jimmy taylor was also a rebel factory rider.he also was on titan and powerlite.there were some fast company on these texas teams.i am looking for some pictures i know i have from river city.my dad is looking for me ,maybe when i get together with the family for xmas they will appear. i have pics of the rebel team.

My Rebel 24

I Think i'm gonna have to put this F/F up for sale.
anyone have an idea of what price range they have gone for?

Wow ran across this thread while googling for some decals for my old bike. I am Bobby Boyett from Montgomery Al. and was a factory rider for Rebel 83 to late 85. I have one of the first if not the first prototypes from cyclecraft. It was latter revised with a steeper head tube angle and longer top tube. I was 6 ft 150 lbs and Brock Bruce was over 6ft best i remeber. Richard Lamb was the only one of us I remember being comfortable on the first few prototypes. I got that bike just days before the Murray World Cup in 83. I was a support rider for GHP (still have greg hills dads businees card for ghp) when I met Charlie Bruce The new owner of Rebel at the time. The bikes were cutting edge as was anything that Joe Martino of Cycle Craft made. The later frames and forks were made in china at the end and were mild steel not chromo. The made in china bikes were to try to get a bike ready to ride for $200. All of the chrome frames were chromo but alot of the painted frames were from china and were the shorter frames like the original prototypes. If you have a short painted frame it was probably made in China. There were only a few (I think three) of the prototypes built before the longer frame came out. I still have the prototype, my race bike and my practice bike, still wish I had my cruiser back. I did purchase some decals from carbiz guy on ebay for my race bike. Oh yeah when Rebel started having frames made in china the remaining frames Joe had got sold as zeronines. I even think Brad Birdwells frame from Joe when he was riding for Murray was a left over Rebel best I remember.
Bobby Boyett
NBL 38b 20inch
NBL 71b 24inch

I still consider the real rebel frames to be san antonio made, after they left this area of TX I consider them to be in name only. The company sold and moved and it changed.

i didnt read the blazer thread, but i remember racing a kid named Bernard anderson, FACTORY blazer (is that bernie?) in Ohio at a ABA national in 1981, he had this blazer with dual headtubes..one in front of another to adjust the wheel base, crazy! Does anyone know if that frame is around or are there any pics of it...

That is B.A. the son of Bernie. B.A. can be found at the ABA, in AZ. Bernie lives in San Antonio. This is how I get all my old info about Blazer and Rebel, by asking B.A. and his Dad about this stuff. They remember a lot of the history, and are both great sources of info.

BTW, B.A. was on Team Blazer { Lufkin} not to be confused with Rebel. People mix up Rebel and Blazer.

I used to talk with an ex-Blazer guy who told me about the two head tube deal, his name was I believe Tom out of Beaumont, he had a shop there. He said all the top tubes were already pre-cut to that short length. I think they were like 18" or 19", I would have to measure mine. Anyways, they are short little bikes. So, when he goes to the main guy and asks for a longer one, and they had the tubes already cut to size, they had to improvise and add another headtube up front to the existing headtube to make it longer. Tom stated he thought that was hokey and returned it to them. Maybe BA had one, or THAT frame, who knows. Would be worth some serious cash now...

You think two head tubes was strange, Racer Yohmans had a Blazer with three. That is exactly right though I out grew the standard Blazer and Mike Mabery who owned Blazer just added another headtube. I remember I had to run JMC forks because the extra head tube raked the front end out and the JMC forks were the straightest forks made at the time. My two head tube bike was stolen out of our garage, never to resurface again.

The original Rebel frame was based on the "Eracer" frame which Joe Stam who originally rode for Panda started or rode for I forget the details. My Dad loves talking old school stuff so if you want to get a hold of him just give me a call at the office and I will give you his info. I also have the very first Rebel prototype hanging at the ABA offices, it was originally made for Steve Shobert who rode it when he was on Skyway and then he was eventually a Factory Rebel Pro.

