garage I’d like to tackle one day.

Yeh you just can't account for some people, same goes for today really just on a larger scale. I hated being poor and the fact that there were such lovely bikes to be had I focussed on other things instead, I remember it was a tough time. I think this is why I had an urge to restore and own one now.

I’m looking forward to seeing this in person next month

 

[T-STER]

God its weird this thread has kickstarted so many memories i thought id forgotton, if that makes sense... dont laugh but i lusted after this bike like crazy when i was a kid:


Similar to Chris we were too poor to buy fancy bikes and im ashamed to say i nicked a few in the day or cobbled them together from parts. Though i did have a Mongoose second hand for crimbo one year...

 

[Fatdog]

Chris, I almost hate to say it, but the Evel Knievel bike was my first bike. I had a few more after that, but I never had the one bicycle I always lusted after (still do, actually). A friend on the same street all those years ago had an older brother who was a BMX racer. I don't think he was ever a big player in the circuit, but to us he was a BMX god. I always lusted for his Yamaha Moto-Bike. Oh, man! Those things are still so sexy.

 

[Lasonic TRC-920]

Chris, I almost hate to say it, but the Evel Knievel bike was my first bike. I had a few more after that, but I never had the one bicycle I always lusted after (still do, actually). A friend on the same street all those years ago had an older brother who was a BMX racer. I don't think he was ever a big player in the circuit, but to us he was a BMX god. I always lusted for his Yamaha Moto-Bike. Oh, man! Those things are still so sexy.

Doesn't bother me a bit. That's awesome! Reality is, I probably would have tried some insane jump and wrecked myself

I dig these full suspension bikes. My best friend had one, they are cool, but soooo heavy. Not built for jumping!

 

[floyd]

All in all that was great Resto job. restoring anything is not easy I know that much.