JMC Racing — The Story of Jim Melton Cyclery (1969 to 1985)

A BMXRacingHistory.com chapter · hosted on Legend Bike Co

JMC Racing

The Story of Jim Melton Cyclery — 1969 to 1985

We're telling this story the same way we told the SE Racing chapter and the History of BMX: neutrally. No brand gets elevated. No rider gets shorted. Where the record is contested, we say so.

The name, first

Before anything else, the three letters. JMC stands for Jim Melton Cyclery. Not a person's three initials. Jim Melton opened a bike shop out of his home in 1969, named it after himself, and that name carried through every frame the company ever built. You will still see JMC referred to here and there as if those letters belonged to a different founder. They do not. Jim Melton was J. Melton Cyclery was MC. That is the whole story of the name.

It matters because Jim's own son helped design the logo, and the brand was always a family-run operation. Jim ran it. His wife Vera ran it with him. When Vera's health declined in 1985, the company closed.

Where it started

JMC began in 1969 as a one-person bike shop in Jim Melton's home. He restored old bikes and sold parts. Mostly road equipment, mostly to a local Southern California clientele. By 1974 the shop had moved into a storefront in Azusa, California, and the name on the door was JM Cyclery. Wheelbuilding was the specialty.

The same year, JMC started getting involved in BMX. Not building bikes yet — selling the parts a kid needed to make a regular bicycle look like a motocross motorcycle. Fenders. Fake gas tanks. Number plates. Grips.

The bike shop team, 1975

By 1975 Jim had a race team. John Begin talked him into organizing one and was the first rider on the roster. The early team included Harry Leary, Ronnie West, Don Malone, Lisa Webb, Dennis Foster, Steve West, Clint Miller, Adam Cox, Greg Frechette, and David Wilson. They raced on whatever was available — Webco, FMF, Pedals Ready GT, and Race Inc frames — while JMC sold a contract-built frame under its own name called the JM Special, built by Race Inc.

That is a detail worth pausing on. Race Inc was the same contract builder that produced the early PK Ripper for SE Racing. In the late 1970s, Southern California had a small group of contract frame builders who were quietly producing equipment for half a dozen brand names. JMC, SE, and others were all customers.

The first JMC prototypes, 1976

In 1976, Jim Melton sat down with Larry Barker, George Erhart, Harry Leary, and Dennis Foster and designed the first frames that would carry the JMC name directly. The JMC XP1 was a short frame built for Ronnie West. The XP2 was a longer frame built for Harry Leary. Six or more prototypes were made between the short and long versions.

Production of the JMC Standard frames started in March 1977. David Wilson got the first production Short Standard — serial number JMC1, dated April 6, 1977. Clint Miller got the first production Long Standard — JMC20, dated June 15, 1977. Jim kept serial number records all the way through 1985, which is why so much of JMC's product timeline can be cited to the day instead of the year.

The Tear Drop fork, 1978

In 1978 JMC introduced its own fork — the Tear Drop. The legs were ovalized with a teardrop cross-section, oriented to put the wide face on the leading edge. The look quickly became one of the visual signatures of a JMC build.

1979 — the shop closes, the factory stays

By 1979 the BMX side of the business had grown past what a retail bike shop could support. Jim sold the storefront and ran JMC as a frame and fork manufacturer only from that point forward. The factory in Azusa was the entire company.

Sales were already strong enough that JMC was on the same shortlist of serious U.S. BMX manufacturers as Redline, SE, Mongoose, and Torker.

The 1980 product wave

1980 was the year JMC stepped from one product line to five.

The JMC Mini launched February 7, 1980. The JMC Black Shadow launched March 25, 1980 — designed for Kim Jarboe. The first ones were painted black, which is where the name came from. The first chrome Black Shadow came in November 1980.

The JMC 3.1 XL launched May 16, 1980 (serial JMC2457). Same geometry as the Short Standard, but with smaller-diameter and thinner-wall tubing. The frame weighed 3.1 pounds. The naming contest with Bicycle Harbor of Arizona produced the winning entry: Matt Raymer of Oklahoma sent in "3.1 XL," for the weight and "Xtra Light." That name stuck.

1981 — ABA #2 and Darrell Young's red Shadow

By 1981 the team was hitting full stride. JMC's factory program included Harry Leary, Clint Miller, Tinker Juarez, Darrell Young, Andy Patterson, Solan Foster, Gary DeBacker, Melanie Cline, Carl Butler, Sam Arellano, Danny Farmer, and Jason Wharton. The 1981 ABA factory team standings put JMC at #2 in the country. JMC held #2 for three straight years. Jason Wharton won the 1981 ABA Amateur #1 title on a JMC.

In July 1981 Jim built the first red JMC Shadow for Darrell Young — serial K6097.

