A Legend Bike Co. rider history page. Primary record on BMXmuseum.com's "Ronnie 'Crazy' Anderson" reference entry and Wikipedia's "Richie Anderson (BMX rider)" entry (which documents Ronnie's career in detail as part of Richie's own sponsor history); cross-checked against Legend Bike Co.'s own White Bear and ABA chapters and FatBMX.com's 2009 ABA BMX Hall of Fame coverage.
Ronnie Anderson
"Crazy Ronnie" · 1985 ABA National No. 1 Pro · White Bear co-founder
At a glance
Known for
1985 ABA National No. 1 Pro · older brother of Richie "The Avalanche" Anderson · co-founder and factory pro of White Bear Racing Products · a starting-gate reputation nobody in the sport wanted to line up against
Major titles
1985 ABA National No. 1 Pro · 1981 UBR (United Bicycle Racers) No. 1, at age 16
Teams
Zeronine · MRC (one weekend, 1986, alongside his brother) · Power Racing Products / Peddle Power (1986) · Hardee's · White Bear Racing Products (co-founder, Nov 1987–Mar 1988) · Hutch (brief, 1988) · Boss · Rad Rap
Active years
Early 1980s through 1994, when a broken neck ended his racing career.
Ronnie Anderson is the older of the two Anderson brothers, and by most accounts the more combustible one. He took the 1985 ABA National No. 1 Pro plate, co-founded a Northern California frame brand, and built a reputation as one of the hardest riders in BMX to line up against — not just for his speed off the gate, but for what he'd say to you before the gate even dropped. His career moved fast and broke often: short sponsorships, on-track conflicts, and a running, mostly unsuccessful effort to race full-time alongside his younger brother Richie.
The Older Anderson
Wikipedia's entry on Richie Anderson — the fuller-documented of the two brothers — describes Ronnie as the older sibling whose own amateur career Richie eventually overshadowed. BMXmuseum.com's reference page on Ronnie puts it more bluntly: only the Patterson brothers, Brent and Brian, had more combined BMX titles between them than the Andersons did. The record credits Ronnie with the UBR (United Bicycle Racers) No. 1 title in 1981, at age 16, ahead of Richie's own rise to the top of the amateur ranks later that decade.
1985: ABA National No. 1 Pro
Ronnie Anderson's signature achievement is the 1985 ABA National No. 1 Pro plate — the same season his younger brother turned pro and was named BMX Action's Pro Rookie of the Year. The two brothers spent the rest of the 1980s trying, on and off, to land on the same factory team. It rarely lasted more than a few months at a time.
The Gate Games
What people who raced against Ronnie Anderson remember most is not a single result. It is the routine. He was, by community account on BMXmuseum.com, the only pro known to hold the gate, get off his bike, walk the line in front of every other rider, point at each one and say, "I'm going to beat you, I'm going to beat you, I'm going to beat you" — and then go out and do exactly that. One rider who raced against him for years, posting under the name Zoran on BMXmuseum.com, called him "unbreakable off the damn gate" and credited him — along with his friends who raced the Northern California scene at the same time — with being the first rider they saw stand on his pedals for a two-pedal gate start, at either the Hayward or Vallejo track. That specific claim of invention is forum recollection rather than a magazine record, and BMX has more than one rider credited with popularizing the two-pedal start in different regions, so it is worth reading as community memory rather than settled fact.
A Career That Moved Fast and Broke Often
Ronnie's sponsor history, as documented in his brother Richie's own detailed Wikipedia entry, reads like a run of short, contentious stops. He left Zeronine at some point in the mid-1980s — rumored, though never substantiated, to be over a demand that the company buy him a bike shop. He and Richie were both briefly sponsored by MRC (Mike Redman Concepts) for a single weekend, the 1986 ABA Supernationals in Los Angeles, before Ronnie moved to Power Racing Products — run by Rob Lynch, who also owned the well-known Peddle Power bicycle shop — in mid-April 1986.
That stop ended almost as fast as it started. Ronnie was let go from Power Racing Products on his very first weekend racing for them, after an on-track altercation with Tommy Brackens at the ABA Freedom Nationals in August 1986 — the same weekend Richie had briefly joined him on the same team.
White Bear: Co-Founder, Then Cut Loose
Ronnie Anderson's most substantial brand connection was White Bear Racing Products, the Northern California frame brand built in a shop in Merced, California. Legend Bike Co.'s own White Bear chapter names him as a co-founder, alongside Lonnie Means and a partner known only as "Bear," and credits him with a hand in a custom fork design for the brand. He rode as a White Bear factory pro from around November 1987, with his brother Richie joining the same team not long after — the third time the two brothers ended up on a factory roster together.
It ended in mid-March 1988. White Bear ran a public anti-drug position at the time and dropped Ronnie, saying he "didn't live up to their image," according to period BMX Action coverage cited in his brother's Wikipedia entry. Richie quit the team in response and moved out of the area. Both brothers later turned up at the ABA Lone Star Nationals wearing old, non-matching Hutch jerseys — Ronnie had recently been let go from Hutch as well — in what was read at the time as either a publicity stunt or a long-shot bid for a second chance. Neither brother was picked up.
1994: A Broken Neck
Ronnie Anderson broke his neck in 1994 and retired from racing. He has said he now lives in Northern California, that his sons race BMX, and that he has worked as a track operator for an ABA track. He also recorded a rap song called "The Gate" — a fitting title, given how he made his name.
Hall of Fame Standing
Ronnie Anderson was listed among the returning Hall of Fame members at the ABA's 25th induction ceremony in San Diego in September 2009, alongside his brother Richie and John Crews, credited there as "ABA National No. 1 Pro, Factory Boss, Zeronine." That confirms his membership in the ABA BMX Hall of Fame by 2009. The exact year of his own induction was not confirmed in any of the sources checked for this page — see below.
Where the public record runs thin
Ronnie Anderson's birth date and hometown are not documented in any source checked for this page. The exact year he was inducted into the ABA/National BMX Hall of Fame is not confirmed — he appears as an already-inducted member at the 2009 ceremony, but the specific induction year is missing from the sources available. The two-pedal gate start credited to him on BMXmuseum.com is community recollection from riders who raced against him in Northern California, not a magazine-documented claim, and should be read that way. And a note on the name itself: "Ronnie Anderson" turns up plenty of unrelated people in general web searches — a football player, a triathlete, an off-road racer — so anything found outside the sources listed below needs a second look before it gets treated as this Ronnie Anderson.
Where Ronnie Anderson fits in the bigger story
Riders: Richie Anderson, Tommy Brackens. Brands: White Bear. Sanctions: ABA. The bigger arc is in our History of BMX series.
Sources
BMXmuseum.com Reference, "Ronnie 'Crazy' Anderson" — primary career summary, team history, and the first-hand rider recollection (submitted by community member Zoran) of his starting-gate routine and the two-pedal-start credit. Wikipedia, "Richie Anderson (BMX rider)" — the fullest documented account of Ronnie's own career, embedded in his brother's sponsor-by-sponsor history and sourced to period issues of BMX Plus!, BMX Action, and Bicycle Motocross Action from 1985 through 1989. Legend Bike Co.'s own White Bear chapter, for his role as a co-founder and factory pro. FatBMX.com, "ABA BMX Hall of Fame Announces Inductees for Class of 2009" — confirms his standing as a Hall of Fame member by September 2009.