Addicks Engineering

A Legend Bike Co. BMX history chapter · researched from period magazine ads and industry records

Addicks never built a bike. It built one part - a plastic chainring - and spent three years in the pages of BMX Action arguing with itself about how to make it right. The company was Lyle Addicks' operation, and the chainring's three-phase redesign is a small, honest record of a parts maker admitting a mistake and fixing it in public, ad by ad.

What Addicks Engineering actually was

Addicks Engineering was a BMX parts manufacturer founded by Lyle Addicks in 1976. Period advertising in BMX Action lists the company's address as both Los Angeles and Pomona, California across ads run in the same era - not uncommon for a small manufacturer whose shop and mailing address didn't always match what went to print. The company's signature product was a chainring - what period ads and the surrounding coverage more often called a sprocket - built by injection-molding a material Addicks called Millardium, described as a blend of DuPont Zytel nylon with Teflon and silicone for strength without the weight of steel.

The chainring - and the redesign nobody could hide

Addicks chainrings shipped in sizes from 39 to 48 teeth, in red, blue, yellow, white, and graphite. The design went through three documented phases:

• Phase I - the original "swiss cheese" sprocket, cut through with cutouts, molded from the Zytel/Teflon/silicone blend. Strong and tough, and the version BMX Action covered in its New Products section in December 1976.
• Phase II - the compound changed, and the new rings started breaking. A step backward that period ads don't dwell on, but the fact that a Phase III existed at all confirms it happened.
• Phase III - released in 1978, moving back to the original Zytel/Teflon/silicone formula with what the ads describe as additional tweaks. The Phase III campaign ran under the line "We've Changed!" - about as direct an admission as a 1970s parts ad ever gave.

The advertising record

Addicks bought space in BMX Action and BMX Plus! steadily across four years, which is how most of what's known about the company survives today. BMX Action ran a New Products review of the Phase I sprocket in December 1976, then a longer feature titled "Super Sprocket" in February 1977. Phase I ads ran from February through December 1977. The Phase III "We've Changed!" campaign ran from April through June 1978, followed by an ad headlined "Stu Uses Addicks" from August through December 1978 - period advertising built around a well-known pro of the moment using the product, consistent with Stu Thomsen's prominence in BMX print at exactly that time, though the ad itself is a component endorsement rather than a factory team sponsorship, and Thomsen's own documented sponsor list for the period runs through other brands. Addicks parts also turned up in a Southern California dealer's "Hot Trick Stuff!" ad (Everything Bicycles, October to December 1978) and in BMX Action's 1978 BMX Equipment Buyer's Guide. A "Smoother, Quieter, Longer" campaign ran January through August 1979, and a distributor listing from Alan F. Cohan Distributors carried the Phase III sprocket as late as October 1979 - the last dated appearance found in the record for this page.

Riders and the shop

Beyond the print ads, Addicks is remembered as a company that put parts in the hands of young Southern California racers directly. Andy Patterson, racing out of Norwalk, California, is documented as receiving equipment and race-cost support from Addicks around 1978, early in his amateur career before he moved on to other sponsors. Community accounts also connect Addicks and Lyle Addicks personally to a bike shop in the Pomona area in the same period, though the shop's exact name, dates, and relationship to the manufacturing side of the business are not independently confirmed here.

What we don't know

• The exact address history of the company - Los Angeles, Pomona, and later business-directory listings in Bell Gardens and Buena Park are not reconciled into a single confirmed timeline.
• Whether the Addicks Engineering that shows up in later business directories is the same company, a successor, or an unrelated business sharing the name.
• Full details on the reported Lyle Addicks bike shop - name, dates, and how it connected to the parts manufacturing business.
• What happened to Addicks Engineering's BMX line after its last documented 1979 ad appearance.
• Whether "Stu Uses Addicks" reflected a formal sponsorship or a one-off product endorsement - not resolved here.

Related Legend Bike Co. chapters

The History of BMX (1970–1995) · Stu Thomsen

Sources

oldschool-bmx-parts.blogspot.com, "Addicks Chainring" - a dated timeline reproducing period BMX Action and BMX Plus! ads and New Products coverage from December 1976 through October 1979, including the Phase I/II/III redesign history, Millardium material description, tooth-count and color range, and the Los Angeles/Pomona address listings. Grokipedia, "Andy Patterson" - Addicks Engineering as an early-1978 amateur sponsor providing equipment and race-cost support. Facebook, NBA x BMX Society community group - period reference to a Lyle Addicks-connected bike shop in the Pomona area, 1976, noted here as a community recollection rather than a confirmed business record. bmxsociety.com forum threads ("Addicks problem," "Addicks cranks - original blue candy") were checked for additional detail; they confirm component identification among collectors but add no biographical or company facts beyond what's cited above. oldschoolmags.com was checked directly for period Addicks coverage beyond what's captured in the sources above; no additional material was found through available search access.

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