BMX Racing History · Chapter 6 · Legend Bike Co

GT Bicycles: The Biggest Brand BMX Ever Built

Every BMX brand story starts small. GT's starts smaller than most — one dad, one garage, one kid who needed a frame that wouldn't fold. It ends, for a while, with roughly half the BMX bikes sold in America carrying a GT family nameplate. No brand in the history of the sport ever got bigger. This is how it was built, and what happened to it.

The Welder and the Kid

Gary Turner was a drag racer. He spent the 1960s welding chromoly dragster chassis, which means he understood thin-wall steel tubing better than almost anyone who would ever build a BMX frame. In the early 1970s — his son Craig puts it at 1971, at a dirt field near Holifield Park in Norwalk — Gary watched the neighborhood kids jumping their heavy department-store bikes and decided Craig deserved better. He cut up race-car chassis tubing in his garage in Orange and welded a 4130 chromoly frame. The decals on those first frames read "Gary Turner BMX."

Other kids wanted one. Then bike shops did. By 1976 Turner was building frames for Pedals Ready, the pro shop at the Western Sports-A-Rama track, and the Pedals Ready/GT "Ames Replica" ran as an ad in the very first issue of BMX Action in December 1976. Turner-built frames sold under other names for three years while the man himself stayed a manufacturer without a brand.

Richard Long

Richard Long owned Anaheim Cycles and ran the Azusa BMX track — the track that hosted the ABA's first national in February 1978. He noticed Turner's frames sold as fast as he could stock them, and he called the welder directly. In 1979 the two incorporated GT Bicycles — Turner's initials on the headtube, Turner running engineering and production, Long running the business. The first GT frames were built in Sam and Anita Shockley's garage in Santa Ana, and that garage was the first address printed in GT's ads, before production grew into a dedicated frame shop in the same city. Long was the salesman, the planner, and by every account the relentless engine of the company's growth for the next seventeen years.

The first GT ads appeared in BMX Action in early 1980, and complete GT Pro bikes followed. Through the early 80s the race line grew into the Pro Series, the Mach One, and the Interceptor — bikes that put GT on tracks everywhere, under everyone from novices to national pros.

The Performer and the Freestyle Gold Rush

In 1983 GT signed two freestylers coming off Kuwahara contracts: Eddie Fiola and Bob Morales. The bike that came out of that partnership, the 1984 Pro Performer, carried GT's own advertising credit: "Designed by professional freestylers, Eddie Fiola and Bob Morales." Its bent down tube cleared the front brake cable for full bar spins, and at launch the only other purpose-built freestyle bike on the market was the Haro Freestyler. The Performer became one of the best-selling freestyle bikes of the decade and the bike under thousands of kids in driveways across America.

Fiola rode for GT through August 1987, fronting the GT World Tour. Martin Aparijo, Josh White, and later Dave Voelker and a young Dave Mirra all carried GT freestyle through the late 80s and early 90s.

Buying the Neighborhood

GT didn't just grow — it acquired. Dyno, founded by Bob Morales in 1982, came into the family mid-decade. Robinson, the race brand Chuck Robinson had built, joined in 1986 after GT had already been manufacturing Robinson frames; Chuck stayed on for a stretch after the sale. Auburn, started in 1988 by Todd Huffman and Bob Morales, was acquired in 1989. Powerlite, founded in 1977 by Steve Rink — the same Steve Rink who helped build the first Torker prototype — came aboard in 1989. Add the Riteway distribution arm, acquired in 1987, and GT controlled its own pipeline from factory to shop floor.

By 1995, GT's Todd Hoffman told Ride BMX UK the company held roughly fifty percent of the American BMX market across GT, Dyno, Robinson, Auburn, and Powerlite. Nobody before or since has matched that.

The Olympics, and the Worst Week

In 1993 the company went through a management-led buyout and Gary Turner stepped back from day-to-day management. In October 1995 GT went public on NASDAQ. In 1996 it built the carbon "Superbike" for the US Olympic track team — Project '96 — and aluminum Speed Series race frames were bringing mountain bike technology back into BMX.

Then, on July 12, 1996, Richard Long was killed in a motorcycle accident on his way to the NORBA national at Big Bear. He was 46 years old. One week later his Superbikes rolled onto the Olympic velodrome in Atlanta and won two silver medals. The company he built never really replaced him.

After Long

In 1998 Questor Partners, the owner of Schwinn, bought GT. In June 2001 the combined Schwinn/GT filed for bankruptcy, and that September Pacific Cycle bought the brands out of bankruptcy court for $86 million. Dorel Industries bought Pacific Cycle in 2004, and in 2021 Pon Holdings bought the whole bike portfolio for $810 million. Through all of it the GT name kept racing — its modern BMX program carried riders all the way to the Olympic podium, including Kye Whyte's silver medal for Great Britain in Tokyo.

In December 2024 GT announced a pause: no new product releases, staff reductions, inventory sold down through 2025. The BMX race team was released the same month — which is how Kye Whyte came to sign with Supercross BMX in January 2025. As of mid-2026 the brand remains paused, and Pon has said the name is not for sale.

Gary Turner, meanwhile, is back where he started: building frames with his son Craig under the Gary Turner name. The welder outlasted the empire.

Timeline

• 1971–72 Gary Turner welds his first chromoly BMX frames in his garage in Orange for son Craig.
• 1976 Pedals Ready/GT "Ames Replica" ad runs in the first issue of BMX Action, December 1976.
• 1979 Turner and Richard Long incorporate GT Bicycles. First frames built in the Shockley garage, Santa Ana.
• 1980 First GT ads in BMX Action; GT Pro completes reach shops.
• 1983 Eddie Fiola and Bob Morales sign with GT.
• 1984 Pro Performer launches — "Designed by professional freestylers, Eddie Fiola and Bob Morales."
• 1985–89 GT acquires Dyno, Robinson, Riteway, Auburn, and Powerlite.
• 1993 Management buyout; Gary Turner steps back.
• 1995 IPO on NASDAQ. GT claims ~50% of the US BMX market.
• 1996 Richard Long dies July 12, en route to Big Bear. The GT Superbike wins two Olympic silver medals a week later.
• 1998 Questor Partners (Schwinn) acquires GT.
• 2001 Schwinn/GT bankruptcy; Pacific Cycle buys the brands for $86M.
• 2004 Dorel Industries acquires Pacific Cycle.
• 2021 Pon Holdings acquires the portfolio for $810M.
• 2024 GT pauses new products in December; BMX race team released.