BMX History
Origins of BMX
BMX began in early 1970s Southern California when children raced modified Schwinn Sting-Ray bikes on dirt tracks in imitation of motocross, creating a sport.
Updated 6 min read1,346 words
BMX, short for bicycle motocross, began in Southern California around 1970 when children started racing their 20 inch wheel bikes on dirt tracks in imitation of motorcycle motocross. Within a decade it had grown from backyard racing into an organised sport with national sanctioning bodies, purpose-built bikes, magazines and a manufacturing industry. Every modern form of BMX, from racing to street, descends from this period.
Before BMX: the Sting-Ray and motocross
Two things had to exist before BMX could. The first was a bike. In 1963 Schwinn released the Sting-Ray, a 20 inch wheel bicycle with a banana seat, high-rise handlebars and a short wheelbase, styled after the chopper motorcycles of the day. It sold in huge numbers and was copied by every other American bike maker. By the late 1960s most American children rode something like a Sting-Ray, and its small wheels and tough build made it the obvious bike for riding on dirt.
The second was motocross. Off-road motorcycle racing boomed in the United States through the 1960s, and Southern California was its centre. Children who watched their older brothers and fathers race wanted to do the same. They stripped the fenders and chainguards from their Sting-Rays, fitted motorcycle-style number plates, and raced each other on dirt paths and vacant lots.
The 1971 documentary On Any Sunday, directed by Bruce Brown, opens with footage of children racing bicycles on dirt in imitation of motocross. The film was a mainstream hit and is widely cited as a catalyst for BMX, because it showed children across the country that what they were already doing had a name and an audience. How much the film caused the sport and how much it simply recorded it is debated; by 1971 bicycle motocross was already happening in several places.
The first races: around 1970 to 1973
Accounts of the very first organised BMX race differ, and the question is probably unanswerable. Several groups of children and adults were running informal races in different parts of Southern California at the same time.
The most often repeated story credits Scot Breithaupt, a teenage motocross racer, with organising races for local children on a dirt lot in Long Beach in 1970. He charged a small entry fee, gave out trophies and formed a club he called the Bicycle United Motocross Society. Breithaupt went on to promote races, ride professionally and start a bike company, and he is commonly described as the founding father of BMX. Other tracks were operating in the San Fernando Valley and Orange County by 1972, and some people involved in those scenes dispute that Long Beach came first.
What is not disputed is that by 1973 there were regular races at several Southern Californian tracks, with age-graded classes, trophies and growing crowds. In that year Elaine Holt published Bicycle Motocross News, the first magazine devoted to the sport, which helped spread rules and results between tracks.
Sanctioning bodies: 1974 to 1977
As racing spread, riders and parents wanted consistent rules, insurance and a points system. Several organisations formed to provide them.
The National Bicycle Association, run by Ernie Alexander in California, was one of the earliest sanctioning bodies and organised some of the first large national events in the mid 1970s. It faded by the early 1980s.
The National Bicycle League (NBL) was founded in 1974 by George Esser in Florida. Esser had run motorcycle racing and applied the same structure to bicycles. The NBL grew into one of the two main American sanctioning bodies and operated until 2011.
The American Bicycle Association (ABA) was founded in 1977 in Arizona by Merl Mennenga and Gene Roden. The ABA introduced the moto system of qualifying heats that racing still uses, and became the largest BMX racing organisation in the United States. It later became USA BMX.
Having two large competing bodies shaped American racing for over thirty years. Riders and tracks aligned with one or the other, each ran its own national series and grand national, and the rivalry drove professionalism and prize money. The two bodies merged under the USA BMX banner in 2011.
The first purpose-built bikes: 1974 to 1979
Sting-Rays were not built for jumping and broke constantly. The first wave of the BMX industry formed to fix that.
Early improvements were aftermarket parts: stronger forks, motorcycle-style handlebars, knobby tyres and padded number plates. Companies such as Webco in California sold frames and parts to racers from the early 1970s.
Redline, founded by Linn Kastan and Mike Konle in 1970 as a motorcycle frame builder, made what is usually described as the first tubular chromoly BMX fork in 1974, followed by complete chromoly frames. Chromoly steel was lighter and far stronger than the mild steel of department store bikes and became the standard material for serious BMX frames for the next two decades.
Mongoose began in 1974 when Skip Hess founded BMX Products Inc. in California. Its first product was the Motomag wheel, a one-piece cast alloy wheel that replaced spoked wheels that kept collapsing on landings. Mongoose complete bikes followed and the brand became one of the most recognisable names of the era.
GT Bicycles grew out of frames that Gary Turner welded for his son's racing in the mid 1970s. Turner partnered with Richard Long and GT became a company in 1979. Its frames, with their distinctive triple triangle design, were among the most sought after of the 1980s.
Bob Haro, a young racer and illustrator, began making number plates for racers in the late 1970s. His company, Haro, would become central to the freestyle era that followed. See Bob Haro.
By the end of the 1970s a racer could buy a complete bike designed for the sport from one of a dozen Californian companies. Prices were high and the industry was small, but the department store Sting-Ray had been left behind.
Spreading beyond California: late 1970s to 1981
Through the late 1970s BMX racing spread across the United States and then overseas. The NBL's base in Florida and the ABA's in Arizona meant that national races were held far from California. Tracks opened in most American states.
BMX reached the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, France, Japan and Australia around the end of the decade, carried by magazines, by American servicemen and by the bike industry looking for new markets. Australia took to racing quickly, and its club structure dates from this period. See BMX in Australia.
The International BMX Federation was founded in 1981 to coordinate the national bodies, and it held the first world championships in 1982. Governance of international racing passed to the UCI, the international cycling federation, in 1993, and the sport joined the Olympic programme at Beijing in 2008. See UCI BMX World Championships and Olympic BMX racing.
By 1981 the first era of BMX was over. Racing was established and organised. The next few years would see riders take the bikes off the track and start doing tricks, which became the freestyle boom of the 1980s.
Legacy
The origins of BMX left several permanent marks on the sport.
The 20 inch wheel, inherited from the Sting-Ray, is still the standard for racing and freestyle. The bike's compact geometry, high bars and single gear all trace back to the modified kids' bikes of 1970.
The club and volunteer structure of racing, with motos, age classes and parent-run tracks, was set by the NBL and ABA in the 1970s and has changed little. Racing remains a family sport because that is how it started.
The Californian industry founded in the 1970s still exists. Redline, Mongoose, GT and Haro all survive, under various owners, and Profile Racing has made racing components since the late 1970s.
Most of all, the idea that a child could take a bicycle onto dirt and treat it like a motorcycle created a sport with its own culture, separate from cycling. That separation, between BMX and the rest of the bicycle world, has defined the sport ever since.
Related
Frequently asked questions about Origins of BMX
What does BMX stand for?
BMX stands for bicycle motocross. The X is shorthand for the word cross. The name reflects the sport's origin as a bicycle version of motorcycle motocross racing.
Who invented BMX?
No single person did. It grew out of children copying motocross on their bikes in Southern California around 1970. Scot Breithaupt is often credited as the first to organise races, but accounts differ and several people were doing similar things at the same time.
What was the first BMX bike?
Early riders used the Schwinn Sting-Ray and similar 20 inch wheel bikes with banana seats. The first purpose-built frames came from small Californian companies in the mid 1970s, with Redline's chromoly frames and forks among the earliest.
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