Alloy cranks. Now I get it. That likely would be the wrong choice for most of us. On the other hand I raced road for ten years and only broke a few sets over the years. Of course, there is no torque to worry about on the road. BMX is all torque. The gate, the straights the corners.

I did note that nearly ALL the pro racers were using some alloy crank though. What is that?

All clipped in now as well.

The old men run flat pedals right? Yuz guyz OS or what?

Yeah, Bub Botterflutz is here! ....

Yep, Marv still looks the same as he did 25 yrs ago..... Seriously..... , and hear from Troy a couple times a week.

Troy checks out this thread from time to time

I talked to Troy last year right before the Condo Classic and it was really great to talk to him again... The Troy I knew has changed--- HUGE!!! and for the better. We had a good laugh or 30... Haahaaa.

Rob, I think the only time I raced you was at Mankato. It was 15x over class and I have no idea why they did this, but anyway.....
It was Me, Butter, Troy, Sheely, Miland, Lynde, Engelby and maybe someone else. I must have had a lightning start because I won and you got 2nd, Troy third and it was a clean race from start to finish... Troy was like so pissed at me, I mean pissed (LMAO) and you were like so cool to me, " Yo- Brad, awesome race and start" and something like I beat you fare and square, blah-blah.... I think you just had a bad start, I don't know... You said you didn't but the difference between you and Troy's attitude back then.... Wow!!!!! Troy wouldn't take me home that night and Marty Miland had too.... Funny! So, ya I had and ego for a day or two beat'n my ol'pal Butternuts....

Marvin is still alive and well. I lived in Owatonna while doing an Engineering internship at MSU and ran into Marvin or saw him almost daily. We talked allot... The conversation usally began with, " you know that phuck'n Troy is"...... etc. etc....

Clips and pedals: You'd be surprised, most OS'ers ARE clipped in. I can't get into it, but it is faster know doubt....

Chucky, you won't see me racing much anymore... Friday's some.

Marv is alive?

Seriously I saw him near death at least four times. I am glad to hear that he is alive. Troy must really love Owattona. And he must never advertise. I have tried to find info on him since the Internet began. Yes, a stalker Troy. I am slowly stalking you. One of these days...

And a pretty lame stalker at that. I am sure, with enough time, I would see you launch a curb and lay down the TL patent pending leaning style cross up down Yonder in Palin Country. I just don't have the time to wait for you any longer. Sorry Troy.

It would really be a riot to see you.

I will shoot down next week an visit with Marv. I am fairly confident that I will finally beat him in arm wrestling.

Ha, victory is mine at last!

As for that race you are talking about above, I hooked Troy for you. He was really getting on my nerves and I was the only one fast enough to do anything about him. So your welcome.

Actually, you were clearly doing a lot of mushshrooms back thenClick to view attachment. Pot makes you forget, not imagine. You imagined the whole thing. You never beat us. It is a false memory. Seek help.

Sorry Rob...But Marv is still gonna kick any one of our azzes in arm wrestling.... the last time I seen him. 2 years ago.

Not kidding here... Marv is like 80+ I think, has a lawn and snow blowing business (just to keep him busy), quit drinking many years ago. Same Marv, same "firm handshake" same chit throwin' attitude.....Here's here to to stay. No question about it.

Yes Troy has changed. He still looks the same. I do think if he removed his hat, there is less hair there though. BUT, he won't take it off, and I think he puts a plastic wrap over it when he showers. BUT I think he is missing some seeds there. I seenn him hop on an old Polkamp tjhat he still has one day, sprited down the hill, sprinted back up doing a power wheely...put it in the garage, and said "Man I'm out of shape"....I'm thinking, W T F! I was winded driving up the street in my truck!

Just another person, story. memory, we can all add to this time in life.

Apold on the other hand....HE JUST WON'T GO AWAY!

WHAT RULES IS THAT YOU PUT YOUR TAHOE ON THE COUCH FOR THE PIC!

