A Legend Bike Co. rider history page. Primary record on Wikipedia's "Richie Anderson (BMX rider)" entry, drawn from period BMX magazine coverage; cross-checked against bmxsociety.com community threads, BMXmuseum.com, and Legend Bike Co.'s own Torker and White Bear chapters.

Richie Anderson

"The Avalanche" · born March 14, 1967 · 1994 ABA BMX Hall of Fame

At a glance

Born
March 14, 1967, Vallejo, California.

Nicknames
"The Avalanche" (for how dominant he was through the 1980 season) · "Mr. Smooth" (for how effortless he made speed jumping look) · "Richie Rich"

Known for
Two-time ABA National No. 1 Amateur (1979, 1980) · seven years at Patterson Racing Products · closing out Torker's original factory team in 1984 · younger brother of Ronnie Anderson · 1985 BMX Action Pro Rookie of the Year

Teams
Patterson Racing Products (1977/78–1984, amateur) · Zeronine (co-sponsor, May–July 1984) · Torker BMX Racing Products (July–Nov 1984) · Skyway Recreations (Nov 1984–Nov 1985, turned pro) · MRC · Power Racing Products · Spinners · Hardee's · White Bear (Nov 1987–June 1988) · U.S. Boss Racing Products (1993–94, comeback)

Hall of Fame
1994 ABA BMX Hall of Fame inductee.

Richie Anderson raced amateur BMX about as well as anybody in the country did through the early 1980s, and he did almost all of it on one team. Seven years at Patterson Racing Products, two ABA National No. 1 Amateur titles, and a nickname — The Avalanche — that stuck because for one whole season nobody could find a way to stop him. Then he turned pro in 1985 and spent the next three years bouncing through six different sponsors, in part because he kept trying to get his older brother Ronnie signed alongside him. It rarely worked out for long.

Nine Years Old at the Concord Track

Anderson started racing in 1976 at age nine, at the Concord track in Concord, California, riding for the National Bicycle Association's Northern California region. He signed with Patterson Racing Products almost immediately — full factory from close to the start, by his own account — and stayed there for seven years, by far the longest sponsorship of his career. Patterson built him his own signature model, the "Richie Anderson" frame, in 1978, while he was still not yet a teenager.

The results piled up fast. NBA 11 Expert Grandnational Champion and National No. 1 in 1978. NBL and ABA Grandnational titles in 1979 and 1980. The ABA credited him with back-to-back National No. 1 Amateur titles in 1979 and 1980, and BMX Plus! named him its 1980 Amateur of the Year. A November 1980 Bicycle Motocross Action feature, "Method Speed Jumping," documented the thing that actually earned him the Avalanche name: he kept pedaling through whoop-de-doo speed jumps that most racers coasted over to stay upright. Nobody else his age was doing that. It is also where the "Mr. Smooth" nickname came from — the same effortless-looking style that later got hung on riders like Eric Carter.

He kept winning as he moved up in age class — NBL and IBMXF Grandnational and World Cup titles in 1982, 1983, and 1984, an ABA JAG Overall World Championship in 1982, and by 1983 a spot on BMX Action's "Terrible Ten" list of the fastest amateurs in the world. A 1984 BMX Plus! survey of top BMX figures — including his own former teammate Brent Patterson — ranked him tenth among the 25 hottest amateurs in the sport.

Leaving Patterson, and a Truck That Was Never a Bribe

By mid-1984 Anderson was ready to turn pro, and he left Patterson Racing Products in May of that year — for, as he later put it, "a better deal." It was an open secret in early-1980s BMX that some top amateurs were being paid under the table by their sponsors, and Anderson's departure set off a small public dispute about a truck Vance Patterson, the team's owner, had reportedly promised him.

In interviews at the time, both men were consistent: it was not payment to stay amateur. "The agreement was that Richie was going to stay as an amateur for the balance of the year. I will give him a truck, not based upon this year, but for what he's done in the past," Vance Patterson told BMX Plus! in October 1984. Anderson backed that up in BMX Action that May: "No, it's for all the years I've been racing for them." Decades later, in a 2005 post on Vintagebmx.com under his old Avalanche handle, Anderson confirmed he still considers the Pattersons family, and that the truck was never actually delivered.

Zeronine, Then Torker's Last Roster

Anderson picked up a co-sponsorship from Zeronine in May 1984 while still finishing out his time with Patterson, then signed with Torker BMX Racing Products on July 7, 1984. It did not last long — Torker filed for bankruptcy that November, and Anderson's four-and-a-half months there were part of the factory team's final roster before the Fullerton, California operation folded. Legend Bike Co.'s own Torker chapter counts him among the riders who "built careers that shaped the next decade of the sport" after that bankruptcy scattered the team. Per community recollection on bmxsociety.com, he ran his trademark graphite Tuff wheels during that Torker stretch — at a time when only a handful of riders were skilled enough to race mag wheels competitively against everybody else.

