All this was Scanned from a Special 1983 Winter Edition of Super BMX,
Thought this would be something Cool to Post,
Of Course they left out the Info about Profile, Thruster and MCS making any Frame and Forks for them before they got all this equipment,

More Pics from the Factory

More Factory pics

A Fork jig

now that is COOL

One of my all-time favoite articles

I wish we had more stuff like that. I always imagined Linn Kastan running around in a lab coat and laughing maniacally, designing crazy cranks and half a fork.

That is way way cool stuff, thanks for taking the time out to post!

....save image as....
....save image as....
....save image as....

These pics are great! Never seen them before. Thanks!

Its so said how someone can go for hero to zero in a slit second! Hutch is and always be the best bike company even though i'm a Boss fan

What happend with Hutch back in the day, why did they go bust ??? did not get bought out ???

Another interesting Hutch fact:

Grove Innovations

Check out the 1981 Hutch reference. Bill Grove made a few custom very long 20" frames for a tall friend in the late 80's since all frames were short back then.

Being one of the first American companies to employ CNC machining for a small bike company at that , now that blows me away.

This was absolutely state-of-the-art at the time for any manufacturing company, not just a bicycle company. The advanced CNC milling machines were just coming on the market, thanks to the evolving circuit board and processing technology. The proprietary Mazatrol programming system developed and included on all Mazak-brand CNC milling machines is still being used to this day. Mazak, a Japanese company, is one of the largest CNC milling machine manufacturers in the world and has a long-standing reputation for building higher-end quality machines. The $100,000.00 in 1983 would equal over $200,000.00 today, adjusted for inflation. This was a very hefty sum for a machine shop to spend, considering that the next-most important machine shop tool, the Bridgeport manual milling machine, would have cost less than 5% of that.

Think of the profit margin that using these advanced manufacturing machines created for Hutch! Most other BMX companies around that time were still doing manual machining. I'm sure the advanced equipment paid for itself within a year and a half if not within a year.

That being said, what kind of financial mis-management could have killed this company so quickly? Did Bill Grove leaving in 86' have such a detrimental effect? Was he really the key guy running the manufacturing? Maybe he had a piece of the company that had to be bought out when he left? Remember the value of the company must've been really high in 85'. If he left in 86', which was the beginning of the BMX dark time, the buyout could have crippled Richard Hutchins and the company. All probably can only be answered by Richard Hutchins and/or Bill Grove.

Towners was a big Grove dealer. I still have my Hardcore.

Alan has a strong friendship with Bill, and I have talked to Alan about this. He can chime in, but I don't believe Bill had a piece of the company, or that his leaving left a financial impact. My impression was that Bill was commuting a long distance, working a lot of hours, and the final straw was a disagreement over the Aerospeed spindle design.

As for the reasons why Hutch went down so quickly, I personally believe it was a combination of multiple factors:

1. A rapid industry-wide decline in sales. After-all, the quality of stuff was so good that it didn't need replacing. The market got saturated, then sales fell off. Hutch did give a half-hearted attempt to diversify through innovation (Trail Star, HPV), but they missed the mark. Sub-factors could include track closings (several in my area and rumored to be because of lawsuits by parents over kids getting hurt) and the re-popularization of skateboards (can be put in a school locker and no worries about an expensive item being stolen).

2. I personally believe that a critical error from Hutch was to try and enter (or dominate) the budget-priced category. It is much easier to become an expert at making budget bikes than to build a reputation for top quality (which he clearly had established). The introduction of budget-priced items with less quality was a detrimental blow to the reputation of being an industry leader for superior quality (not to mention the value of design, mostly credited to Bill Grove). The amount of de-valuation of the quality brand was substantially more than the increased valuation of putting the Hutch name on the budget-priced bikes.

3. Financial mismanagement.

Thanks for that, very interesting

Great HUTCH Thread! I have not been interested in too much here latley.....However, now I getting a little stoked.


John....This thread is most likely very personal for you at this point. With you taking on the BMX world and putting HUTCH back in the loop, you my friend may be the next chapter in a long line of great innovative products.