AZ

Marv

I could take him.

I could aways out run him. If it comes to that.

The only image of Doug Carlson I have.

Also the closest he ever got to my rear wheel.

Love ya Carlson

I have heard that Troy has changed.

I am not sure what you mean. I only knew him for about a year or so. Max 2 years.

Have I changed then?

I just remember having fun and being scared a lot.

Feels the same today.

Less fun.

More scared.

In this shot, Sheely was taunting me so I slammed him at the gate. You can see him about to turn tale and launch his bike at me in the middle of the race. I bunny hopped over his bike, removing his beloved vintage chrome Hutch frame pad, in mid air. I landed square in corner two. Went through the rythm section and around again when suddenly Carlson passes me and nabs Sheely's frame pad

How much of that is true?

As you can see, Dougie hasn't changed one bit (and I mean his jersey, bike, helmet, jeans, possibly his socks)

2007 State Finals

Somewhere there is a picture of Doug in 1985 wearing that same uniform.

Cool pictures Rob. Can you remember the other guys in those photos? Hard to tell who your racing, other than Carlson.

Rob, I had a pic of you from the 1983 ABA Elkhart Summer Nats from the ABA newspaper. Holes in the knees of your jeans leading Nelson Chanady I believe?? Anyone have that pic? I dont anymore...I lost it when the server melted down(myspacephoto.com)

That pic was Myself, Gene Oberpriller, Shawn Sheely, Dave Hass, and Mike Auman.

The image from Elkart was Charlie Williams next to me. Super fast guy back in the day and really fast out of the gate. It took a little longer to catch him. Smoothest guy over jumps ever. Between him and Judge, I was like a Hutch Sandwich, hold the butterfield.

Doug looks good. That look simply holds up over the years.

Why are my images coming out so weird?

Good racing today Old Schoolers! Wish there would have been more of us there. Good luck to those going to Grands.

See you in a couple of weeks!
AZ

A little Mark Conley B.I.T.D. 1979 Minnetonka, MN and 1979 Austin, MN M.C. always with style!

Ok, I can play to.

DC, Grubs and Stu found on the Redline History section

Aaron....You have to stick around a while...Until you see the full K.O.P. photo behavior.... He has his own photographer when he goes out on his "solo riding sessions".

OK Back @ U!

M.C./D.C. Road Trip to 1978 BMX Grands in CA.

Now your being mean! Can't believe our parents let us go on the trip with my cousin.


So I just realized this years Grands actually is a 30 year roadtrip reunion

Very fun day of racing. Aaron, you just need to get a little older and then you can race with the big boys. It would have been fun to have you in the mix with Moe, Lance, and I. We could have made it four wide on the quad.

The best part of the day was when little Jack Byrnes (Rod’s son) smoked the 7 novice class in his first race. Seeing the thrill in his eyes and the excitement of showing mom his trophy was pretty cool.

Good luck to all the MN racers headed south for Thanksgiving

I wish I could have been there, that is pretty exciting stuff! This is my favorite part of BMX, seeing kids get there first win and the excitement of their first trophy. Way to go Jack & Rod! Any pics?

AWESOME Job Jack!!!

Excellent Jack!!! Better ask Santa for some shelves for Xmas

Nice pics Dave, Keep'm coming!

I'm wondering if there is anyone interested in getting on board with a private practice night at the Barn? Maybe a Tuesday or Wednesday night thing, there's a group of local bikers who would get on board as well.

Also, I spent the weekend at my parents - showed my dad the VBMX site - I think he will be coming up for the Condo.

One more thing, I'm working on a blueprint for the new Maple Plain Dirt Park - if you live anywhere near MP and you'd like to get involved, drop me a PM and I'll get you on the mail list. Here's a little preview of what we're working on (this is the Eagan dirt park).

Local boy does good....
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...em=330287213545

Shawn & DC - we need both of you to get all your pics & video digitized. Call it a Christmas present to the rest of us.

