Neal Enterprises — The Jive Handles Company

A Legend Bike Co. history · sourced, not invented

Some companies build the bike. Some build the parts everybody bolted onto the bike. Neal Enterprises was the second kind. One man, one shop in Torrance, and a run of products that ended up on thousands of bikes at thousands of tracks. The grips most people remember — the Jive Handles — weren't even the start of it. They came later. The start was a number plate.

Where it started — the number plate, not the grip

Here's the part people get backwards. Neal Enterprises is famous for grips. But the grips came second. The first thing Ken Neal made was a number plate — the Proto-Plate — and he started making it in late 1979 or early 1980. Injection-molded, flat plate, the kind of thing that bolted to the front of a race bike and carried your number around the track.

This was right at the front edge of organized BMX racing in America. Tracks were filling up. Every kid on the gate needed a plate. Ken Neal made them. Plain and simple. And he didn't just make them under his own name — he made plates for other companies too. When the Jammer brand needed its first batch of number plates, Neal made them. That's how a lot of people in the business first met the guy. He was the plate man before he was the grip man.

The Jive Handles show up

The grips came in the late 1980s, and they did not look like anything else on the wall. That was the whole point. Most BMX grips of the day were a foam tube and a plug. The Jive Handle was a real molded grip with flanges, a proper end, the kind of thing that felt like it cost money. Because it did.

The original Jive Handles sold for around seventeen bucks a pair. In the late '80s. For grips. That was steep, and everybody knew it, and people bought them anyway, because they were good and because they looked like nothing else. The first ones came in a yellow box with black and red script and a clear window so you could see the grips inside. Guys who had them still talk about that box. The slogan said it plain: All Grip No Slip.

The brand name on the package — Jive Handles — got so big that a lot of riders never connected it to the company underneath. They knew Jives. They didn't always know Neal. Same outfit. Same shop.

One grip turns into a whole line

Ken Neal didn't make one grip and stop. He kept the first mold running and kept adding to the family. So if you dig through old catalogs and swap-meet tables, you'll find a stack of Jive variants, and they're easy to mix up. Here's the simple version.

The original Jive Handle had flanges and came in that yellow box with a plastic end cap. The EZ Jive came along right after — basically the same grip, just without the fancy box and end cap, sold cheaper. Then the M Jive. Ken made that one flangeless, originally aimed at the new mountain bikes that were just catching on. Funny thing — the flatland racers grabbed them too, because flangeless is what flatland wanted. He also ran the long ones everybody calls Tentacles, and later a grip called Finish Line. Different feet, different bars, same shop.

And it wasn't only grips. Neal Enterprises made Jive Nuts — the grip donuts that slid on next to the flange — plus bar ends, the Proline stick-on numbers, the Trim Line vinyl number sets, and the number plates that started the whole thing. A full little accessory house run out of one building.

Why the Jives stuck

Plenty of grips came and went in those years. The Jives stuck. Part of it was the look — the molding, the colors, the packaging, a grip that announced itself. Part of it was that they held up. People bolted them on in 1990 and were still riding them years later. And part of it was the price tag, oddly enough. When something costs more than everything around it and still sells, it earns a kind of respect on the track. The Jive Handle had that. It was the grip you saved up for.

Set the Jives next to the rest of the era — the parts coming out of Redline, GT, Haro, Torker — and Neal Enterprises was the small shop holding its own on the parts side, not the frame side. That's a harder place to make a name. He made one anyway.

Still here

This is the rare one where the story doesn't end with a sale to private equity or a brand that faded out. Neal Enterprises is still owned and run by the same person. Ken Neal still has the molds. The Proto-Plates being sold now are new production off that original tool. The Finish Line grips got re-run from the original mold in 2019. So if you want a real Jive — not a tribute, not a knockoff — you can still get one made the way it was made the first time. Forty-some years on.

That's the thing about the accessory guys. The frame companies get the glory and the history pages. The parts guys quietly kept the sport rolling, one grip and one number plate at a time. Neal Enterprises is one of those. Still rolling.

What we don't know

Honest about the gaps, because the record on a one-man parts shop is thin. We could not pin down the exact founding year of Neal Enterprises itself — the Proto-Plate dates to late 1979 or early 1980, so the company was going by then, but the precise start date isn't documented in the sources we found. The exact year the Jive Handles launched is given as "late 1980s" by people who were there, not as a hard date. We also can't confirm the full list of brands Ken Neal made plates and parts for beyond Jammer; longtime collectors say there were several, but the names aren't all recorded. If you've got period ads, catalogs, or first-hand detail, we'll correct and expand this page — sourced only.

Related Legend Bike Co. chapters

• The History of BMX (1970-1995)
• The Bike Shops That Made BMX
• Redline · GT · Haro · Torker

Sources

BMXmuseum.com Forums — "Jive Grips?" thread (firsthand accounts of the Jive Handle, EZ Jive, M Jive, and Tentacles, original yellow box and pricing, and Ken Neal's number-plate work for Jammer). BMX Products USA (bmxproducts.com) — Neal Enterprises Proto-Plate listing, stating the Proto-Plate began in late 1979 or early 1980, the company is still owned and run by the same person, and plates are new production from the original mold. Porkchop BMX (porkchopbmx.com) — Neal Enterprises brand catalog (Jive Handles, EZ Jives, M Jives, Tentacles, Finish Line grips, Jive Nuts, bar ends, Proline numbers, Trim Line numbers, "All Grip No Slip"); and Porkchop's note that the Finish Line grips were re-run from the original mold by Ken Neal in 2019, and that Ken Neal operates Neal Enterprises. eBay and Worthpoint period listings for original Jive Handles, EZ Jives, and M Jives. Ride UK BMX — feature noting modern grip work referencing the vintage Jive Handles. Public references placing Neal Enterprises in Torrance, California.