Hyper Bikes

Two Brands, One Name — From a Teenager's Garage to Walmart's Bike Aisle, 1983 to Today

A BMXRacingHistory.com chapter · hosted on Legend Bike Co

Same deal as the rest of these. I'm not here to sell you on anybody. I tell you what happened, I tell you who did what, and where the old-timers still argue about a date or a detail, I'll say so plainly instead of picking a winner. Read the origin piece and the SE Racing chapter the same way.

Two companies. One name. Zero connection.

Here's the thing that trips everybody up. There are two Hypers in BMX history, and they have nothing to do with each other. Not the same owner. Not the same town. Not the same product. Same name on the down tube, and that is the whole of it. So before any of this makes sense, you've got to know which Hyper somebody's talking about.

The first one was a little California brand from the mid-'80s, designed and run by a kid named Billy Farrell. Two years, give or take. A handful of frames. Some ads in the magazines. Then Billy was killed in a car accident in 1985 and that was the end of it.

The second Hyper — the one you can still buy today — is Hyper Bicycles, Inc. Started in 1990 over in Malaga, New Jersey by a former BMX pro named Clay Goldsmid and his partner Erick Weinstetter. Still going. Still Goldsmid's. It's the company behind the Hyper bikes at Walmart and the Pro Shop catalog over on hyperbicycles.com.

The original Hyper — Billy Farrell, 1983 to 1985

The first Hyper came out of California in the early '80s. This was the peak. BMX was everywhere, money was flowing, and a teenager with a welder, a sketch pad, and a parent willing to drive him to the print shop could actually start a frame company. People forget that part. For a few years there, you really could.

Billy Farrell drew up the Hyper frame and ran the whole thing while he was still in high school. He introduced HYPER BMX to the world at The International Bicycle Show, around 1982 — his father shot the photographs for Billy's booth (correspondence between Bill Farrell Sr. and Bill Ryan, 2020–2021, on file with Legend Bike Co). His father — also named Bill, and a professional graphic designer — designed the original Hyper logo and the print ads that ran in the magazines (Bill Ryan, firsthand, 2026, correcting earlier accounts that credited him only as the ads' photographer). Farrell Sr. also told Bill Ryan he designed the IBM logo during his agency years. The design-history record formally credits IBM's logo to Paul Rand, so Farrell's hand was likely in the agency-side work around the mark rather than the sole credit — but we give you his account as he told it. The catalog stayed small. Frames, forks, the handful of parts a little builder slaps his name on. Greg Grubbs raced for Hyper from the middle of 1984 through the end of '85, and he's the team rider whose name comes up most in whatever sources survived.

Then it ended the way nothing ever should. Billy Farrell was killed in a car accident in the fall of 1985, sophomore year of college. The company folded right after.

Billy and Bill Ryan — same shop, same years

There's a detail that didn't come to light until decades later, through correspondence between Bill Ryan and Billy's father. Billy built his Hyper frame at Voris Dixon's shop in 1982/83 — the same shop, the same stretch of time, where a 15-year-old Bill Ryan was building the frame that became Hi-Tech BMX.

Bill Ryan, writing to Billy's father years later: "I must of barely missed Billy at Voris's shop." Two teenage builders, working the same stretch of floor at the same shop at the same time, each walking out with a frame that became a brand. Neither one knew about the other back then. Ryan has said since that he believes he and Billy would have been friends — that Hyper had the same kind of passion and vision behind it that he was chasing himself with Hi-Tech (correspondence between Bill Farrell Sr. and Bill Ryan, 2020–2021, on file with Legend Bike Co).

Hyper Bicycles, Inc. — Malaga, New Jersey, 1990

Five years after the first Hyper closed its doors, a brand-new BMX company picked up the same name clear across the country. Hyper Bicycles, Inc., founded in 1990 in Malaga, New Jersey, by former BMX pro Clay Goldsmid and his partner Erick Weinstetter. They came out swinging with high-end racing frames and components.

And how the second Hyper ended up with the name — that's one of those little mysteries nobody's ever cleared up. No license on record. No sale. No handoff from the Farrell family that anybody can point to. Best read of it, looking at what's left, is that the name was just sitting there free by 1990 and somebody took it. If there was ever a real connection, nobody wrote it down. What we do know: the modern Hyper is a separate company that revived the name, not a continuation of Billy Farrell's original outfit under new management.