Shawn - the barn is open on Tuesday nights for practice and it is not very busy at all. It would be like a private practice. Are you thinking of a one time deal or more often?

Chucky, I have a slug of pictures already scanned - I had them all zipped and gave them to Mark for his site, guess he just didn't get around to posting them. I could just post them to my Picasa site, guess I'll just do that.

Try this link : Sheely's BMX pics

I ran into da'Berger at the Minnesota CycleCross State Championships - he was explaining to a semi-retired pro roadie (Dale Sedgewick) that he knew me from Old School BMX days, that he and Dave we're the "fastest guys in the state, nobody could beat..." I had to remind him of a few races - like this one when I was 15 and almost tripled... "the older you get the faster you were". Berger and Troy in chase - 15 over open, November 1981.



In all fairness, Berger leading me at BP a few years later. (Must have been the hanky power).



As for the Barn, there are usually a few members of the Mpls. Mafia (not your regular BMX'rs) that like to do the private track thing on a weekly basis (or they have in the past) - so piggybacking on the Tuesday night thing would be perfect.

Who should I talk to up there?

Great pics Shawn....thanks!

Wierd, my pics from the above post disappeared - guess Picasa is hard to link. The link to my album still works though.

Thanks guys. It was a great experience for the hole family. When Jack races next, he will be moving up to 8 novice class. Paul, The Grands next year my become a father son affair.


Karleen took some shots of the action. I will get them up soon.


Go get em Minnesota!!!!

Take these DAMMMMMNNNN things out ( )



What the heeellllll it must be the URL addy that is not allowed on here

Lets try again

Ya, I have no control over the () that's showing - you can't link dynamic images in this forum, and the edit feature expires pretty quick.

I was hacking the link in the first place, I guess Picasa doesn't like that (although it works just fine from Flick'r). I'll work on it.

Too bad, the Picasa Application is really sweet - I uploaded all those photos in less than a minute.

This one is working so far (Wisconsin Gold Cup 1983 btw) Looks like you have to use the size in the URL (s400) http://lh6.ggpht.com/_KI7Uknk25yM/SSrv1V5-.../gc_falls_2.jpg

Right click on the enlarged photo.......properties......copy URL......paste in the image botton in your message

Yep, that's what I was doing and it doesn't work - Picasa requires a size. You have to copy the embed and find the actually link with size in the href tag - notice the /s800/ - size doesn't matter in my case because I uploaded pre-compressed images, but if you upload your hi-res images you can select the size to display /s400/, /s800/, etc.



So, here's another (so I'm not boring you guys). Picasa works, just have to do some tweaking to the tags, you can download the app here : http://picasa.google.com/

Berger bunz

Where was that gold cup in WI?

Shawn, why not do the photobucket?

Talk to Doug - he would be the short, little, bald guy.

That's Menomonie Falls? I think... Now Bikes had a good day there :



Because I'm using Picasa for my blog, and we're using other Google tools here at work - so it's just a way to get everything in the same place. I like having a desktop app to do the management as well.

And thanks Scott, I'll talk to him next time I'm up there.

I didn't make that Gold Cup, if I remember that's when my Grandma died (83) and the Austin clan left me behind... I did race there once I think. Never hit WI all that much considering I raced for 8yrs.

I never went to the Wis Gold cup either. Dont feel bad Brad -I didnt leave you behind.

From the Rick Cast Archives......

sean, i just sent conley the butterfield pic from elkhart.
while perusing that issue, i see you tripled at iowa, beating rob in the trophy dash.
tell us about that!

doh, there it is.
so rob what are you riding there?

That Milo was one fast Mo-Fro BITD

It was a great race for Sean. My hat was off and I think i tried to catch up but that damn track defeated me. It sucked big time. I hated every moto, ever main all weekend. It felt like it was all uphill that weekend.

