Do you remember your first bike that you picked out for yourself I found this pic of a Schwinn predator its the first 20in bike that I owned and paid for myself when I was kid, I also raced it, it got me got me into the intermediate class at my local track in Pasadena Texas... But i had chrome and black model... I know it wasn't the best bike but it did the trick I did upgrade it later down the rode with some ukai wheels and Dk headset and a 44 tooth sprocket and racing seat, and I think it had bulldog brakes out back of course comp 3 tires

my 1981 cycle pro blitz. blue w/ yellow tuff ones. i just picked up a frame and fork and can not wait to rebuild my 1st bmx bike again.

Sure do and it was piece of crap.

A red Huffy. I still have the frame in my moms attic. Its now painted purple and white and was cut down to pit bike size.

First BMX bike was a black and gold Redline Proline which I saved for all summer long by washing cars and cutting lawns. Got stolen within 2 months of me buying it. Still hurts me to this day. Then I saved for my Cook Bros which I still have to this day and restoring one piece at a time. Might be done by the end of this summer finally.

Not the first that I bought, but the first bike my dad brought home for me was an Orange Yamaha Moto-bike. Still have the owners manual, but the bike is in the hands of one of my dad's ex-employees. Next step is getting it back!

after that was a Blue Redline MX-II, then a ball burnished mini ripper, then a team issue tan mini ripper, Finally a chrome Maximum, which I still have from 1984-5, along with a couple letters from larry Hess about joining his team.

1971 Schwinn Sting Ray Junior which I later added box bars too.

First BIKE was a sky blue, banana seat thing from Sears.

Then the first thing resembling BMX was a Huffy Z2, the twist-grip 2 speed. Rode it until it was literally falling apart. I wasn't much for bike maintenance back then, LOL.

First REAL BMX was a purple GT Mach One. Which I found a few years ago, but everything but the frame and fork was gone and it wasn't the same. Traded it for something else, and you know...I guess I don't get attached to bikes, but still I'd love to find my old Trick Star, if it were anything like i left it.

My "first" bike was a crappy banana seat huffy with a racing drag slick rear tire. I don't remember what color it was originally because my dad backed over it with his car and then took it to work, fixed it and painted it this cool purple metal flake color. My first "real" bike was my 1985 GT Performer which is sitting in my basement waiting to be restored!!!

Redline

My first bike was a dept store special, I think from sears - I remember it had a number plate attached to the downtube and mx style bars and seat.

I was in my apartment complex and an older kid said 'you don't look right on that bike' I think that's what made me so determined to ride.

I remember over and over going up and down the big dirt hills and into the construction zones where they were building highway 680 through Milpitas.

35 years later and still riding BMX..guess I showed that kid..

I remember mine - cannot remember the brand, I think it was an AMF. It was blue and had a banana seat with a sissy bar and ape hanger bars. It had an eagle head profile on the chain guard.
My uncle got it for me and he helped me learn to ride it. I lived next door to my aunt and uncle and my uncle was mor patient than my dad.

Good times - man I feel old. I need to go buy a bike for my 3 year old son right now!

The first new bike I ever got was a blue dept. store bike with ape hangers and a banana seat. The look on my face on Christmas morning must have said it all because I remember my mom saying "we can take it back and get you something else if you want". We went to Gemco and exchanged the bike for a black Royce Union...the thing was a tank but was all black , had knobby tires, and motocross style bars. After my dad put it together for me he took me outside to take it for a test spin. I promptly crash right into the car door of our next door neighbors and break the front reflector...I don't have any idea what model it was...the only other one I have ever seen was a basket case at the LBC bike swap.

Tony

I remember dad bringing home two Yamaha Moto-bikes (yellow) one for me and one for my brother. I was only nine so I rode the heck out of it the best I could. My brother was a different story and soon mine became a parts bike for his. Haha! My first true BMXer was a Schwinn Stingray I had bought from the kid down the street for $25. His parents bought him a complete CBR and I was really jealous but I loved my Stingray. It's funny I was at work one day, staring out the window and I could see it plain as day. I have started my Stingray project but am still aways off. I need - RL V bars, Mongoose Gold Stem, RL nickle forks, and the big one Webco mags. Aah someday, but for now my Stingray is coming together a little differently than planned, and thats why I bought a second old Stingray frame cause someday I will get my original built.

