A BMXRacingHistory.com chapter · hosted on Legend Bike Co

Bassett Bikes

Mike Redman's First BMX Company — a one-year run in 1985

By Bill Ryan · Founder of Supercross BMX · 37+ years in BMX · Started at SE Racing, 1981

One calendar year. That's the whole Bassett chapter under Mike Redman, and it's still where one of the biggest careers in modern BMX got off the gate. Early 1985, Mike licensed the Bassett family name from Doug Bassett, put a real factory team on the track for a few months in the spring and into the early summer, then closed the doors the day the insurance bill landed. From there he went straight to MRC, then Redman Bikes, then Grand Prix BMX in Lake Perris. It all starts here.

Before Mike Redman: the original Bassett

Bassett wasn't born a BMX company at all. It started in the late 1970s as a side line hanging off the Bassett family's Southern California metal shop and boat-headers business. The story they tell on bmxmuseum.com, pulled from period accounts, is that the original Bassett wanted a bike to ride around the pits at the boat races, so the shop just built him one. The first frame, a 26-inch Star Cruiser, shipped in 1978 to 1979. After that the line opened up: a 20-inch Turbo that later got renamed the Pro, a 20-inch Swooper, and a 24-inch mini cruiser.

Through the early 1980s this was a Bassett family operation, plain and simple. Doug Bassett, one of the brothers, was the one who carried the brand into the BMX side of the boat-headers shop, and he's the one who licensed the family name to Mike Redman in 1985. The family hung onto the name. Mike took the brand into the factory-team era for a single season.

The original Bassett also showed up in the early test-bike press. There's a 1982 Super BMX Bassett product test with Denny Davidow as the test rider — squarely the original-family era — and that's the same Denny who would end his pro career three years later on Mike Redman's version of the same brand. We get into that 1982 test over in the Rebel Racing chapter.

1985: Mike Redman licenses the Bassett name from Doug Bassett

By the early 1980s Mike Redman was already somebody in Southern California BMX — a racer people knew by sight at the tracks, with a head full of plans. Early 1985 he made his first move as an owner and licensed the Bassett family name from Doug Bassett. First BMX company he ever ran. And 1985 was the only year he ran it.

Under Mike it was small and direct. He owned the brand, raced the brand, and built a factory team out of the riders he already had relationships with from racing. The plan wasn't complicated, because it was the same plan every little American BMX brand was running in 1985: build frames the team races, get the brand into the magazines on the team's results, sell what that demand creates.

The factory team

The Bassett factory team under Mike Redman in 1985 was four riders, per Bill Ryan's first-hand recollection of the period:

• Denny Davidow rode for Bassett during the Redman year. It was Denny's last pro sponsor before he stepped away from racing for good. His full career, including the corrected sponsor chain that ends on Mike Redman's Bassett, lives on his own page on this site.
• Shawn Texas was on Bassett from early April 1985 through early July 1985, per his Wikipedia career-sponsor entry, which leans on period BMX press. After Bassett his career ran Bassett → CW Racing → National Pro → White Bear — the White Bear signature T-Bone frame and fork set landing May 1988 to March 1989. He'd already taken the 1984 7-UP World Championship Unlimited Pro title before the Bassett ride. The 1986 NBL Pro Cruiser Murray World Cup and the 1987 NBL Pro Cruiser Grandnational came after.
• Dave Cullinan rode the Bassett team in the Redman year. From Bassett he went to Factory Kuwahara, and from there into mountain biking, eventually taking the 1992 UCI Mountain Bike Downhill World Championship. Bassett is the first factory-team chapter in a career that crossed the BMX-to-MTB bridge as clean as anybody ever has.
• Mike Redman himself, riding for his own brand — the working-owner setup he carried into every BMX company he ran after.

The insurance bill that ended the chapter

Bassett under Mike Redman ran the one calendar year of 1985, start to finish, and most of what you can actually see of the factory team is packed into the spring and the early summer. Why it ended is the same reason a whole lot of small, owner-run American BMX brands ended in this era: the liability insurance bill came due, and the company couldn't carry it.

Bill Ryan knew Mike through this stretch, and he's never softened it. Mike couldn't cover the insurance, and that was the end of it. The Wikipedia entry on Shawn Texas, sourced to period BMX magazine coverage, lines up with that almost to the week — Texas's Bassett sponsorship ends early July 1985, and he's listed as “unsponsored for almost the entire summer of 1985 after Bassett went out of business.” Two accounts that never compared notes, one answer.

And be clear about the scale of what folded here. This wasn't a Redline or a GT in 1985. It was a small Southern California race-team brand — a working owner, a handful of factory riders, and an insurance exposure that didn't match the money on hand. When the renewal came in, the math just didn't work. Rather than over-extend and bury himself, Mike wound it down.

From Bassett straight into MRC

Mike didn't sit out long. By early 1986 he had MRC — Mike Redman Concepts — up and running as company number two. The first public mark MRC left on the sport is right there in the record: MRC was the title sponsor of the YMCA BMX Pro Series, four straight Wednesday-night pro races at the Orange YMCA BMX track in Orange, California, across February and March 1986. And Shawn Texas — same rider who'd been on Bassett the spring before — won the series.

MRC cracked open everything Mike Redman became known for over the next four decades. The Redman Factory program that grew out of it put riders like Pete Loncarevich, Eric Carter, and John Whipperman through its ranks. The 2001 Redman/Yamaha WaveRunner team, co-run with his longtime friend Richard Huvard, took back-to-back ABA World Champion and National Number-One Factory team titles. Redman Bikes followed as his third frame company. He ran Grand Prix BMX in Lake Perris, California. He called the gate cadence on what became the default starter audio at BMX tracks all over the world. He went into the BMX Hall of Fame in 2023. Mike Redman passed away in June 2023.