Turning Pro at Seventeen

Anderson signed with Skyway Recreations in November 1984 and turned pro January 1, 1985, at age 17. His first pro race was unremarkable — fourth in "A" Pro and fifth in Pro Cruiser at an ABA national — but his first win came fast: the ABA Silver Dollar Nationals Pro Cruiser class, January 6, 1985, in Reno. BMX Action named him its 1985 Pro Rookie of the Year.

The Skyway run ended on his own terms, more or less. He and Ronnie wanted to bill themselves jointly as the "A-Team" — a nod to both their shared last name and the popular television show — and Skyway would not sign Ronnie to make it happen. Two days before his own Skyway contract expired, Anderson showed up to the NBL Christmas National on December 29, 1985, riding an old Torker on aluminum wheels in a plain sweatshirt instead of Skyway gear — a clean breach of contract. Skyway, which was already pulling back from racing to focus on its freestyle team, let the relationship end there. Anderson's read on it at the time: "It seems they're more interested in their freestyle team. Ronnie and I are looking for a team that will take both of us. We want to stick together."

Three Years, Six Sponsors, and a Brother He Kept Trying to Bring Along

What followed was a pro career defined by short stops, most of them shaped by Anderson's attempts to race alongside Ronnie. MRC (Mike Redman Concepts) sponsored both brothers for a single weekend — the 1986 ABA Supernationals in Los Angeles, January 25–26. Power Racing Products signed Anderson from mid-April through October 1986, and briefly signed Ronnie too, for one weekend in mid-August — the same weekend Ronnie was let go after an on-track altercation with Tommy Brackens at the ABA Freedom Nationals.

Anderson rode for Spinners, a bike shop sponsor, through late 1986, then Hardee's — one of the first fast-food chains to sponsor an individual BMX racer rather than a national event — from May through late July 1987. He went unsponsored for roughly three and a half months after that, showing up to a single NBL national in Lemoore, California in October 1987 wearing his old Patterson Racing Products uniform, more than a year after that company had gone out of business.

The brothers were reunited a third time on White Bear, the Northern California frame brand, from November 1987. That lasted until White Bear dropped Ronnie in mid-March 1988 — the brand had a public anti-drug stance and said Ronnie "didn't live up to their image." Richie quit White Bear over it and moved out of the area. Both brothers later showed up to the ABA Lone Star Nationals wearing mismatched, years-old Hutch jerseys, unsponsored — either a publicity stunt or a long shot at a second chance. Neither was picked up.

Injury, Retirement, and a Late Comeback

Anderson damaged his hip at the ABA Supernationals in San Bernardino, California, on January 18, 1987 — an injury that, by his own later account, effectively ended his top-level career. He retired from serious pro racing in 1988 at age 21, with his last appearance in a Senior Pro field coming at the ABA Gold Cup Championships West in Chandler, Arizona that October — once again, fittingly, in an old Patterson uniform.

He came back briefly from January 1993 through September 1994, racing Pro Cruiser and the ABA's Veteran Pro classes for U.S. Boss Racing Products, alongside two of his old Patterson Racing Products teammates: Brian Patterson and John Crews. He raced for Power Source Roost America starting in late 1994, then Answer Racing in 1996 and Factory in 1998, closing out a career that had opened as a nine-year-old at the Concord track two decades earlier.

1994: The ABA BMX Hall of Fame

Anderson went into the ABA BMX Hall of Fame in 1994. By 2009 he was appearing as a returning Hall of Fame member at that year's induction ceremony in San Diego, alongside his brother Ronnie and John Crews, among many other 1970s-and-1980s BMX names.

Where the public record runs thin

The precise start date of Anderson's original Patterson Racing Products sponsorship is inconsistent even within Wikipedia's own sourcing — one entry says 1977, another says early 1978. The exact story behind the "Anderson Avalanche" frame lineage that collectors restore today is not fully documented; period bmxsociety.com discussion notes that, according to Anderson's own social media posts, a custom FMF frame is what the Avalanche design descended from, but the details of that transition are not nailed down anywhere in the sources checked for this page. His life after his mid-1990s racing comebacks — beyond the sponsor list — is not part of the public record either.

Where Richie Anderson fits in the bigger story

Riders: Ronnie Anderson, John Crews, Tommy Brackens. Brands: Torker, White Bear. Sanctions: ABA, NBL, IBMXF. The bigger arc is in our History of BMX series.

Sources

Wikipedia, "Richie Anderson (BMX rider)" — the primary biographical reference for this page, itself sourced to period issues of Bicycle Motocross Action, BMX Plus!, BMX Action, Bicycles and Dirt, Super BMX, and Snap BMX Magazine spanning 1980 through 2000. bmxsociety.com community forum threads "Richie Anderson," "Redid my Anderson Avalanche," and "Richie Anderson Replica Redux" — collector recollection on the Anderson Avalanche frame lineage and his 1984 Torker stint on graphite Tuff wheels. Legend Bike Co.'s own Torker and White Bear chapters, cross-referenced for his 1984 Torker roster spot and the 1987–88 White Bear reunion with his brother. FatBMX.com, "ABA BMX Hall of Fame Announces Inductees for Class of 2009" — confirms his standing as a Hall of Fame member by 2009.