Dirty I just went back and was reading this and I had to laugh. My first ride on my Moto-Bike I was coming down the street all proud. I was waving and paying more attention to Mom who was standing on the porch waving back. When BAM!! the maibox jumped out in the road and knocked me clean off my shiny new bike. LOL

My first bike was a solid-tired Huffy that I couldn't pedal up the hill outside my house. Then in '76 I got a new blue 3-speed banana-seat Ross for my birthday. A few years later it was a Univega 10-speed for Christmas. A few years later (1983?), after I got into BMX, there was a Team Murray X20R under the tree, which I picked because it had good parts but was affordable. And after the Murray broke, I got my first real bike, a chrome CW ZX.

By the way, the 1/4 Flash is awesome. Of all my vintage bikes, one of my favorites is my Predator Nighthawk survivor that I bought for $35. It originally had a front brake, fake CW bars and plastic pedals, but I fixed it up a little and I even cruise around on it occasionally.

My first bike came from Montgomery Wards. It was silver / black with a motocross look to it. It had a round black number plate with motocross style bars. It also had a sweet banana seat. My parents took a photo of me when I received it for x-mas. I was astonished !

Campus green Stingray Junior like Paul Springer. Then came a Huffy BMX with a number 5 plate on it. I wore that number the rest of my Baseball career!

All junk generic Huffy / Murray ones. The first bike I owned that actually liked was one of these.

A very used green '71 Sting Ray, which got stolen from school. I swapped the ripped banana seat for a 10 speed seat and swapped the apehangers for Honda dirt bike bars with homemade shims.

Next was a red '75 Sting Ray which I slowly swapped parts on until it had a rear Webco mag, front heavy duty 105 guage rim, knobbies, a 10 speed seat and Brian MX bars. That's the bike I started racing on.

When I told my mom I needed a "real" bmx bike to race on she said "That's nice...better get a job." So I did- cutting grass, throwing papers, cleaning gutters, babysitting...whatever it took. The best job was cleaning and waxing our landlords custom van for shows and van runs. Even better was cleaning it out when he came back from his runs...there was always all sorts of contraband in there that he forgot about. All the money I made from these jobs led to a '77 DG Racer kit bike- yellow DG frame, blue DG forks, yellow DG alloy box bars, Takagi alloy cranks, black Tuffs, blue Oakley grips, blue DG pads...
That's the bike I will build again- someday.

MX-121
I got this for my 13th birthday and proceeded to ride it into the ground. Good times, ....good times.

'73 20" Schwinn Typhoon in green with chrome fenders, looked like a mini three speed. Converted to Stingray with bars and a banana seat, later switched to a bmx bike with the "box set" at K-Mart, wide motorcycle bars, seat, and number plate.

70s Schwinn Stingray.
At first had the Kmart conversion kit. Then after getting my first issue of BMX Action, went over to Guys Schwinn in Feasterville, PA and bought a BMX Products Gold Stem and blue alloy bars. I would enter my first race on that bike. Stock cranks and all lol.

Johnny Ringo what brand is a MX 121 o is that the brand?

For Christmas of I think 1975 or 76. I got a Webco with Tange tubular forks that the drop out was under the legs and the legs had a curve for rake. The rest was flat black ashtabula stem, box bars and 6 1/2 inch cranks. Steel rims with 105 gauge spokes and a coaster brake. Fat Cheng Shin tires front and back. My first upgrade was a gold Tuff neck and alloy bars. Preston Petty grips. Never raced that bike but it started me in just riding BMX. First Race bike was a 1978 Patterson Sentry.

Changstar

My first bmx bike was this mongoose shorty.



jk

1980 "Golden Arrow" I have no Idea who made it, then my dad bought me my one and only pair of Tuff's. I raced an Redline MXII shortly after I won my first 3 races with the Western Auto special.

