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1st bike was a Huffy Cheater Slick - Until 1971 and movie On Any Sunday changed my life!

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Alva

'Lil Knee Scuffer
I remember my first bike was a green Huffy Cheater Slick. I was about 6 yrs old and I got it for Christmas. It had no training wheels and I had to find someone to hold me up so they could push me to take off. Sometimes when no one was around I’d push the bike until I found a curb or a tree stump or log or something to stand on to give myself a push start.

I rode that bike everywhere! Later I stripped it down and removed the fenders and chain guard. I would put baseball cards in the spokes with clothespins in them and ride like I was on a motorcycle. Lord only knows how many collectible cards I ruined in those spokes, HAHAHA.

Then the 1971 movie On Any Sunday came to the local theater in my hometown in So Cal. History was made on that first 2-4 mins of the movie. I remember it well as it was yesterday (50 yrs later) Lives were changed for all us kids. This is what started BMX and the rest is history! Off went the banana seat and was replaced by a ten speed bike seat. This made it easier to hop on and off your bike. I put a set of knobbies on front and back. I found an old pair of motorcycle handlebars. I had to open up the bike stem (Gooseneck is what we called them back then) and then I hammer it as much as I could to close the gooseneck over the Motorcycle bars. But not until I slipped in some metal homemade shims to hold the bars in place and tightened the heck out of it. At that age I never new welding existed. I then saved enough money to buy a motorcycle number plate and numbers and I was set. My friends and I would race and jump in the dirt lots. We would choose names of the great motorcross riders at that time and imagine we were them; Malcolm Smith, Brad Lackey, Roger DeCoster, Marty Tripes and other big racers back then. You could hear us from a block away making noises like a motorcycle -WAAAHHHH!

All this work I did myself at 9 yrs old. I even stripped it completely to bare frame and repainted it metal flake burgundy (why burgundy? I have no clue) and put all the parts back on. Being poor, we were our own mechanics.

This was also about the time when most guys were motocrossing their bikes as this is what we called the modifications we did to our bikes. The words/abbreviation BMX were unknown to us. We just wanted to emulate the look of a motocross motorcycle. Most bikes were either homemade motocrossed styled Schwinns Stingrays or any other similar styled frame. Then came 1974-1975 and in came the Matthews Monoshock, Dan Gurney Eagles and even Yamaha built a tank of a BMX. I could never afford any of them. I raced my Huffy in the 1st ever BMX race in my home town. Brings back great and wonderful memories.

Just a walk down Memory Lane :)

Here is my pic of my bike before it was stripped to BMX style. The other is what it should of look like when I first got it.

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