1993 — Eric Carter, the Metro frame, and a national title

Hyper's first real swing on the race side was signing Eric Carter. By the time they grabbed him in 1993, he was already up front with the fast guys. No surprise pick.

That year Carter won the 1993 NBL National No. 1 Pro plate on a stock Hyper Metro frame. A stock one. Think about a company that's three years old beating the established race programs to the top NBL plate of the season. That's the kind of thing that builds you a catalog overnight.

That same season they brought on Brian Foster, plus Darrin Waterbury and Robbie Morales.

The 2000s — freestyle, Mike Spinner, and a wider catalog

By the 2000s Hyper had pushed the line out past straight race. Freestyle frames, complete bikes, the works. The big freestyle name in the late 2000s was Mike Spinner, who had a Hyper Pro Model bike in the catalog through about 2010 or 2011.

Then in January 2013 they signed Scotty Cranmer, an X Games BMX Park gold medalist out of New Jersey, and the two of them worked up a signature frame together. Ryan Williams — the Aussie everybody knows from Nitro Circus, on a bike and a scooter both — has ridden for Hyper in the years since too.

The pivot to mass market

The thing that defines Hyper now — more than any one frame, more than any one rider — is the move into the mass market. Hyper became one of the bike brands you find at Walmart, and it still is. Adult and kids' BMX. The Jet Fuel line in 20-, 26-, and 29-inch. Mountain bikes, kids' bikes, electric bikes, scooters, hoverboards. The lot. That's simply where the modern, separately-owned Hyper focused its business — a mass-market bike brand, same as it's been since Goldsmid built it that way.

And here's what people miss — the Pro Shop side didn't disappear when they did it. Hyper still runs a separate Pro Shop catalog over on hyperbicycles.com: BMX racing frames, freestyle frames, mountain bikes, apparel. Both things, at once.

Electric, mountain, and the broader bike business

All through the 2010s and into the 2020s the catalog just kept getting wider. They rolled out mountain bikes with Eric Carter running product development, added electric bikes and electric scooters, and pushed into hoverboards through the related Hyper Toys brand. Long way from a teenager's frame in a garage.

Where Hyper fits

Hyper sits in a small group. Mongoose and Diamondback went mass-market earlier, and bigger. Redline, GT, Hutch, Haro — they stayed specialty, or that's how people remember them anyway.

Hyper started later than most of them (1990). It came up out of the New Jersey side of BMX instead of the Southern California side, which already makes it the odd one out. Won a national title in its third year. Then turned around and made the call to walk the brand straight into Walmart, and stay.

Billy Farrell's memory

Billy Farrell has passed away. He's remembered every year at The Dalton School in Manhattan, where the Billy Farrell Award has been presented in his name — its thirty-fifth presentation came in 2021, and the school's Dean has called it "part of the fabric of the school" (correspondence between Bill Farrell Sr. and Bill Ryan, 2020–2021, on file with Legend Bike Co).

The last of the original HYPER frames stayed with the family. Billy's brother James kept two of them: the frame Billy raced, and a smaller HYPER that Billy built for James when James was ten. Billy's father later sent Bill Ryan six of the original HYPER decals — the same artwork that once went on the down tube of the frame Billy built at Voris Dixon's shop (correspondence between Bill Farrell Sr. and Bill Ryan, 2020–2021, on file with Legend Bike Co).

Farrell Sr. stayed a working artist into his late eighties, still drawing — the same eye that shaped Billy's original Hyper graphics.

Sources

Hyper Bicycles official site (hyperbicycles.com). BMXmuseum.com — Hyper Bike Company gallery and forum threads including "1984 HYPER" and "What can you tell me about a HYPER BMX," which document the original Billy Farrell-era Hyper. Wikipedia: Eric Carter (BMX rider), Brian Foster, Scotty Cranmer, Ryan Williams. Pinkbike, ESPN, SugarCayne, FATBMX for Cranmer signing coverage. Walmart.com — Hyper Bicycles brand pages. Billy Farrell's father's role as the original Hyper's graphic designer — including the Hyper logo and print ads — per Bill Ryan, firsthand, 2026. Farrell Sr.'s account that he also designed the IBM logo during his agency years comes from the same source; the design-history record formally credits IBM's logo to Paul Rand. The International Bicycle Show debut, the Voris Dixon shop connection between Billy Farrell and Bill Ryan, and the details of Billy Farrell's memory — correspondence between Bill Farrell Sr. and Bill Ryan, 2020–2021, on file with Legend Bike Co.