Sean profited from my certainty that I would win. I was not over confident. I don't think I was. I was simply sure I would win, like I always was. It was, to me, a forgone conclusion that I would win. A mistake I made less and less over time as I lost more and more. You would not believe how many races I have lost in my 28 years of racing.

Anyway, back to that race. Nathan won cruiser and was riding the Trophy Dash with us as well, which was uncommon. Nate was the mole. My attention shifted to Nathan (30" Wide bars and all). Nate and I were about the same speed out of the gate and he was a big guy. Bigger than me anyway. And the wide bars and all so we were bumping and grinding while the race was a foot. Nathan had lane 7 I had lane 8, which is always best for me, get some room to get going. We all know cruisers are faster than the 20" and this course suited Nathan much more than I. I ran little gears in comparison (40x16 indoor-42x16 outdoor staple, 43x16 for long track-Nathan ran a 42x17 on his cruiser which is like 47x16 on the 20").

So I thought he was going to catch and pass me on the ultra long forever and ever and ever last sweeper (sleeper) Imagine a BIGGER last corner than BP. Then go bigger. Yes it was stupid.

I remember also all weekend looking back in that dreadfull corner, legs, heart and lungs dying like a mutha and wondering if I was going to make it to the line. Looks like I was not alone since nobody passed me all weekend. Well, save for the race we speak of.

Either way, I did not have to worry about it cause we got smoked on the inside.

I hope I was nice to you after. I cannot recall. Either way it was a great race for you and funny how different are perspectives are. My memory of that race was that I lost one race and I hated the track. I was happy to go home and race in Richfield. No take that back. I disliked that track as well.

Here is a shot from Mark's site of me leading Ayers and Rude in Richfield in 1982. First corner. Imagine racing like this today. No thanks.


And yes, Milo was one fast dude.

Mister Butterfield, any relation to Alexis Butterfield?

Hi Paul Springer. Nice to meet you.

I have read at least 30% of what you guys have been discussing and checking out all these great images all over this amazing site. So many communities just like ours with the same scenarios playing out and the great images from around the country and world. Great stuff.

To answer your question:

Butterfield was my BMX name.

Butterfield is not my real name.

So the answer is no relation to any Butterfields anywhere.

Regarding the image from ABA BMXER w/C.Williams. Did you look at the front tire I am lugging around?

The infamous Carlisse Aggressor 2.375. Forgive my spelling on that. I cannot believe I raced with that tire.
I swore by the Carlisse Aggressor. Look at that stupid Raleigh I was racing in that photo. The top tube was 18.5". I was 6FT TALL! Look at the fork. You could practically pinch the fork legs together with one hand. (Troy Lembke nearly did it at a hotel one day with his thumb and index finger)

I raced it on a bet and I was determined to make that bike work. Never managed to do that.

"DAMN YOU BILL SHUMATZU! (Name changed, not a real name)

My first shot at a big win ended in the last corner in the main event. My front end washed out.

I have that image as my trophy.

The real 8th place trophy was violently destroyed in 1986 in a drunken trophy destruction bonanza with Big Bill Nelson (A.K.A. BIG RIG or LOAD) downtown Mpls. That is a completely different story.

Anyway it was for the flat style corner that I used the Carlisse Aggressor. The Carlisse Aggressor was a great front tire for lame corners which were so prominant in the upper midwest at that time. If you were slightly faster than most people you raced, which I was, you know a wheel or so in front at the first corner, well, now what?

Now you have to navigate these crummy corners. Normally I would get the The Carlisse Aggressor to dig in with that huge ridge (this tire is flat across the top with hug knobs on the outer ridge) to carve a line that did not exist. This also would help me scrub some speed and not get past by some of the craftier veteran racers I had to deal with at that time.

The Carlisse Aggressor was also really heavy and kept my front wheel on the ground which was always a problem when I was really young (15-16) and in the end, the Carlisse Aggressor failed me.

Or at least I blamed the Carlisse Aggressor.

I watched to happen. I went over the Carlisse Aggressor ridge. Once you lose the ridge with the The Carlisse Aggressor...