Good Luck,
Karl (HUTCH FREAK)

P.S. I still have money to burn when your products get released

Greg, here's an extension of that subject that you might find interesting:

I've talked with Brian Scura on the phone at great length and also had the opportunity to go to dinner with him and his family at Interbike this year. If you are unfamiliar with Brian as a person, he is a strong type-A analytical engineer-type person (who else could have conceived those Race Lace hubs back in 1980?). I consider myself to be type-A-engineer also, but it was funny how we are of 2 different generations, mine being hugely relying on modern CNC technology, and his almost literally being anti-CNC. We debated this subject at Interbike at great length.

The SST Race Lace hubs are an engineering masterpiece. By far the most over-engineered BMX component ever produced IMHO. I have dissected the Race Lace hub, and it is extremely intricate by design. Talking machinist-to-machinist, Brian cautiously and reluctantly divulged his secrets for the fixtures and manual milling operations he used to manufacture those hubs. Even by today's standards using CNC, manufacturing those hubs would pose fixturing and machineability problems that most shops would not want to try and solve. To think that they were made by hand in 1980 using manual milling machines only is astonishing.

*If you're not familar with the SST hubs pictured below, they had a retail price in 1980 right around $250.00, by far the most expensive BMX hubset through the entire old-school era (adjusted for inflation: $625.00). Approximately only 80 complete sets were produced and less than a dozen known to survive today. In addition to appreciating the quality of engineering, one must also give an almost higher credit to the quality of design, since they are such a beautiful hub to look at. This happens to be a major reason why Hutch became so successful: it was the combination of design and engineering, a great portion attributed to Bill Grove and Richard acquiring his talent.



Edit: add below:

the Browning 2-speed shifter ranks right up there also for most over-engineered BMX product of the old-school era. A very complex and well-executed design that most people then, and now, probably do not realize or appreciate.

is $100,000 in 1983 equivalent to $200,000 these days?

I would have thought it would be way more.

Cool article - great to see all that raw stuff.

I say when Hutch entered the budget market their rep was tarnished - making junk stuff just so 'average joe' could afford a Hutch...
No smart but that is hindsight.
If you keep your high-end stuff in the high end market and price it accordingly you are probably more likely to maintain a good business, not try and compete with junk el-cheapo stuff.



PS: John - what is the bike in the pic with the SSTs?

Only 80 pairs made?
I would have though more than that.

I teased Brian about that. I said "you started with a batch-quantity of an even 100 and screwed-up 20 in the process, right?" he said no, but you know how memories fade over time.



This build happens to have the item that best represents the very infancy of Hutch, IMO: the 1st-gen Titron pedal, hand-made by Bill Grove. Pre-die-cast body, only oiled-bronze bushings for bearings, acid-etched cages...roughly 100 sets made (again, probably just 1 batch at 1 time). Richard likely was most influenced by the design of the 1st-gen and 2nd-gen Titron pedal and, well...the rest is history.

sure is a nice pedal.


I saw a few ads for SST hubs BITD - notably the one with Greg Hill and the blue Race Lace hubs - did they ever exist in blue?

Only seen silver, gold and red.

Woody's got a green/blue set.

If anyone is looking for the Hard Copy of this Hutch article, it is in the Special winter edition of Super BMX 1983, THE HOLLAND WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS,

Even thought I has a sub to BMXA, thank got I Kept my sub to Goofy SuperBMX, even though they were a class C BMX magazine they did do some pretty neat stuff from time to time,

Now watch every guy who has that edition of the Magazine who isn't a HUTCH fan will have it on EBAY fo $50.00 next week,

But at times I think I may have been the only subscriber to Superbmx

I have recently become a Browning fanatic, I have acquired one of the first Browning prototype complete kit as well as some other misc. early transmission parts. It looks like the one that Darrell had on his chrome bike. The chainwheel is chrome and has different lettering than the production units. The transmission case and mount are both machined and chrome, the production units were cast alum and bare finish.

I have purchased all remaining parts, and the few kits that Browning had left.

Only about 700 kits had been manufactured, and MOST were returned to Browning broken because of improper installation and adjustment. Browning always insisted that properly trained mechanics only install them. Problem was that were only a handful of shops nationwide that were authorized Browning installers. A complete unbroken kit is VERY rare considering the user caused failure rate.

I spoke with Darrell about his experience with the Browning. He said it was very trouble free, smooth and provided a great advantage. Darrell had also told me of a couple other well known racers that had tested them at the same time he did. I think he mentioned Gary Ellis, but I'm not sure. Maybe Ken Pliska can drop Darrell a line and find out who they were again.