1982 — the Pit Bike, the Cruiser, and a World Championship

JMC's 1982 introductions covered the smallest and the biggest frames the brand had ever built. The 16-inch Pit Bike dropped January 14 (only 110 were ever made). The first 24-inch JMC Cruiser arrived in April. The JR Mini — named for Justin Roos — came September 15.

And in the summer of 1982, Darrell Young won the 15 Expert IBMXF World Championship on a JMC, plus the 15-25 Cruiser Jag World Championship and the 16 Expert Northwest Gold Cup. The IBMXF World #1 number plate sat on the front of a JMC for 1982 — the high-water mark of the brand's racing program.

The Darrell Young Design, October 1983

On October 24, 1983, JMC introduced the Darrell Young Design — a frame, fork, and handlebar set built around Young's own input on geometry and tubing. The first two frames in the run, DYXP 1 and DYXP 2, were both red. Young was named one of BMX Action's "Terrible Ten" in 1983. He turned pro in June 1984 at age 18 and won his first pro race. He rode JMC as a pro through July 1985.

The Andy Patterson Series, August 1984

JMC's other signature pro series came on August 2, 1984: the Andy Patterson Series. 278 frames were built in 1984 and another 55-plus in 1985 — 333 total over the two model years. The same April, JMC released the Micro Mini — even smaller than the JR Mini. Only 85 Micro Minis were built.

Harry Leary

Harry Leary was the rider most associated with JMC across the brand's full run. He invented the "Leary" — the kick-out trick that everyone else came to call a lookback. The cover of BMX Action, July 1984, made it permanent. Leary was inducted into the BMX Hall of Fame in 1986, as part of the second class of inductees ever named. He passed away on September 7, 2024, at age 65.

Tinker Juarez

Tinker Juarez raced for JMC in the early 1980s before mountain bike racing pulled him in for the rest of his career — two U.S. Olympic MTB teams (1996, 2000) and a Mountain Bike Hall of Fame induction.

Frames and forks only

Through the entire run, JMC sold frames and forks. Not complete bikes. Customers brought their own parts. Each frame went out the door with a buyer name and a date in Jim's records. That kind of record-keeping is rare in BMX. It is the reason JMC's history can be cited to the day four decades after the company closed.

The end — July 1985

JMC closed in July 1985. Two reasons. Vera Melton's declining health — Jim made the call to be home with her instead of staying at the factory. And the market: Taiwan-built BMX frames were arriving at prices a small Azusa factory could not match. Jim was unwilling to move production overseas and unwilling to lower his build quality. He chose to close the doors instead of dilute the name.

The closure was part of the broader BMX crash of 1986 to 1988. Torker had gone bankrupt in November 1984. SE Racing went under during the same stretch. JMC simply stopped — quietly, on Jim's terms.

The Hall of Fame and the long tail

In November 1989, Jim Melton was inducted into the ABA BMX Hall of Fame. In 2001, JMC was awarded the Roost Nora Cup for Number One Bike at the Mid-West ABA Nationals in Rockford, Illinois — sixteen years after the company had stopped manufacturing. Jim showed up. Jim Melton died in late July 2014. Vera had passed before him.

Azusa Cycle ran a small reissue batch of JMC frames in the early 2000s with Jim's blessing — chrome Shadows, mainly — but it was a limited run.

Where JMC stands today

Originals trade on bmxmuseum.com and eBay. A clean chrome Black Shadow, a red Darrell Young Design, or an Andy Patterson Series with matching numbers is one of the more collected pieces of old-school BMX.

JMC was not the biggest BMX brand of its era. It did not outlast the crash. What it did was run a clean factory in Azusa for eleven years, build the right frames for the right riders, win an IBMXF World Championship, finish ABA #2 three years in a row, and close on the founder's terms when the time came. The frames that left the shop in those eleven years are still being ridden and restored. That is the brand.

Related Legend Bike Co. chapters

Sources

Wikipedia: JMC Bicycles, Darrell Young, Harry Leary, Tinker Juarez. JMC Racing — Jim Melton Cyclery BMX History (jmcbmx.wordpress.com), including the "About JMC" history written by Jim Melton and the JMC Racing Production Breakdown. BMXmuseum.com — JMC Racing brand pages and forum threads on the JMC 3.1 XL, JMC Mini, JMC Black Shadow, JMC Tear Drop forks, and Darrell Young and Andy Patterson signature frames. jmcbmx.com. SplendidBMX.com brand profile "About JMC" (October 2025). USA BMX news release "The Sport of BMX loses a Legend: HARRY LEARY" (September 10, 2024). Magazine evaluations of the Darrell Young Design in Bicycles and Dirt March 1984 and Super BMX April 1984. FatBMX interview series "Preserving BMX History #29: JMC specialist Jon Western." oldschoolmags.com archived PDF scans.