I recall my dad's friend giving me a green stingray with a banana seat. I rode it into an iron fence and cracked the frame. I cried holding the two pieces of the bike while walking home. The next bike I remember is a Huffy Eviel Knevel (forgot how to spell it) bike with a gas tank, motorcycle seat, and the worst plastic grips ever. I remember breaking the two seat posts that ran down the side of the bile while jumping the bike. The next one I remember is a Cook Bros (purchased off the showroom floor) with all Campy parts, which I had to sell because the family needed money. The next one was a Ross Snapper with yellow Z-rims. This was the only bike I raced (I grew up in Queens, NY; not exactly the mecca for BMX racing). I remember converting the coaster brake to a freewheel.

I then owned a used Red MX-II and later on a brand new black/gold MX-III that got stolen.

It's just a generic bike shop brand.

1982 Hutch Lil' Hole Shot

Matt & me on our first real bikes , Xmas 1976 (?) BMX was a complete unknown at the time here in Oz. My metalic purple Cyclops dragster had a 3 speed T bar gear shifter (like an automatic car had) on the top tube , reliable daily rider to skool for years. I started to shear off cotter pins & skin to the inside my ankles within a year.Spanner &, spare pins , bandaids & carry bag fitted to new purple & white bananna seat with gold sparkles when old one black one cracked up from UV damage.




Red 10 speed bicycle , nothing to see here , sold it for $100 to get a real BMX bike 78 (?)Malvern Star Supermax. Oz made frame with all Jap alloy components.




Front brakes worked good.
Also learnt that Tourney alloy cranks came loose & were more hassle than cotter pins.....


Xmas 79 (?) upgraded to a REAL BMX bike , early Redline MX II with TRX forks.
will keep them forever.

Note official Oz summer safety gear , shorts , thongs & a protective suntan
Improvised pro ramp made using a caravans chock board & bricks.



Take me back..........


JB

First bike was a Schwinn Aero Bee. The sticker looked like a bee with slicks burning out like a Dodge Super Bee. That was sometime in the early 70s. I would always build jumps and pretend I was Evel Kinevel. In the later 70s I "shared" a Mongoose with Tuff Wheels" with the neighborhood kid. It was a tank but jumping got better. Along that time I got one of those bikes with the full suspension and took the tank and fender plastics off. Much later in the early 80s I got a DG with moto mags from a friend and found my way to Sarasota BMX. I was hooked and worked all summer to buy a Cycle Pro Bonzai from a kid in New Jersey who worked at the factory. That was my first race bike... The rest is history.

First and only new BMX bike was in 1979 or 1980 a CYC products Storm. Chrome frame/forks. Tuff neck, Araya rims with Shimano hubs I laced myself and a three piece Tange crank set that always seemed to come loose until I discovered threadlocker. I already had a Motomag Mongoose I had bought used. I had the CYC frame til about five years ago when I gave it to my son's best friend who ended up trashing it out trying to cut and weld it into a lowrider type bicycle. The Mongoose frame is in my attic but the motomags are gone.

I wanna say that mine was a 1982 Huffy 50 Racing. I am sure I had a smaller yellow two wheeler before that but it maybe had 8-10" rims on it with this weird e-brake mounted on the frame that you could slam on if you got into some trouble. I did have the awesome matching yellow K-mart fireman/ambulance/policeman/pa sytem mounted to the handlebars.

man I love the old photos keep them coming, anyone else want to share?

My 1st bmx bike was from sears, POS!!!
My 1st rel BMX bike I worked all summer for and paid for myself. (mongoose)
Then my parents paid for me to race and upgrade it.

Those were the days...

My very first bike was one my grandfather built from parts he found at the junkyard. From there I progressed to a number of cheap dept store bikes which I managed to destroy. My parents finally broke down & bought me a Rampar R10 which I upgraded parts on as I destroyed them. I graduated to a Mongoose next. Then, after cutting lawns all summer, I bought my first Proline (used).

Hey Johnnyringo, small world. I have no idea where it went after the ghostrider shot.
I had to build my first bike myself.

First bike, yeah, a 16 inch sort of candy orange AMF with plastic slick tire on the back that I learned to ride n without training wheels and skidded through the tire. At least I got it new. The second bike was a garage sale Western Flyer banana seat bike that I soon converted to a BMX bike with box bars and pleated seat, knobbies. This would have been around '77. My first BMX was a Team Murray, Track Certified something or other. I remember it having ACS parts on it. Then an 83 Predator Chro-Mo-Free.

