John "Snaggletooth" Palfryman

The Rider Osborn's Book Ranked With David Clinton as "The Fastest of Their Time, Bar None"

A Legend Bike Co. rider page · primary source: Bob Osborn, The Complete Book of BMX (Harper & Row / Wizard Publications, 1984), pp. 10-11, 13 · supplemented by the Santa Monica Mirror's 2012 BMX Hall of Fame coverage

At a glance

Full name John Palfreyman Jr., raced as "Snaggletooth" (the name also appears spelled Palfryman in some sources, including this page's handle)
Hometown Santa Monica, California — son of champion American sidecar racer John Palfreyman Sr.
Career BMX racing, roughly six years through the mid-1970s, then professional motorcycle sidehack racing
Teams Rick's Bike Shop (team captain) · early Red Line test rider · Mongoose test rider
Known for Ranked with David Clinton as BMX's fastest racer of 1975; photo in Red Line's first ad and BMX Action's debut issue; later a top motorcycle sidehack racer; 2012 BMX Hall of Fame inductee

Some riders get remembered for one race. Palfryman gets remembered for being fast before there was much of a sport to be fast in, for showing up in the two most important first issues in early BMX history, and then for leaving it all behind to go race motorcycles instead — and being good enough at that, too, to make a second career out of it.

Grown Up Inside a Motorcycle Shop

Palfryman's father, John Palfreyman Sr., was a champion American sidecar racer who ran Motorcycles Unlimited on 10th and Pico in Santa Monica — a shop known, among other things, for servicing Steve McQueen's motorcycles. Palfryman grew up inside that world, and he and the local Santa Monica kids started shaping their bicycles to act like the motorcycles he'd grown up around: racing them down dirt hills, jumping, popping tricks in the air. That instinct — bicycles imitating motocross — is the same one Osborn's book credits as BMX's origin story more broadly, and Palfryman was one of the kids living it firsthand.

The Fastest of Their Time

Osborn's book calls Palfryman "the gnarliest of the original racers" and ranks him with David Clinton as the fastest racers of their era, bar none, at the Yarnell track in early 1975. He rode for and captained the Rick's Bike Shop team, which at various points included Thom Lund, David Clinton, and Marvin Church — all covered elsewhere in this library. In 1976 he won the Yamaha Gold Cup regional in San Francisco, a result he's described coming from tenth place to win on the last jump of the final straightaway.

The Photo in Two First Issues

Osborn's book credits a Palfryman photo, shot at Yarnell, with running in Red Line's first-ever print ad and inside the debut issue of BMX Action in December 1976 — while he was still one of the earliest test riders working with Red Line founder Linn Kastan. Legend's own BMX Action chapter identifies a different rider, Brian Lewis, as the subject of that debut issue's cover, shot at the Corona downhill. So if Osborn's account is right, Palfryman's photo ran somewhere inside that first issue, not on the front of it. Palfryman also worked as a test rider for Mongoose.

From BMX to Sidehack

After about six years of BMX racing, Palfryman left the sport to chase professional motorcycle sidehack racing — motorcycle-and-sidecar competition — because, in his own words, he wanted to be better than his father. Osborn's book credits him and racing partner Thom Lund with becoming a top-three world-ranked sidehack team. A separate account, from Palfryman's 2012 BMX Hall of Fame coverage, describes a "legendary pairing" with a different partner, Doug Takahashi, as one of the sport's unbeatable sidehack duos, and calls Palfryman a U.S. National Champion. Both partners are named in sources this library trusts — Osborn names Lund, the Hall of Fame coverage names Takahashi — and we haven't found a way to reconcile which pairing came first, or whether both are accurate at different points in his sidehack career. Flagging it rather than picking one.

Where the public record runs thin

Palfryman's birth date and year are not documented in the sources checked for this page. A full sidehack racing results ledger hasn't turned up. Whether Thom Lund or Doug Takahashi — or both, at different points — was his primary sidehack partner is not resolved here; the two sources this library trusts for his story name different partners.

Where Palfryman fits in the bigger story

Riders: David Clinton, Marvin Church, Brian Lewis. Brands: Redline. Press: BMX Action Magazine. The bigger arc is in our History of BMX series.

Sources

Bob Osborn, The Complete Book of BMX (Harper & Row, Publishers / Wizard Publications, Inc., 1984), pp. 10-11, 13 — the 1975 speed ranking with David Clinton, the Red Line first-ad and BMX Action first-issue photo credit, and the Thom Lund sidehack partnership. Santa Monica Mirror, "BMX Bad Boy 'Snaggletooth' Inducted Into Hall of Fame" (July 19, 2012) — family background, the Rick's Bike Shop team roster, the 1976 Yamaha Gold Cup win, and the Doug Takahashi sidehack pairing. Legend Bike Co.'s own BMX Action and Redline chapters, cross-checked for the first-issue cover detail.