None of that happens without the Bassett year. That's where Mike first sat in the owner's chair, first ran a factory team, first put his name on a frame deal, first ate an insurance bill he couldn't pay. Every one of those lessons came forward into MRC and into everything after it.

What Bassett under Redman left behind

The frame production out of the Redman year isn't big, and survivors are scarce the way short-run, owner-operator BMX frames from that period always are. The legacy here is in the people, not the units shipped.

For Denny Davidow, Bassett under Mike Redman was the last factory ride of a pro career that ran back through Skyway and Delta Racing Products to the late 1970s. For Shawn Texas, Bassett kicked off the chain that ran through CW Racing, National Pro, and the 1989 White Bear T-Bone signature frame and fork set. For Dave Cullinan, Bassett was the first factory chapter of a career that crossed the BMX-to-mountain-bike bridge and finished with a UCI World Championship rainbow jersey. And for Mike Redman, Bassett was the founding chapter of a forty-year run as an owner, team manager, frame builder, track operator, trainer, and the single most recognizable voice standing over a BMX starting gate.

Open questions

For honesty's sake, here's what we still haven't been able to pin down on Bassett under Mike Redman:

• The exact licensing-deal terms and date in early 1985 between Mike Redman and Doug Bassett.
• The full team roster beyond the four named riders (Davidow, Texas, Cullinan, Redman). If the team carried additional regional or amateur racers, those names have not surfaced in the public record.
• The exact final date of the Bassett wind-down in summer 1985 and the formal MRC stand-up date in late 1985 or early 1986.
• Period magazine ad scans from the Redman year — Bassett ads in BMX Action, BMX Plus!, and Super BMX from spring 1985 would close a lot of the open questions on the model line and team at once.

If you raced for Bassett in 1985, worked for Mike Redman in the Bassett year, or have a spring 1985 Bassett ad sitting in a magazine in a box somewhere, we'd like to hear from you.

Sources

Bill Ryan, founder of Supercross BMX, primary source on the Mike Redman Bassett year — the 1985 licensing of the family name from Doug Bassett, the one-year run, the liability-insurance wind-down, and the four-rider factory team (Davidow, Texas, Cullinan, Redman). Wikipedia, "Shawn Texas" (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shawn_Texas), career-sponsor section sourced from period BMX press including BMX Plus! October 1986 Vol.9 No.10 and BMX Action coverage of the era — confirms the Bassett April-July 1985 window, the post-Bassett summer 1985 unsponsored gap, the CW Racing chapter, and the May 1988 to March 1989 White Bear signature run. Same Wikipedia entry on the YMCA Pro Series: "The YMCA BMX Pro Series Championship was a private four race pro series held at the Orange YMCA BMX race track in Orange, California on four consecutive Wednesdays in February and March 1986. It was sponsored by MRC, Mike Redman Concepts." Source for the YMCA Series item: BMX Plus! June 1986 Vol.9 No.6 pg.11. BMXmuseum.com brand page for Bassett Racing (bmxmuseum.com/bikes/bassett_racing) — period frame examples and model-line names: 26-inch Star Cruiser 1978-1979, 20-inch Turbo / Pro, 20-inch Swooper, 24-inch mini. BMXmuseum.com forum threads on Bassett Racing history and team riders — period accounts of the Bassett family's metal-shop and boat-headers business and the Star Cruiser launch. BMX News, "Remembering Mike Redman" by Mike Carruth, June 23, 2023 (bmxnews.com/2023/06/23/remembering-mike-redman) — primary obituary text including the Richard Huvard tribute message, MRC and Redman Bikes career arc, Grand Prix BMX, the BMX-track gate-cadence audio. USA BMX Mike Redman tribute photo set. Wikipedia, "Dave Cullinan" (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Cullinan) — BMX-to-MTB career arc, Factory Kuwahara BMX ride, 1992 UCI MTB Downhill World Championship; the Bassett line per Bill Ryan's recollection. Cross-references on this site: Denny Davidow for the full Davidow career and the Bassett final-ride detail. White Bear for the Shawn Texas signature T-Bone frame and the post-Bassett Texas timeline. Rebel Racing for the 1982 Super BMX Bassett product test reference from the original-owner era. Hi-Tech BMX for the Pro Neck / National Pro design lineage that intersects Shawn Texas's post-CW chapter.

About this page. See also: The History of BMX, SE Racing, Denny Davidow, White Bear, Rebel Racing, Robinson Racing, LRV, CW Racing, DiamondBack, Centurion Cycles, GT, Haro, Hoffman Bikes, Hutch, JMC, Mongoose, Redline, Schwinn, Skyway, S&M Bikes, Torker, Webco, TW BMX, California Racing Designs, Bottema Forks, Hustler, Voris Dixon Bikes, Hyper Bikes, Hi-Tech BMX, Panda Racing Products, Free Agent, Titan BMX, Brian Scura / BS Bikeworks, S&S Performance, Eddy King. Sanctions: BUMS, NBA, NBL, ABA, IBMXF, USA BMX. Riders: Scot Breithaupt, Eddie Fiola, Greg Hill, Mike Miranda, Perry Kramer, Pete Loncarevich, R.L. Osborn, Stu Thomsen, Todd Anderson, Tommy Brackens, Clint Miller, Jeff Bottema, Damian Fulton, Billy Griggs, Darwin Griffin, Brian "Bogi" Givens, Todd Steen, Martin Aparijo, Matt Hadan, Eddy King.

→ Related chapter: Denny Davidow — whose final pro ride was the Bassett year