Ernie Alexander
Founder of the National Bicycle Association (NBA), the first national BMX sanctioning body. USA BMX Hall of Fame, 1996, Industry.
A Legend Bike Co. founder history page. Sourced from the USA BMX Hall of Fame entry, the BMX Society 2014 Lifetime Achievement thread, Wikipedia's National Bicycle Association article (densely cited to period BMX magazines), oldschoolmags.com PDF archive, 23mag.com, and the universityofbmx.com history archive.
From Indian Dunes to the first BMX sanction
Ernie Alexander promoted motorcycle races in Southern California. He ran the motorcycle motocross program at Indian Dunes, that big MX facility north of Los Angeles where half the motorcycle films and TV shows of the 1970s got shot. And he noticed the same thing Scot Breithaupt had noticed down in Long Beach. Kids on modified Sting-Rays, racing each other in dirt lots. No rulebook. No sanction. Nothing tying it together across the country. So he decided to build the thing that would.
November 1, 1973 — the NBA is founded
On November 1, 1973, Alexander made it official and formed the National Bicycle Association, the first national sanctioning body BMX ever had. He didn't invent the framework from nothing. He borrowed it straight from the American Motorcycle Association's motocross setup he already knew cold: districts, national numbers, points, an annual ranking. That became the template. Every other BMX sanction that came after copied it.
Late 1974 — the first BMX pro class
In late 1974 the NBA stood up the first BMX professional class, which made BMX one of the earliest action sports to actually pay its best riders. The magazines back that up. Bicycle Motocross News, October 1974, documents the early "14 and over experts" division that grew into the formal Pro class.
March 30, 1975 — the first NBA nationals
The first NBA nationals ran March 30, 1975 in Phoenix, Arizona. David Clinton took the first NBA No. 1 Amateur title for the 1975 season. The first No. 1 Pro came a year later, in 1976, and it was Scot Breithaupt — the same Scot who'd been running BUMS in Long Beach since 1970, now racing for the very sanction his backyard races had inspired.
1979 — the rename
In 1979 the NBA renamed itself the National Bicycle Motocross Association (NBmxA), mostly to stop getting confused with the National Basketball Association. By then the cracks were already showing. Mismanagement. Bad sponsor deals. And a very public feud with Skip Hess of BMX Products over the 1979 Mongoose Grand National. All of it chipped away at the organization.
January 1981 — Alexander resigns; 1981 Grands is the NBA's last
Alexander stepped down as president in January 1981. The 1981 Grandnationals in Long Beach turned out to be the last race the NBA ran on its own. Its membership got absorbed by the NBL not long after.
1996 — USA BMX Hall of Fame
The American Bicycle Association — the same sanction Bernie Anderson bought in 1985 (per Rebel Racing), the one we now call USA BMX — put Alexander in its Hall of Fame in 1996, Industry category. The citation walks the whole arc. Indian Dunes. The 1973 founding. The first national in Phoenix. The pro class. The rename to NBmxA. And the one line that matters most: Alexander is the man who took BMX from a regional kid thing and turned it into a national sanctioned sport.
2014 — BMX Society Lifetime Achievement
In 2014 the BMX Society community handed Alexander its Lifetime Achievement Award. The presentation thread on bmxsociety.com retraces the same story: Indian Dunes promoter, 1973 NBA founder, the first Pro class, those early national races.
The NBA's true legacy
The NBA didn't outlast the man who built it. But the structure did. Districts, national plates, an annual #1 ranking, a Grand National — that's the template every sanction since has run on. The ABA grabbed it in 1977. The NBL reshaped it for the East Coast. USA BMX still runs on it today, more than 50 years later. Every racer who pins a national number plate to a bike is racing inside a system that traces straight back to Ernie Alexander, standing at Indian Dunes in 1973.
What we don't know
Alexander's date of birth, place of birth, and the rest of his life outside BMX are thin in the public record. The Saddleback 1975 pro race the HOF entry credits as the first NBA professional event is disputed by Thom Lund, who in his own 2003 FatBMX interview said he doesn't even remember winning it. This page lays out the HOF claim and the dispute side by side, and doesn't try to settle it.
Sources
USA BMX Hall of Fame — Ernie Alexander (1996, Industry) at usabmx.com/about/hall-of-fame/1329 and the older directory URL at usabmx.com/site/postings/140. BMX Society community forum — "Ernie Alexander 2014 BMX's Life Time Achievement Recipient" thread. Wikipedia — National Bicycle Association article, densely cited to period BMX magazines including BMX Action September 1979, January 1981, July 1981, March 1982, Bicycle Motocross News October 1974 / March 1975 / November 1976, BMX Plus! May 1981, Super BMX January/March/April 1982, Super BMX & Freestyle January 1986. oldschoolmags.com PDF archive of those issues. 23mag.com BMX Action indexes.
Ernie Alexander and Legend Bike Co.
Alexander isn't a Legend Bike Co. co-founder. But here's the thing — every BMX racer documented on this site, every single one, holds or held a number plate from a sanction whose template Alexander built. The NBA is the upstream source for the ABA, the NBL, and USA BMX. The first NBA National No. 1 Amateur was David Clinton in 1975. The first NBA National No. 1 Pro was Scot Breithaupt in 1976. Pull Alexander's 1973 work out of the timeline and those titles never exist to be won, and the careers that grew out of them — Stu Thomsen, Greg Hill, Eddy King, Perry Kramer, Pete Loncarevich, all of them — land on a completely different path.
Related pages
Core: History of BMX · NBA (the sanction Alexander founded) · ABA · NBL · USA BMX · IBMXF · BUMS
Peer founders + builders: Scot Breithaupt · Skip Hess · Linn Kastan · Bob Osborn · Bob Haro · Jim Melton
First NBA generation: Dave Clinton (first No. 1 Amateur 1975) · Scot Breithaupt (first No. 1 Pro 1976) · Stu Thomsen (No. 1 Pro 1977 + 1978) · John George (No. 1 1976) · Byron Friday · Thom Lund
Riders: Eddie Fiola · Greg Hill · Mike Miranda · Perry Kramer · Pete Loncarevich · R.L. Osborn · Todd Anderson · Tommy Brackens · Denny Davidow · Clint Miller · Jeff Bottema · Damian Fulton · Billy Griggs · Darwin Griffin · Brian Bogi Givens · Todd Steen · Martin Aparijo · Matt Hadan · Eddy King · Frank Post · Kevin McNeal · Brian Hernandez · Eric Rupe
Brands: CW Racing · Diamond Back · Centurion Cycles · GT · Haro · Hoffman Bikes · Hutch · JMC · Mongoose · Redline · Schwinn · Skyway · S&M Bikes · Torker · SE Racing · Webco · TW BMX · California Racing Designs · Bottema Forks · Hustler Bikes · Voris Dixon Bikes · Hyper Bikes · Hi-Tech BMX · Panda Racing Products · Robinson Racing · Free Agent · White Bear · Rebel Racing · Titan BMX · Brian Scura / BS Bikeworks · LRV · S&S Performance · Bassett Bikes