BMX Racing History · Rider Profile · Legend Bike Co

R.L. Osborn

R.L. Osborn didn't invent freestyle BMX by himself. But he and Bob Haro were the two people who first turned it into something people paid to watch. They were both working at BMX Action magazine — R.L. as a test rider, Haro as an illustrator — and after hours they started doing tricks on their bikes in the parking lot and on ramps around Torrance. Wheelies, rollbacks, curb endos. Stuff that had no class at any race, no rules, no points. They did it because they could.

Their first public performance was at the ABA Winternationals in February 1980. The magazine formally put them on the road as the BMX Action Freestyle Team — touring riders doing demos at races and shows across the country. This was before the word "freestyle" was in common use. The frames they were riding were Redlines, and those demos are the direct origin point of the freestyle industry that followed.

R.L. stayed with the BMX Action Freestyle Team and his Redline sponsorship through the early 1980s, and his connection to the brand ran deeper than just riding. He was directly influential in the design of the Redline RL-20II — the freestyle frame that carried his initials and eventually gained the traction the original RL-20 Prostyler hadn't. It was one of the first production freestyle frames to reflect real rider input at the design stage.

When his Redline deal ended, he didn't go to another established brand. He started his own company: BULLY Bikes. That move put him alongside the generation of rider-owned brands — Haro, Hoffman, S&M — that came to define the post-boom era of BMX.