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 came west to Southern California in the 1960s and went to work as a wheelbuilder. Back then that meant lacing and truing spokes by hand, one wheel at a time, for whatever shops would put work in front of you. It was slow, fussy, unglamorous work. 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 put his name over the door — 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. And this was a real shop. Sales floor, repair stand, wheelbuilding bench. It stayed his full-time work for the rest of his life.
The family operation
JMC was a family business from day one. Jim's wife Vera Melton ran the office and the day-to-day while Jim handled the build side. Their son worked the shop too. The factory team and the product line both came out of that one Azusa building — Vera at the front counter, Jim in the back. The brand grew precisely because the family kept it tight. Quality stayed where Jim could put his eyes on it.
The frame side — JMC Racing
By the mid-1970s, Jim Melton Cyclery had become JMC Racing on the frame side. That same wheelbuilder's eye — the one that built true wheels — produced frames that won races at the highest level of the sport. The full brand story sits on the JMC brand page, and the headline numbers are well known. Jim's signature pro, Darrell Young, won the 1982 IBMXF 15 Expert World Championship on a JMC. Jeff Bottema rode JMC. The Darrell Young Design (DYD) frame ended up one of the most copied frame designs of the whole era.
The decision Vera made
When the BMX boom contracted between 1985 and 1988, every small American BMX manufacturer hit the same fork in the road. Keep building frames in the U.S. at the higher cost, or move production overseas and survive. JMC chose to stay home and close rather than become an overseas-built brand. Vera was part of that call. The frame side wound down in the mid-1980s.
But 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 started selling reissue JMC product to collectors — frames, decals, T-shirts. The brand had never really died. It had just gone quiet for a while. The reissue era ran through the 2000s into the early 2010s, with Erick Weinstetter, Jim, and Vera all writing for the JMC blog and fielding 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 citation walks through the Azusa shop, the family business, JMC Racing, and Jim's place 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 never had the magazine-cover saturation of Redline. What it had instead was a small team, a clean engineering instinct, a family-run business that wouldn't cut corners, and one of the most respected pro signatures in the sport in the Darrell Young Design. Riders who raced JMC back in the late 1970s and early 1980s still talk about those bikes the way collectors talk about them today. 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 now. 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, a flat refusal to compromise on quality — is the same path I walked from SE Racing in 1981 through Supercross BMX, Speedline, Torker, and Legend itself. His Azusa shop and my Apple Valley and Stanton operation are different addresses. They're 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
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 · Eric Rupe
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 · 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