Picture this: BMX Cruisers Flickr group

4 10 2012

Today I stumbled on a cool Flickr group called BMX Cruisers.

The “About” section has this description:

This group contains pictures of people having fun with BMX cruisers. The main focus is on the salad days of 26″ cruisers, but two four peeps are welcome too.

It’s a pretty cool representation of the different facets of cruiser riding. There’s a bit of everything in this Flickr group: from flatland, to street, to pool riding, even just bombing the streets.

You might recognize a few familiar faces on it too.

Like Trent Brocker above.

Or Joseph Moody below.

Good to see pics of those guys tearing things up.

Heck, here’s another pic of Trent…it’s been a while since we’ve had a flatland pic on here.

Well worth a look.

Check it out here.

(All pics featured here by den dowling.)





More cruiser highlights from Interbike

28 09 2012

The grand poohbah of 24″ race completes, the Redline Flight Pro 24, looks as dialed as ever for 2013. For many people, this is considered the “most complete” complete on the market. But for all that quality, be prepared to open your pocketbook. The MSRP is north of $1000 US.

Haro’s 2013 race 24, also looks like it’s ready to perform on the track.  Looks well put together, along with cool blue anodized accents to give it a bit of custom-build look.

The SE Floval Flyer Looptail was a show stopper…in that it had the tendency of stopping you in your tracks to take a closer look when you walked by during the tradeshow. Featuring an awesome old school look, it’s been souped up with modern-day build quality and geometry. Sporting exclusive-to-SE  Skyway Tuffwheels with red anodized hubs(!), this is a bike that’s hard not to dig if you have any roots in the sport.





Build the ultimate cruiser, win a Skyway 24

17 09 2012

Porkchop BMX, Bullseye Cycle and VintageBMX.com are sponsoring a cruiser-only build off starting tomorrow, September 18.

The best part of this build off is (besides checking out all the awesome builds) is that Porkchop is giving away a fully built up Skyway 24 XL in a random drawing out of all the people that submit a completed bike.

Sounds pretty good to me.

Heck, I may build something myself!

 The deets (direct from Justin at Porkchop):

PorkchopBMX.com, Bullseye Cycle & VintageBMX.com have come together to sponsor a BMX cruiser build off running from Sept 18th to Dec 9th, 2012.

Any year 24″, 26″ or 29″ BMX cruiser is allowed to enter and each member can enter up to 3 bikes (one of each size). It is free to join VintageBMX.com and free to enter the build off.

Bikes will be built from Sept 18th to Nov 17th and “before” pictures of at least the frame and fork must be submitted before Nov 17th. Completed bikes will be submitted from Nov 18th to Dec 2nd. Voting for the top 3 favorites will be held Dec 3rd to 9th – any Vintage BMX member can vote.

Prizes for 1st through 3rd (based on number of votes received) will win both cash and merchandise. Every completed bike entered will get one chance to win (by random drawing) a complete 2012 Skyway 24 XL built with Porkchop BMX and Bullseye Cycle parts. Anyone who enters a Skyway cruiser gets 2 chances to win the giveaway bike. There is approx. $4000 total in cash and prizes being given away for this build off!

Click on over to Vintage BMX for more  on the contest.

Complete Skyway 24… not exactly as shown. (Eva Gabrielle also not included.)

Who’s in?

Looking forward to seeing the builds!




Skyway frames out now…for a lucky few

10 09 2012

Planet BMX/Colored Tuffs announced last week that the long-anticipated 24″ Skyway T/A frames were about to be shipped out.

This modern-day adaptation of a classic cruiser frame (only made in small quantities in the original incarnation for the company’s factory riders, not the general public) understandably sold out quickly.

Will another run of these frames be made?

Not sure.

What I am sure of is that I’m dying to see some of these bad boys built up (the chrome ones with black Tuffs and skinwall tires are my kryptonite).

Oh look…maybe the white frames are OK too.

Eva Gabrielle on one of the original Skyway cruisers.

For more background on the Skyway frame check out this early post: Does the  T/A stand for totally awesome?





Cruiser Rev tees…get one today and save

29 08 2012

Forgive me for the over-the-top sales guy headline…but in these tough economic times, it’s important to save a few bucks whenever you can.

And if you can do that while still scoring something cool, so much the better.

So just in case you missed it on the Facebook page, there’s a couple of coupon codes to save on Cruiser Revolution t-shirts and other assorted CR merch.

The catch is the coupon codes are only good till 8/30/12.

SummerStyle$5
(Save $5 off $25+)

SummerStyle$10
(Save $10 off orders of $50+)

So get in, while the getting’s good.

(And don’t forget your girl…she’ll be stoked if you pick up a Cruiser Revolution fitted baseball tee for her…trust.)

You can visit the webstore by clicking here.





BMX racing: from BUMS to the boob tube

8 08 2012

The hype factor has reached a fever pitch leading up to BMX hitting the Olympic stage today for the 2012 Summer Games,

The New York Times is doing features on Alise Post, Tory Nyhaug is showing up on Olympic TV spots in Canada and the list goes on and on.

It’s pretty amazing to see how far we’ve come.

And to think that much of modern-day racing has its roots with a guy in a vacant lot that wanted to hold some bike races.  That guy being Scot Breithaupt.

He didn’t just put BMX racing on the map…the “map” of BMX was basically set on its current course by much of what he learned holding those first few races in the vacant lot.