My first bike was a 76 StingRay.
Upgraded to a Scrambler 36/36 that was stolen a month after I got it.
Replacement was a "Downgrade" to a Scrambler with the blade forks and forward facing rear dropouts
A few years later I got a Nitaka, the only chrome bike in my price range(I had to have chrome).
Finally, I picked up a Diamond Back Medium Pro frame and fork and rode that in various incarnations until it was stolen in '84

My first bike that I picked out was a 78ish Webco. It was blue, with blue mags, blue vinyl snap pads, with black bars, and black neck. It became my ghost riding and pool jumping special after I got my hutch pro racer several years later.

my first bmx bike was a panda mx-2 with triple clamp forks, three cog freewheel&rear drum brake it weighed a ton it was all steel,what a tank.

My first quality bmx bike was a blue Kuahara. I can still see it hanging in Hampton Schwinn. It had matching blue Tange forks, suntour parts, blue comp II tires and the seat had the lightning bolt.
When GT came out with bars, I added them (with oakley 3 grips). These were good days.

I started racing in a Huffy "Thunder Road" two speed, which they wouldnt let me run two gears for long. I ended up stripping it down and changing every part on it one by one. The frame was a metalic blue color and the parts I changed to were gold anidized. I won some races on that thing and ended up getting it stolen off a bike rack at school. The ironic thing was that whoever stole it had to move a GT and Redline off the rack to get to my "better" Huffy. lol

76-77 Schwinn Scrambler, Silver frame, bladed forks, box bars, banana seat, and knobbies, rode that thing until there was nothing left. Luckily I found another one in really good "used" condition.

My first "Real" Race Bike was a 1976 Schwinn Scrambler Competition (this is a stock 1977 model that I have that was exactly like my original 1976). Day one at the Schwinn Shop, the wheels were upgraded to Black Skyway Tuffs with the all new Bendix 76 rear hub.



By mid 1979, it had been rebuilt a dozen times with high end parts. I also had it stripped and painted gloss black with Gold pinstripes. Here it has Phil Wood Hubs laced to Super Pro hoops and wrapped with the all new Competition II Black Wall tires, a set of fluted bars cut into a laid back post, KKT Lightning Pedals on Maxy three hole track cranks, V-Bars, Tuf Neck and DG pads. I wanted the DG California Pro at the time but my parents said we should just make mine into the same thing. Funny thing is is was well over the $550 California Pro price to upgrade the Schwinn into this.

I still have the bulk of this bike (mostly dis-assembled) in my basement.

I don't have any photos of it, but my first bike that I started jumping on in the early 1970s was a brand new Yellow Schwinn Junior Varsity that I stripped the gears off of and turned into an early cruiser.

my first was a webco replica w/ mags.....my dad was a webco mtorcycle dist & i still have the catalog he ordered it from....i have a pic somewear of me w/it at xmas........i also still have the bike.I DON<T KNOW HOW IT MADE IT ALL THE YEARS!!!!

My first real bike was a blue 83 or 84 Mongoose frame fork set that I picked out in a local shop. We were never that well of so it took a long time to build up part by part so in the meantime I was rolling a Team Murry I got from K Mart until it cracked. I actually ended up using the Murray cranks on that mongoose haha loose ball bearings-those cranks never worked right! Plus the crank arms were too short and everyone I knew had three piece canks and nice competes from Mongoose, Patterson, Hutch, Boss, Elf, GT, Skyway, SE haha so I got goofed on a lot cause my bike wasn't as light as theirs or as fast. Ahhh good times.

Those stock grips sure were hard on the hands . Had a sx-100 mag scrambler silver / blk . 1st race bike .

My first was a 74 Stingray with a motomag on the rear and double clamp stem and yamaha bars.still have it today,thankfully!!! here's a couple of pics of me on it,one in front of our house and the other coming off of the second turn at La Mirada BMX track,circa 1978.ah the good ol days......


Click to view attachment

81 Competition Sting.