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Bottema Forks: The Bullet Fork That Set the Standard for BMX Tubular Forks

We're telling this story neutrally. No brand gets elevated, no rider gets shorted. Where the historical record is thin or sources disagree, we say so.

Bottema Forks is a component brand, not a complete-bike brand, and its story sits on a single product line: the Bullet Fork. That is a narrow contribution by the standards of Redline, GT, or SE, and a deep one inside it. From 1979 forward, if you wanted a tubular unicrown fork that would hold up to racing and to skatepark riding, the Bottema was the one to beat.

Who Jeff Bottema Was

Jeffery "Battling" Bottema was born April 14, 1960, in Norwalk, California. He started racing in 1974 at age 14 and moved through Two Wheeler's BMX, Webco, and D.G. Performance Specialist. His prime competitive years ran from 1976 to 1981. He joined the Raleigh factory team in 1979 alongside Toby Henderson, and in 1980 he and Henderson became two of the first Americans invited to Europe to promote BMX racing. He retired at the end of 1983 and moved to Nashville to take a job with Murray of Ohio as Race Team coordinator. He is a 1990 inductee to the ABA BMX Hall of Fame. Jeff Bottema passed away on September 19, 2025, at age 65.

Why the Fork Existed

Bottema started making forks for the reason most BMX component brands start: he kept breaking the ones he was racing on. He prototyped what became the M-1 Bullet with Toby Henderson. The first widely produced tubular unicrown fork in BMX had come from Redline Engineering in 1974 and set the template the industry built around for the next five years. By 1979 the field had gotten faster and the original geometry was due for a counterpoint. The Bullet was that counterpoint.

1979: The M-1 Bullet Fork

The original M-1 Bullet Fork released in 1979. The specs that mattered: .065-inch wall chromoly (thicker than the tubular forks it competed with), extra-long fork legs running roughly an inch below the dropouts for the unmistakable profile, a straight-leg design with legs parallel to the head tube rather than raked forward, and a one-inch axle lead built into the dropouts.

The trade Bottema made on paper was weight for strength. Bicycle Motocross Action's February 1982 fork test showed the weight stayed competitive with the lighter tubular forks while the walls ran thicker. Skatepark riders bought it for the durability.

The fork found its freestyle audience as quickly as its race audience. Skatepark bowl riders like Jeff Watson and Eddie Fiola ran the M-1 because the dropouts and thicker walls held up to landings that would taco a lighter fork. Fiola listed Bottema among his early sponsors in the 1981–82 window, alongside SE Racing, Haro, and Premier Helmets.

The C-1 Cruiser and the M-2 Race Fork

Bottema added a C-1 cruiser fork in 1979 for the growing 26-inch cruiser racing class. In early 1981 he released the M-2 racing model, with thinner tubing than the M-1 and the axle line moved further down the legs.

Counterfeits and Distribution Problems

Bottema was on tour racing through much of the period when demand for the forks was peaking, and he could not always fill orders. In his own telling, he came back from tour to find that shops and at least one distributor and manufacturer had filled open orders themselves — by making knockoffs. Counterfeit Bottema forks were already in circulation by the mid-1980s.

The 2020 Revival Through American BMX Company

The Bottema name went quiet on the production side for most of the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s. That changed in October 2020, when American BMX Company — which had acquired Race Inc. three months earlier and would acquire Cook Bros. Racing two months later — signed a long-term licensing agreement with Jeff Bottema.

The current production fork is built by Tange in 100% 4130 chromoly, with a 1-1/8-inch threadless steerer, oversize 1-1/8-inch legs, 4mm laser-cut dropouts that fit both 10mm and 20mm axles, and wheel-size options from 20 inches through 24, 26, and 29 inches.

Where Bottema Sits in BMX History

The Bullet Fork sits in a small group of single-component products that defined a piece of BMX equipment for a decade or more — Redline's original tube fork, the GT Pro Series cranks, Tioga's Comp III tire, the Hutch Bear Trap pedal, and the Bottema Bullet. The fork outlived its maker's racing career, outlived the original company's active production, and came back four decades later with the same silhouette.

Sources

• Wikipedia, "Jeff Bottema."
• BMXmuseum.com, "Bottema Forks" brand gallery.
• BMXmuseum.com Reference, "Jeff 'Battling' Bottema."
• Bicycle Motocross Action, Bottema fork test, February 1982 Vol.7 No.2 pg.80.
• bmxultra.com, "Bottema BMX Fork Review" and "Product Spotlight: Bottema Fork."
• Bicycle Retailer and Industry News, "Race Inc.'s new owner plans to bring back the Bottema fork" (October 5, 2020).
• American BMX Company, "Bottema Fork" product page.
• BMXmuseum.com Forums, multiple Bottema authentication and history threads, 2008–2025.