I'm an 80's kid and like a lot of those kids I spent a lot of time on my bike. I was turning into a porky kid and spending more time in the saddle brought me back from the brink and I was in pretty good shape there in my teens heading into my young adult life. I slacked off in my thirties and as I head back into the gym and an attempt at reentering an active life I remember fondly all my exploits on my Japanese import weird brand bike.
I'm told Kabuki was the stateside name they sold Bridgestone bikes under, at least BMX bikes. The welds were hideous, but they held. By the time I "put away childish things" I had replaced every part but the frame and fork. My love of blue was as evident then as it is now with my WR blue BRZ.
While I was in the Corps I bought an Auburn CR20. I dug the two piece frame for no reason design and the purple was sexy. (not mine, I never took pictures of mine)
It was the only thing I shipped when I PCSed to Japan and I rode the hell out of it. I replaced the wheels with my old standby, Z rims. By then ACS had moved away from those, but I contacted them and scores some NOS stuff they still had laying around. All they had was black. I sold it eventually and that was very dumb.
When the bug finally got me and I started looking at getting back on a bike I tried a "grown up bike;" I bought me a nice Specialized fixie with a flip flop hub.
Yeah, that's just not me. I tried really hard to adjust to a road bike, but after a while I started to try to ride the way I used to. I took a tight corner like I had knobbies and some sidewall to work with. Result, split my head open and broke my finger on the brake lever. Perhaps "break" lever would be a better spelling. There is now a chip in that knuckle and that finger is never going to be right again. After all the crazy shit I did as a kid that was really irritating to jack myself up trying such a pedestrian move.
Yeah, screw that noise. I did find a guy who was looking for a bike just like that and really seemed to be a guy who appreciated the bike so it was win-win when I sold it. I like that he's enjoying it because I never did and it wasn't the bike's fault.
Alright. Call it a mid-life crisis, call it getting back to my roots, hell, call it just a plain accident waiting to happen, but I wanted my 20 inch back! Now, I actually still have my Kabuki as well as an old Mongoose I picked up at a yardsale back in the day for like $20, but those are "vintage" now with irreplaceable parts and I am bigger and heavier and would likely snap those in half so I need a new bike.
Back then there were such an explosion of color in parts and so many companies trying new and innovative things. Nowadays bikes are so dark, dull and boring a lot like the kids that ride them. They look EMO. I hate that shit. Many of the companies I knew are gone now and the ones that are still around or have sprung up are boring and repetitive. Profile has the big box of crayons still for a lot of their parts which is great, but great Pistol Pete's Ghost, the prices!
SE came back and started making throwback looptail Rippers and Quads, albeit made in China.
The PK Ripper was my dream bike when I was a kid. I wanted to get one, but an original one would be too rare to beat on like I want to. I met SE in the middle and gave the Chi-Com Ripper a try. I wanted a baby blue one, but settled on a metalwrap dipped coating.
The wrap is not my favorite, but it's still kind of cool looking.
Bottle opener under the seat, too.
After riding it and listening to the spoked wheels creak under my 200+ pounds I looked up another old standby and Skyway still makes those mags. I scored a pink set for S&Gs, but went with a black set to use. I still am not fon'd of the dark colors, but they look right on the bike.
So far I just tool around the neighborhood from time to time. I am a lazy shit and I'm struggling to break out of this rut. Right now my focus is going to the gym regularly and I've been sticking with it. I would like to get to a place where I ride a lot again, even if it's just a half hour a day. I think I can get some of my cardiovascular back and feel better to where I want and can ride a lot. It's a work in progress.
MOTIVATIONAL VIDEO!
[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hA2poNIKdY"]old men bmx - YouTube[/ame]