Race over.

"NOOOOOO! NOT THE RIDGE!"

Or was it the goofy Raleigh.

Or was it me. I made the choice to race that bike, with that tire and the hole in the knee and the slip on checkered Vans. SLIP ONS! Are you kidding me?

Look close at the image. You will have to scroll back. I have a hole in my crotch which is barley visible in this image. I tore my jeans on my saddle in staging. I was saving my leathers for the final-the only set I had-as I normally raced moto's in jeans for economic reasons.

I won the moto in this image. Later in this very moto, after the second corner, I caught my saddle on the hole in my crotch clearing some doubles and nearly crashed in mid air. Super smooth jumper C.Williams chasing me. Good times.

Either way the Raleigh and the Carlisse Aggressor tire were never used again. The vans of course died a grizzly smelling nasty death somewhere. Nothing rots like canvas shoes with no socks. I went on to break 3 GT race frames that summer and really needed a bigger stronger bike. Nathan Benjamin sold me his beloved Patterson. Decked out with Graphites (Campy), long top tube and my 185mm cranks.

Butterfield just got faster. I felt it and I knew it. My equipment just made me faster. Much like it did in 97 when I raced the new breed of BMX race bike.

So much better it is sick.

P.S. Funny side note in gearing. Sorry for the extreme length of this post:

I used my 43T at Elkart, IN in 1983 for the very first time due to the long first straight. I used the 43T a couple more times the following rear as a Pro racing NBL Nationals with these huge long straights, smooth berms and big jumps. Absolutely wide open throttle racing and I loved it. Almost tried a 44T one time. Tried a 45x17. Did not like it. I ran a 40x18 in Land O' Lakes in 1997 and a 38x18 at the barn. Which are about the same as my 20" give or take an inch. Easy now.

The famous Richard Clan of Ben, Matt and Ted Richards raced in 46x17-47x17 and 48x17. Frank Richards, now deceased father of the children mentioned, would hammer me about my little gear and insist I step up and be a man. Yet I was winning very race I entered. Why would I go from a 42x16 to a 47x17?

When Frank asked why I would not change my gears I said, "Frank, that is just to much chain".

Note to Shawn Sheely:

Great images. Really good stuff. Imagine the images and opportunity for all forms of imagery that is available today. Man, to have a digi cam back in the day. Wow, my iphoto would be blowing up.

Yes, I use iphoto. It is an easy out with all the kid pics.

I have to ask you:

What has kept you from showcasing our battle at the Civic Center? Did you lose the video?

Butterfelch-

Great to have your input here. As always, you seem to want to tweak Shawn... some things never change.

How is it that you can remember every detail of motos and finals from 25 years ago? I'm lucky if I can remember to flush the toilet when I go to the bathroom.

BITD, you displayed remarkable power, style and carnage in roughly equal measure. The story of your ripped crotch jeans is a perfect example. Great humor, drama and heartbreak at every race...like a Greek tragedy.

One thing I do remember: for a period one summer, your R. brake cable kept fraying, so you'd cut it along with the housing. Repeat. The cable/housing eventually got so short that you weren't able to turn the handlebars much in one direction, requiring you to power-wheelie out of the corners rather than actually steering. It seems you rode it like that for a few weeks.

What is the status of the Richards (you mentioned that Frank died...that guy went to heaven because he scared the crap out of Satan)?

Shawn: I love that photo of daBerger wearing shorts. Serious camel-toe going on there...I'm sure Robin was loving it.

Butter, I remember traveling with you, Marv and Troy only you didn't have a bike to race (not sure about the year- 82?) You couldn't race Troy's bike because you raced each other, and mine was usually setup to small (but you tried) and you ended up finding someone to let you race there bike, un-setup to your liking and still doing well... I couldn't have ever done that.

Ya, having digi-cam bitd the day would have been so cool.

BTW, Good luck Grand National'ers!!!!