A Legend Bike Co. rider history page. Primary record from John Crews' own published biography and a November 2025 Sutter Health patient-story feature on his Parkinson's treatment; cross-checked against Legend Bike Co.'s own AERO Racing Products chapter, period BMX magazine scans, and BMXmuseum.com / FatBMX.com collector coverage of the Redline Mobile BMX Museum's tribute bike built in his name.
John Crews
Redline's Nor-Cal Stylist · 2006 ABA BMX Hall of Fame
At a glance
Born
Early 1960s (a November 2025 profile gives his age as 62; exact birth date not documented in sources checked for this page). Grew up in the Vallejo, California area of Northern California.
Known for
Racing for Redline through the early 1980s · reaching No. 10 in the ABA Pro rankings · a signature stylish cross-up jump the BMX community nicknamed "the Crews" · founding Bicycles Plus, a nationally recognized single-store bike shop · Parkinson's disease advocacy after his own 2003 diagnosis
Teams
Team Speedo · Patterson Racing Products · Redline (best known) · U.S. Boss Racing Products (1993–94, comeback)
Hall of Fame
2006 ABA (American Bicycle Association) BMX Hall of Fame inductee.
John Crews raced BMX the way a lot of the first generation did — a secondhand bike, a local track, and enough natural style that the magazines noticed. He signed his first pro contract at 15, built a career around Redline that peaked at No. 10 in the ABA Pro rankings, and retired at 24 to open a bike shop that outlasted his racing career many times over. What sets his story apart is what came after: a Parkinson's diagnosis at 40, two decades earlier than most people get one, and two more decades spent turning that into a fundraising and advocacy effort that is still going.
A Secondhand Schwinn and the PAL Championships
Crews' introduction to bikes was ordinary enough — his dad brought home a secondhand Schwinn in the early 1970s. By age 12 he was riding that same bike, bent gooseneck, egg-shaped wheels and all, to the local BMX track for his first race: the Police Activities League Championships in Vallejo, California. He took fourth. Only the top three got trophies. He cried about it, came back the following year, and won the same race. That competitive streak carried him through the rest of his amateur career and into a pro contract at 15.
Speedo, Patterson, and Redline
Crews' factory-team history, as listed in the ABA BMX Hall of Fame's own 2009 attendee record, runs Team Speedo, then Patterson Racing Products, then Redline — the brand he is remembered for. He turns up in the Bicycle Motocross Action archive as early as September 1980, in a photo feature admired at the time for his style. He was also part of AERO Racing Products' rider-and-team T-shirt line in the early 1980s — Legend Bike Co.'s own AERO chapter lists him by name: "John 'John Boy' Crews on Redline," alongside Brent Patterson, Harry Leary, and other factory riders of the period who had AERO tees made in their honor without AERO ever sponsoring their racing directly.
At his peak he reached No. 10 in the ABA Pro rankings — a real, but not headline, national standing, the kind that a lot of solid touring pros of the era held rather than the very top of the sport. Community race-result discussion puts him at fifth in AA Pro in one national event in 1982. He is remembered in BMX collector circles less for national plates than for how he rode: a stylish, unmistakable cross-up jump that riders of the era nicknamed "the Crews" — an opposite-forward-foot cross-up that stood out enough to get its own name, according to BMXmuseum.com forum recollection of the period.
He retired from racing at 24. Decades later, BMX historian and collector Rob Lane — known in the community as "Redline Rob" — built a tribute bike in Crews' name, a re-created 1981 Team Redline Proline, as part of his touring Redline Mobile BMX Museum, alongside tribute bikes honoring Stu Thomsen, Greg Hill, Dennis Dain, Greg Grubbs, and Jeff Kosmala.
Bicycles Plus: From a Parents' Loan to a Top 100 Dealer
In December 1989, at 26, Crews opened Bicycles Plus on a loan from his parents. It grew into one of the most successful single-store bike shops in the United States — Bicycle Retailer and Industry News has named it a Top 100 Dealer multiple times. By his own account, the shop's success has always been tied to community giving: donations to Girl Scout, Boy Scout, youth sports, school, and charity programs, and a standing program that refurbishes bikes for kids. It is, by his telling and by others', the kind of business that made him hard to walk through town without being stopped and thanked.