Jeff Haney had also used a Browning back in 86/87 and said by the time he got the kit installed it cost around 350.00-400.00, but he never had any problems with it. And that it gave him a substantial advantage.

Didn't Excalibur make a hub similar to the SST? That article was great info.

The problem with them is if the housing clamp slipped, the shift pin would hit the shifter mechanism and break it.

I think Eric Rupe used one. Actually, I think he had one on his bike but didn't actually use it?

I had one around the same time as he did. I can attest to the reliability and performance of them. The biggest issue I had was the lower cable housing mount would slip and cause it to go out of adjustment and the chainring(s) would hit the stays on some frames w/ flight cranks...easy fix w/ a spacer. My dad made a reinforced cable stop out of an old engine pushrod and combined it with a hose clamp (Greg I think I gave you the old parts my dad made a few years ago). it never slipped after that. It worked great.

Think about how much all those Hutch pedal cages are worth today!!!

Super BMX was not really available here BITD - I have aquired a few issues recently and would have loved to have collected it along with BMXA and Plus! BITD.

Got some good stuff in there and seems to have more articles like the one above.
Kind of a combo of Plus! and BMXA.

Plus they had more chicks - lol

Bunches and Bunches

John would you want a mostly complete set for your bike, It's just missing the shift lever mechanism you spoke about that would break. It could be installed and be functional, just without the shift capability.

Are you asking me? I'm already setup on my DY and it works awesome.

I had the chance to buy 30 or so NOS Brownings...probably from the same guy you bought yours from. I passed on the lot, but picked up a couple just to have them on hand.

The other Jon....Nordgren.

thats some great history. and your input is great to hear john (De Bruin). i can't wait for the next generation of hutch to begin.

lol

Re-reading this jogged my memory. When I asked Brian if he screwed-up 20 of them, he said no and that he only screwed-up 1 of them. It happens to be the blue one in the ad that Greg was holding. The backside was all torn up from a machining setup gone bad.

oh dear - so no blue - lol

The same friend who had 2 custom Grove bmx frames bought a Hardcore. And that frame was HARD-CORE. Has to be the beefiest mtb frame I remember ever seeing. I didn't know of Grove's association with Hutch until long after I was considering buying his Assault mtb frame.

John

You pretty much hit the nail on the head. Declining sales, bad business decisions, a lawsuit or two, spending money hand over fist, you get the idea.

Bill did NOT have any controlling interest in Hutch; he was just an employee like everyone else. The one thing Bill did want when he left was the gal that worked in the office. He and Mary have been married for 20-ish years now I think.

He left for purely personal reasons not the least of which was the inability to see eye to eye with Richard on a variety of key issues including but certainly not limited to that Aero-Speed spindle design. I will post a picture of that 2nd generation spindle tomorrow.

Cheers!

Someone has to get the skinny from Richard H one day - surely it's time he came out and said a few words, given the interest in Hutch.

I'm sure he'd be quietly chuffed to know Hutch is still one of the most sought after brands after all these years.

As promised, here are pictures of the 2nd generation Aero-Speed spindle that Bill designed when he was at Hutch. This was a major point of contention between Bill and Richard because Richard had invested a lot of $$$$ in the Aero-Speeds and he did not want to change them.

The 2nd generation spindle was very different and meant to be a 2-piece crank design with the drive side arm fixed to the spindle. The triagonal design was inspired by military tank axles and would later be used in the Grove Hot Rods crank setup that are about as rare and collectible as Aero-Speeds.
Click to view attachment

The side by side spindle comparison.
Click to view attachment

Bill just didn't redesign the spindle; he actually built a whole new crank system. The Grove Hammerhead bar/stem combo was built using the same oval tubular chromoly that Bill used on the 2nd generation Aero-Speed arms. Unfortunately, all of the finished 2nd generation arms were discarded a few years after Bill left Hutch and the remaining stock was used to make stems and bar/stem combos.
Click to view attachment

Wow, the information that surfaces on VBMX is truely astounding! Thanks for sharing...

I have been enjoying this too. A lot of interestimg new information keeps popping up thanks to John, Alan, and others that keep investigating the history. What a great pic of all those mag hub flanges. I did not have any idea about a redesign of the spindle or a new design of 2nd gen cranks. I guess whats left of them are buried in a Baltimore dump.