You could  say that Scot Breithaupt, figuratively and literally, wrote the book on BMX racing.

He also founded what could be called BMX’s first sanctioning body of any kind, the Bicycle United Motocross Society (B.U.M.S). Breithaupt…set up organizational features around his races very much as…the sanctioning bodies would base theirs; rulebooks, a point system, a skill level structure, a racing season, trophies and promotions of special races that were the prototype for Nationals. (Wikipedia)

Scot played a role in almost every aspect of BMX: as a promoter, manufacturer, sponsor, team manager and last, but certainly not least, as a racer.

Scot is also widely credited with bringing Cruiser classes to the various sanctioning bodies which also brought more adults to the sport in its early days.

So as we await those first few minutes of the Olympic BMX event, let’s take a minute to thank Scott “OM” Breithaupt for getting the ball rolling in those early days.

Little did he know that it would go from BUMS right up prime time coverage on the boob tube in so short of a time frame.





Can’t wait to get back on the road again

28 07 2012

Throwing the bikes in the car — whether it’s in the trunk, backseat or on the bike rack — and hitting the road is just one of those summertime essentials like beers and barbecues.

Getting out of Dodge and seeing what the next city, state or (if you’re really ambitious) country, has to offer is usually just the thing to shake things up, give you some fresh perspective and open the door to some good times.

Love this pic. (Cribbed from the Skyway Facebook page.)

On my agenda this weekend is racing a provincial/state race (today) and then on Sunday (I’m not making this up…) checking out the Sunday team at a bike shop demo in a nearby city. Good times all around.

Hope you’ve got some plans to check out some new places this weekend too.

Summers go by too fast these days.

Gotta make the most of these summer weekends.





Cro-mo continues its racing comeback

27 07 2012

Back in March, we talked about the comeback that chromoly race forks were experiencing in the race community. Now with more and more people switching to chromoly forks, it seems like the a trend is starting to develop towards chromoly race frames.

Sure, chromoly frames have always been available from the industry stalwarts, S&M and Standard. But beyond those two companies the choices for “steel is real” advocates was noticeably slim.

That’s beginning to change.

In a recent Vintage BMX forum thread, a reader was showing off his SSquared chromoly cruiser prototype frame and said,

Now that they made this first cromo frame for me; I think it has reenergized their desire to do a full cromo run.

Which is pretty compelling when you consider that SSquared is one of the more popular race companies at the moment…they obviously think there is a market for these frames.

Other big names in the race community, like Supercross and MCS have also had cromo frames in their lineups for some time now  (the Bolt and Speedfreak respectively) despite the widespread use of aluminum frames in the race community.

And as further evidence of the chromoly trend, there are rumblings that GT and Mongoose are also testing out Chromoly race bikes.

Looks like we might have a cro-mo resurgence on our hands in the next few years. I for one am kinda looking forward to it.





Cool pics from Mongoose…just be KOS

27 06 2012

Mongoose posted some cool cruiser-related pics on their Facebook feed today including this one by Mongoose rider Chris Akrigg letting loose on his KOS Kruiser.

Classic style on a classic bike.

Chris is well known in the MTB world for his big, creative moves. Kinda makes you wonder why Mongoose hasn’t set him up with one of the Mongoose Thrive 24s (previously discussed on CR last year).  I think you’d really see Chris go off on one of those bikes…

Mongoose also posted this great vintage ad for the Mongoose Two/Four, with the caption, “The original Kos Kruiser. Did you miss it?

So cool.

Probably the coolest pic of the day though is the one featuring the custom Kos Kruiser they built for Jeff ‘Kos’ Kosmala’s wife, Vicky. It’s painted pink  in recognition of Vicky’s battle with breast cancer and her successful recovery.

So stoked on this. Nice work Mongoose.





Is a Slurpee a performance enhancer?

15 06 2012

Who would’ve thunk it…the humble Slurpee might just be the edge you need if you find yourself racing this summer on an especially hot day.

In a study that was reported on first in the New York Times,  researchers found:

young male recreational athletes who drank a syrup-flavored ice slurry [like a slurpee] just before running on a treadmill in hot room could keep going for an average of 50 minutes before they had to stop. When they drank only syrup-flavored cold water, they could run for an average of 40 minutes.

The senior investigator, Paul Laursen, said the effect is short-lived.  According to Laursen:

It would not even begin to last long enough to run a marathon or do a century (100-mile) bike ride, for example. But it would be perfect for a sport like tennis or for a 5- or 10-kilometer race.

Could it be effective then for a BMX racing then?

I think it might.

While not part of the study, the nature of BMX racing with it’s need for short-bursts of energy, recovery and then some more short-bursts of energy seems to make it a good fit for the kind of sport where the type of cooling provided by a Slurpee might pay off in increased performance.

Laursen found ice slurries were beneficial because  it lowered brain temperature more effectively than cold water. He also reasoned that:

 slurries might also effectively cool the body before exercise. The advantage… is that they are even colder than ice — 30 degrees Fahrenheit — an effect that occurs when sugary water is swirled with crushed ice.

Very interesting!

I’d love to test this out…if only there was a 7-11 close to my local track! Maybe I’ll throw a Freezie or two in the cooler and see if it has a similar effect.

Anybody racing this weekend with a 7-11 nearby?

I would love to hear whether or not it had an effect on your performance. And if anybody gives you  a hard time for gulping a Slurpee…tell ’em you’re doing it for science!