Jon Agnew
The heat press, the van, and the Southern California maker circle
A Legend Bike Co. rider page · primary source: Bill Ryan
At a glance
Name Jon Agnew (also seen spelled John Agnew)
Era 1980s into the early 1990s
Scene North Orange County, California — Cypress, La Palma, Anaheim
Home shop Power Plus Cycles, the shop Bill Ryan opened with partners after La Palma Cycle Center closed
Known for Printing jerseys and T-shirts on the shop heat press with Bill Ryan and Billy Griggs; riding with the early Supercross BMX travel crew
Family connection His father built the interior of the Supercross BMX team van and rebuilt its gearing
Race record Not established in any public source we can find
The heat press in the back of the shop
Bill Ryan: Billy Griggs, Jon Agnew and I used that heat press to make T-shirts, Jerseys, it was always making something special.
That one sentence is the center of this chapter. The press lived at Power Plus Cycles, the bike shop I opened with partners about two weeks after La Palma Cycle Center shut its doors. My memory puts that at 1986, though I will be honest that the year has never been nailed down on paper. We bought the press for one reason: to print jerseys for TECH BMX, the brand I started at fifteen out of my bedroom at 6912 Tahiti Drive in Cypress in 1984.
A press like that does not stay on task. Once it was in the building it became the most interesting thing in the shop. Jon was part of the group that kept it warm.
Riders who were also makers
People forget how much of 1980s BMX was homemade. If you wanted a jersey with your name on it, somebody in your circle had to make it. There was no ordering a one-off online. So the shop back room turned into a small factory, and the same kids who raced on Saturday were cutting vinyl and lining up transfers on Thursday night.
Jon Agnew sat in that group. He was around the shop, around the press, around the parts bins. That is a different kind of BMX résumé than a stack of national number plates, and it is the kind that almost never gets written down, which is exactly why we are writing it down.
The Mystery Machine
When the early Supercross BMX crew started traveling, it traveled in a 1970 Ford Econoline bought for two hundred dollars from a moving company. We called it the Mystery Machine. It could not break 45 miles an hour when we got it.
Jon Agnew's dad built the cabinets and the sleeping quarters in the back of that van, and later swapped in a set of rear gears out of a Lincoln Town Car, which gave the thing a top end it had no business having. Billy Griggs painted it Supercross Blue in his parents' driveway because a spray booth was not in the budget. Jon rode in it on tour with Ryan Vanderveen, Richie Carrero and the rest of the crew, with sixty dollars of gas money between them.
That is the texture of the scene. A rider's father in a garage with a set of gears and a sheet of plywood was as much a part of a BMX program as any sponsor.
A voice on the first frame
When the first Supercross frame was being worked out, the riders around the shop were asked what they wanted. Jon Agnew was one of the names in that conversation. Griggs gave the most technically useful feedback of the group, but the input came from the whole circle, and Jon was in it.
Where the public record runs thin
We will not pretend to know more than we do.
We cannot confirm Jon Agnew's date of birth, his hometown beyond the general north Orange County area, or when he started racing. We have found no verified race results for him under any sanction, no national or state number, no class or age group, and no finish in an ABA or NBL national that we can attach to him with confidence. We have found no magazine feature, interview, ad or team announcement naming him. We cannot confirm any bike sponsor or team he rode for, and we are not going to guess at one.
The name also appears both as Jon and as John. We do not know which he used himself. There are other people named Jon Agnew and John Agnew in public records who have nothing to do with BMX, and we have deliberately not pulled any of that in. Nothing on this page comes from a source that is not about this scene.
What we can say is narrow and solid: he was part of the Power Plus Cycles circle in Cypress, he printed shirts and jerseys on that press alongside Bill Ryan and Billy Griggs, his family put real work into the Supercross team van, he rode along on those early trips, and he had a say when the first frame was being designed.
If you raced with him, worked at the shop, or have a photo, a moto sheet or a jersey with his name on it, we want to hear from you. This page is meant to grow.
Where Jon Agnew fits in the bigger story
Riders: Billy Griggs shared the press and the driveway paint job with him, and Bill Ryan is the primary source for everything here. The wider Southern California field he came up around included Tommy Brackens, Kevin Hull, Turnell Henry, Richard Bartlett and, later and from the other coast, Brian Foster. Brands: the press existed to print TECH BMX jerseys, the shop was Power Plus Cycles, and the frame program became Supercross BMX; the era around it also belongs to Redline, Haro, Boss Racing and S&M Bikes. Sanctions: the racing he would have seen in that stretch of California ran under the ABA and the NBL. The bigger arc is in our History of BMX series.
Sources
1. Bill Ryan, first-person testimony recorded September 2026. Covers the Power Plus Cycles heat press, the TECH BMX jersey printing, the 6912 Tahiti Drive origin of TECH BMX in 1984, and the timing of Power Plus opening after La Palma Cycle Center closed.
2. History of Supercross BMX, supercrossbmx.com/pages/supercross-bmx-history. Source for the 1970 Ford Econoline team van, the cabinets and sleeping quarters built by Jon Agnew's father, the Lincoln Town Car gear swap, the Supercross Blue paint by Billy Griggs, the travel crew roster, and rider input on the first frame design.
3. Billy Griggs, Wikipedia. Used only to place Griggs in the same Anaheim-area scene and era.
4. BMXmuseum.com and its forums, searched for Jon Agnew and John Agnew. No rider profile, bike check or results listing found.
5. General web searches against BMX Plus!, BMX Action, Super BMX, Snap and Ride BMX coverage. No article or mention found.
Notes on uncertainty. The 1986 opening date for Power Plus Cycles is Bill Ryan's recollection and has not been confirmed against a business filing, a lease or a dated photograph, so treat it as approximate. The spelling of Jon versus John is unsettled. No racing record, sponsor or team affiliation for Jon Agnew has been verified, and none is claimed here. Everything on this page that is not directly attributable to source 1 or source 2 has been left off rather than filled in.