My Father started Rebel in 80 or 81 and then sold it to Bill Fernald and Roland Chankin in 82 or 83. At that time they had some sort of sales agreement with Brock Bruces Dad who eventually took over the company some how around 84.

BA

yea JIMMY CHANKIN another rebel rouser!!! thanks BA!

[quote name='BA Anderson' date='Feb 16 2008, 08:29 PM' post='501769']
You think two head tubes was strange, Racer Yohmans had a Blazer with three. That is exactly right though I out grew the standard Blazer and Mike Mabery who owned Blazer just added another headtube. I remember I had to run JMC forks because the extra head tube raked the front end out and the JMC forks were the straightest forks made at the time. My two head tube bike was stolen out of our garage, never to resurface again.

The original Rebel frame was based on the "Eracer" frame which Joe Stam who originally rode for Panda started or rode for I forget the details. My Dad loves talking old school stuff so if you want to get a hold of him just give me a call at the office and I will give you his info. I also have the very first Rebel prototype hanging at the ABA offices, it was originally made for Steve Shobert who rode it when he was on Skyway and then he was eventually a Factory Rebel Pro.

My Father started Rebel in 80 or 81 and then sold it to Bill Fernald and Roland Chankin in 82 or 83. At that time they had some sort of sales agreement with Brock Bruces Dad who eventually took over the company some how around 84.

BA


Hey BA how are you...

By any chance do you remember a factory Rebel rider my the name of Paul Develario (I could be off on the spelling of his last name)

He was a B-Pro out of Rhode Island he was a super tall dude! I believe it was around '80-'81

Mike

This is the only pic I have of Rebel racing. A scan from an old UK BMX magazine

Hey Everyone,


Did All the 1st. Genration rebels have round brake briudges. I think I have a rEbel but It's not a round brake bridge? Please Help. IF you PM me your email i'll send you pics... Thanks For The Help

This is Brock Bruce. I rode for Rebel and Bernie Anderson sold it to my father Charles Bruce. What would you like to know. I know the entire history of Rebel Racing from its beginings in San Antonio to the end around 1987 when racing became almost non-existent. Great story!

Rebel was built by a machine shop in San Antonio originally and then the welding dies were moved to a machine shop in Chandler AZ. that also built Blazer racing. This is where the bad frames were built due to bad alloy that was used by the welding shop unbeknownst to Rebel Racing Co. in Houston. There were about 200 frames built out of 2nd rate discarded military grade alloy tubing. This is why the 2nd generation frames went to a undermounted rear bracket, because the frames were welded by Vector Racing in Tennessee from late 1984 until its end around 1987.

Here's the frame CyRay is wondering about.

Wow, amazing!

Thanks Brock!

Here I am 26 years later learning why the alloy tubing that connected to the bottom bracket of my Rebel broke where it met the bottom bracket!

I became exposed to BMX racing shortly after taking an interest in the bikes themselves. John Griffith was the man that got me into actually taking the bike to the track. His parents used to take us. John became an awesome rider!

I used to really like that bike (I believe it was a General Lee) but ended up using it around the neighborhood if I remember correctly.

Sadly, I believe it to have been taken.

Some awesome memories:-)

I grew up racing in Houston at Southwest Supercross (Brock's hometrack, yes?). Rebel had another rider named Micheal Hill; fast, but kind of a hot head. Richard Lamb also raced for Rebel.

here is a first gen 20" General Lee

Your General Lee is GANGSTA. A nice grey 24" Reb? OH MAN!!! That's what the world needs NOW!

Reeki6's Rebel is how I remember them looking. Parkland Bikes had one hanging on a shelf forever along with a ton of old school greats. Whoever got ahold of their stuff was a very lucky man. Even in the early 90's they still had a few JMC's, a couple of CW's including a Phase 1, various flat back GT frames, a Quad, GJS A frame, a VDC or 2, a Pro Neck, and at least one Kuwahara ET complete, etc, etc.