A Late Comeback
Crews came back to racing briefly between January 1993 and September 1994, on U.S. Boss Racing Products, in the Pro Cruiser and Veteran Pro classes. He raced alongside two former Patterson Racing Products teammates doing the same thing: Brian Patterson and Richie Anderson.
2006: ABA BMX Hall of Fame
Crews was inducted into the ABA BMX Hall of Fame in 2006. He was among the returning Hall of Fame members listed as attendees at the ABA's 25th induction ceremony in San Diego in September 2009, credited there as "Factory Speedo, Patterson, Redline."
Diagnosed at 40
In October 2003, at age 40, Crews was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease — roughly two decades earlier than the age most people are diagnosed. In 2005 he teamed up with two of his bike shop customers to launch Ride for a Reason, a charity bike ride built to raise money and awareness for Parkinson's disease and cancer. The first ride drew 525 riders and raised $69,000. By 2007 it had grown to 700 riders and $75,000, with proceeds partly channeled through the Davis Phinney Foundation and the Lance Armstrong Foundation — including a Triumph Fitness Program the Armstrong foundation had seeded with startup money.
2025: Deep Brain Stimulation
By 2025, Crews' Parkinson's symptoms had progressed to where, in his own words, he "couldn't eat in public without flinging food everywhere." In August that year he underwent deep brain stimulation surgery at Sutter Medical Center, Sacramento, performed by neurosurgeon Dr. Rudolph Schrot with neurologist Dr. Steven Nakano and advanced practice clinician Linda Ramatowski. He was the first Sutter patient fitted with a newer rechargeable DBS system called Percept, which reads brain activity linked to Parkinson's symptoms and adjusts stimulation automatically. He stayed awake through the seven-hour procedure so the surgical team could monitor his speech and movement.
The surgery gave him back enough motor control, by his own account in a November 2025 Sutter Health feature, to hold his newborn grandson for the first time without his tremor getting in the way. Now 62 and living in Granite Bay, California, Crews remains active in Parkinson's fundraising and advocacy, and has said he is looking at getting a motorcycle again for an adventure ride to Utah.
Where the public record runs thin
Crews' exact birth date is not documented in any source checked for this page — his age is only known from a single point-in-time reference (62, as of a November 2025 article), which places his birth year around 1963 but does not pin down a date. The exact years of his Team Speedo and Patterson Racing Products stints, and his full national results ledger beyond the No. 10 ABA Pro ranking and a fifth-place 1982 AA Pro finish, are not documented in the sources available. The origin and first documented use of "the Crews" nickname for his signature jump traces to BMX community forum recollection rather than a period magazine citation, and should be read that way.
Where John Crews fits in the bigger story
Riders: Richie Anderson. Brands: Redline, AERO Racing Products. The bigger arc is in our History of BMX series.
Sources
John Crews' own published biography, hosted at onehasbin.wixsite.com/johncrews — primary source for his early racing career, Bicycles Plus, and his Parkinson's diagnosis and Ride for a Reason. Sutter Health "Vitals" patient feature, "Deep Brain Stimulation Restores Life for Parkinson's Patient," November 10, 2025 — primary source for his 2025 DBS surgery and current status. Legend Bike Co.'s own AERO Racing Products chapter, sourced to period AERO ads archived at oldschoolmags.com, for his AERO team T-shirt and Redline association. FatBMX.com, "The Raddest, Rarest Collection of Redline BMX Bikes You Will Ever See! by RadMattic," featuring collector Rob Lane's Redline Mobile BMX Museum and its John Crews tribute bike. FatBMX.com, "ABA BMX Hall of Fame Announces Inductees for Class of 2009" — confirms his Hall of Fame standing and team history as of that ceremony. Edward Koenning's "When Are You Going To Get A Real Bike?" blog, period Bicycle Motocross Action, September 1980, scan. BMXmuseum.com and bmxsociety.com forum discussion of "the Crews" jump and his early-1980s Redline career.