Jim Melton — Founder of Jim Melton Cyclery (JMC)
Jim Melton
Founder of Jim Melton Cyclery (JMC) in Azusa, California, 1969. Wheelbuilder, frame engineer, and Hall of Famer who turned a small bike shop into one of the strongest BMX brands of the late 1970s and early 1980s. USA BMX Hall of Fame, 1989, Industry.
A Legend Bike Co. founder history page. Complementary to the existing JMC brand history on this site — the brand page covers the frames and team; this page covers Jim himself.
Sourced from jmcbmx.wordpress.com (the About JMC page co-written by Jim and Vera), the 2011 Erick Weinstetter interview, the 2014 R.I.P. post, USA BMX Hall of Fame inductee record, BMXmuseum.com, oldschoolmags.com PDF archive, and the FatBMX "Preserving BMX History" series.
From Oklahoma City to Azusa
Jim Melton grew up in Oklahoma City. He moved to Southern California in the 1960s and worked as a wheelbuilder — a trade that, in that era, meant lacing and truing spokes by hand, one wheel at a time, for whatever shops would put work in front of you. By the late 1960s Jim was building the kind of wheels riders asked for by name.
In 1969 he opened his own shop in Azusa, California and called it Jim Melton Cyclery. Azusa sits in the eastern San Gabriel Valley — the same Inland-Empire BMX belt that Kevin McNeal, Eric Rupe, and other foundation riders came up in. The shop was a real shop — sales floor, repair stand, wheelbuilding bench — and it was Jim's full-time work for the rest of his life.
The family operation
JMC was a family business from the start. Jim's wife Vera Melton ran the office and the day-to-day, alongside Jim on the build side. Their son worked the shop. The JMC factory team and the JMC product line both came out of the same Azusa building, with Vera at the front counter and Jim in the back. The brand grew because the family operation kept it tight — quality stayed where Jim could see it.
The frame side — JMC Racing
By the mid-1970s Jim Melton Cyclery had become JMC Racing on the frame side. Jim's engineering instinct — the same wheelbuilder's eye that built true wheels — produced frames that won races at the highest level of the sport. The full brand history sits on the JMC brand page; the headline numbers are well known. JMC's signature pro Darrell Young won the 1985 IBMXF World Championship on a JMC. Jeff Bottema rode JMC. The Darrell Young Design (DYD) frame became one of the most copied frame designs of the era.
The decision Vera made
When the BMX boom contracted between 1985 and 1988, every small American BMX manufacturer faced the same decision: keep making frames in the U.S. at the higher cost, or move production to Taiwan and survive. JMC chose to stay in the U.S. and close rather than become a Taiwan-built brand. Vera was part of that decision. The frame side wound down in the mid-1980s.
Jim kept the shop open. From the late 1980s through the early 2000s, Jim Melton Cyclery in Azusa stayed in business as a working bike shop — Jim still at the bench, still building wheels.
2001 — the second act
In 2001 Jim and Vera launched the JMC online presence at jmcbmx.com (later jmcbmx.wordpress.com) and began selling reissue JMC product to the collector market — frames, decals, T-shirts. The brand had never really died; it had just been quiet. The reissue era ran through the 2000s into the early 2010s, with Erick Weinstetter, Jim, and Vera all writing for the JMC blog and answering collector questions.
2011 — Vera passes
Vera Melton died in May 2011. The jmcbmx.wordpress.com archive carries her in-memoriam post.
July 2014 — Jim passes
Jim Melton died in July 2014 at his home in Azusa. The JMC online community wrote it up the day it happened. He was in his eighties.
1989 — USA BMX Hall of Fame
The American Bicycle Association — now USA BMX — inducted Jim Melton into the National BMX Hall of Fame in 1989, in the Industry category. The HOF citation walks through the Azusa shop, the family business, JMC Racing, and Jim's role as one of the foundation frame builders of the BMX boom.
What Jim Melton actually built
JMC was never the biggest BMX brand. It didn't outsell Mongoose. It didn't have the magazine-cover saturation of Redline. What it had was a small team, a clean engineering instinct, a family-run business that didn't cut corners, and one of the most-respected pro signatures in the sport (Darrell Young Design). Riders who raced JMC in the late 1970s and early 1980s still talk about the bikes the same way collectors today talk about them: they were the ones the engineers' kids wanted, the ones the wheelbuilders trusted, the ones that didn't break.
The brand survives in collectors' hands and in the reissue product Jim and Vera built out of the Azusa shop in their last decade. Carla Jansan now runs the commerce side at jmcbmx.com. The Azusa building — the one Jim opened in 1969 — is gone, but the wheels he built are still spinning.
Sources
USA BMX Hall of Fame — Jim Melton (1989, Industry) at usabmx.com/about/hall-of-fame/1100. jmcbmx.wordpress.com — the About JMC page (co-written by Jim and Vera), the 2010 early-professionalism post, the 2011 Erick Weinstetter interview, the May 2011 Vera in memoriam, the March 2012 reunion announcement in Jim's own words, the July 2014 R.I.P. post. jmcbmx.com — the current commerce site. Wikipedia — JMC Bicycles. bmxmuseum.com/bikes/jmc_racing/ — brand reference and bike galleries. FatBMX — "Preserving BMX History: JMC Specialist Jon Western (GBR)" interview. oldschoolmags.com PDF archive — period magazine coverage of JMC Racing across 1977-1985. Cross-reference to the existing JMC brand history on this site.
Jim Melton and Legend Bike Co.
Jim Melton isn't a Legend Bike Co. co-founder, but the path he walked — small-shop wheelbuilder turned brand owner, family operation, U.S.-built insistence, refusal to compromise on quality — is the same path Bill Ryan walked from SE Racing in 1981 through Supercross BMX, Speedline, Torker, and Legend itself. The Azusa shop and the Apple Valley/Stanton operation are different addresses, but they are the same kind of business.
Related pages
Core: History of BMX · JMC brand history (the brand he founded) · Darrell Young (JMC signature pro) · Jeff Bottema (JMC team rider)
Peer founders: Scot Breithaupt · Skip Hess · Linn Kastan · Bob Osborn · Ernie Alexander · Bob Haro · Vance Patterson · Turnell Henry · Chris Moeller · Gary Cook · Jeff Utterback · Mike Devitt · Craig Kundig · Ralph Mundia · Bob Hadley
Riders: Eddie Fiola · Greg Hill · Mike Miranda · Perry Kramer · Pete Loncarevich · R.L. Osborn · Stu Thomsen · Todd Anderson · Tommy Brackens · Denny Davidow · Clint Miller · Damian Fulton · Billy Griggs · Darwin Griffin · Brian Bogi Givens · Todd Steen · Martin Aparijo · Matt Hadan · Eddy King · Byron Friday · Frank Post · Kevin McNeal · Brian Hernandez · Dave Clinton · Brent Patterson · Brian Patterson · Eric Rupe · Robby Rupe · Mike King · Bobby Encinas · Cheri Elliott · Kyle Fleming · Charlie Litsky · Tinker Juarez · Richie Anderson · Ronnie Anderson · Jeff Kosmala · Scott Clark · Gary Ellis · Anthony Sewell · Dennis Dain · Thom Lund · Cindy Davis · Jeff Ruminer · Travis Chipres · Cecil Johns · John Crews · John George
Brands: CW Racing · Diamond Back · Centurion Cycles · GT · Haro · Hoffman Bikes · Hutch · Mongoose · Redline · Schwinn · Skyway · S&M Bikes · Torker · SE Racing · Webco · TW BMX · CRD · 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 · Patterson Racing · Cook Brothers Racing · Speedo BMX · Nomura BMX