Ryan Sheehan

The S&S Team's Founding Rider, and the Reason Tiger Teeth Exists

A Legend Bike Co. rider page · primary sources: the Sheehan family, the Texas Bicycle Motocross Hall of Fame, and Supercross BMX company history

At a glance

Born February 16, 1973
Died September 30, 2005, age 32
Home Pflugerville, Texas
Racing from 1983
Team S&S — founding member
Known for Starting the S&S team, driving the creation of Tiger Teeth, and having the Texas Bicycle Motocross Hall of Fame's annual Spirit Award named after him

Some riders get remembered for a number plate. Ryan Sheehan got remembered for how he behaved at the track, which is rarer and harder.

He is the reason a bike business existed in Central Texas, the reason a component brand got started, and the person the Texas BMX community chose to name its sportsmanship award after. He was not a national champion. That is not what this page is about, and it was not what the people who knew him thought was the point either.

The kid who needed parts

Ryan started racing in 1983, at ten years old, around the Central Texas scene. He kept needing parts — for his own bike and for the riders around him — and his family ended up in the business of supplying them. That is the documented origin of S&S, also recorded as Sheehan & Sheehan Racing: a small family-run shop, mail-order desk and vending trailer working out of the Round Rock, Pflugerville and Austin area from the 1980s into the early 1990s.

His sister Farren put it plainly in her account of him: although he was extremely bright, Ryan devoted himself more to bicycle racing than to high school. She also wrote that he became a very successful BMX racer whose team toured all over the United States, Mexico and England.

Think about what that means for a shop team out of a town outside Austin. Not a factory program. Not a national brand's budget. A family operation that got its riders to England.

Founding the S&S team

Ryan was the founding member of the S&S team. Supercross BMX, describing the era in its own company history, remembers the S&S crew as a group that caused trouble all around the country, all in the name of fun and BMX. Anyone who raced in that period knows exactly what kind of trouble that means, and it is meant warmly.

The Texas Bicycle Motocross Hall of Fame's own description of him fills in the rest, and it is worth reading as written, because it describes a type of person rather than a results sheet. He was always the first person at the track and the last to leave. He would help beginners with their gate starts and hand out advice, or he would hang around with the superstars and the international riders. He would lend you his bike. He would pick you up off the track when you fell.

The Hall's summary of what that adds up to: BMX spirit is never about the biggest trophy or the most points or what number is on your plate. It is about being part of a family of racers and about friendships that last.

Talking his mother into Tiger Teeth

The most durable thing Ryan left behind is a component brand he did not run.

Supercross BMX's account credits him directly: Ryan convinced his mom to start a little company, Tiger Teeth, to help with some of the problems that the pros and the older amateurs were having with their bikes. Bitchin' Bolts came first, then the Tiger Teeth chainwheels, and then the family began importing JIVE panels from Ireland.

That is a rider spotting a problem from the inside of the sport and getting it fixed by the only manufacturer he had access to — his own family. The chainwheels outlived the shop, the team and the era, and they are still sought after by collectors.

After racing

After he graduated, Ryan stayed close to home and joined the family business, Gaston & Sheehan Auctioneers in Pflugerville. He became an accomplished auctioneer and appraiser, and his family remembers him as having a genuinely good eye, particularly for fine jewelry.

In 1995 he married his high school sweetheart, Lisa. The marriage was short, but she stayed one of his closest friends and stood by him through the hardest years that followed. His sister remembers him as the funniest person in any room, someone who cried at sad movies and pulled over on the highway to rescue animals.

1998 onward, and September 2005

In 1998 Ryan began a struggle with bipolar disorder. His family has chosen to speak about it openly rather than quietly, and this page follows their lead rather than tidying it away.

Their account is direct: the illness first showed itself as addiction, he went through several treatment programs over the years that followed, and while the addiction was beaten — he died clean and sober — the underlying disorder grew more intense, and none of the medications he was prescribed reached the pain underneath it. He hid most of it. On the outside he stayed the same funny, warm person, while shielding the people he loved from what was happening inside.

Ryan died on September 30, 2005. He was 32.

His family maintains a memorial site for him, rememberingryansheehan.com, written largely by his sister Farren and his mother, and built expressly to help other people touched by bipolar disorder and suicide loss. The line the family leads with is the one this page will finish on: We who love Ryan refuse to let his life be defined by his death.

The Ryan Sheehan Spirit Award

The Texas Bicycle Motocross Hall of Fame created an annual award in his name. It goes to one person each year who shows the sportsmanship and commitment to BMX that Ryan showed during his racing career.

The mechanics of it say as much as the name does. Every BMX track in Texas is allowed to nominate one person. The nominee does not have to be a racer — it can be a sibling, a parent, or any other supporter from the local track, someone currently involved or someone being recognized from years back. How the nominee gets chosen is left entirely to each track operator.

In other words, the award is deliberately built to find the person at every track who behaves the way Ryan behaved. That is a sharper memorial than a plaque.

Where the public record runs thin

• His race results. We could not verify a single finish, title or number plate. His family calls him a very successful racer and the Hall of Fame describes a long career, but no results ledger survives in anything we could reach.
• The S&S team roster. Beyond Ryan as founding member, no rider names are documented.
• The international trips. The United States, Mexico and England are named by his family. No dates, events or venues are attached to them anywhere we found.
• Which Texas track was his home track. Not documented in any source we located.
• A photo caption reading “1989 Grands — OKC” appears on the Texas Hall of Fame's award page above photographs of him. That points to him racing the Grands in Oklahoma City in 1989, but the caption is attached to images we could not view, and no result is given. We are treating it as a lead, not a fact.
• A “Ryan Sheehan Race” event listed at Lone Star BMX in San Antonio. A social-media event listing under that name exists. We could not open it or confirm the year, the organizer, or whether it is a recurring memorial race. Flagged as unverified.
• Hall of Fame status. Ryan is not among the 79 inductees listed in the Texas BMX Hall of Fame index as of August 2026. The Spirit Award carries his name; induction is a separate thing and we are not conflating them.
• His mother's first name. Supercross BMX's account names her Michelle. The family's memorial site names Ryan's mother as Brenda Sheehan. Unresolved — see the Michelle Sheehan page.

Where Ryan Sheehan fits in the bigger story

Family and brand: S&S Bikes, Tiger Teeth, Michelle Sheehan. S&S was one of the earliest dealers for Supercross BMX, which reissued the Tiger Teeth chainwheel in his name in 2020. Texas riders of the same era in this library: Kevin “Sheepdog” Hull and Steve Veltman. The wider arc is in The History of BMX, and the shop story is in The Bike Shops That Made BMX.

Sources

rememberingryansheehan.com — the Sheehan family's memorial site, in particular the biography written by his sister Farren Sheehan Smith, and the memories page written by his mother Brenda Sheehan; source for his dates, his devotion to racing over school, the team's touring range, Gaston & Sheehan Auctioneers, his 1995 marriage, the course of his illness, and the family's own framing of his death. Texas Bicycle Motocross Hall of Fame, txbmxhof.org — the Ryan Sheehan Spirit Award page, source for his 1983 start, his conduct at the track, and the structure and purpose of the award; the Hall's inductee index was also checked directly and does not list him among its 79 inductees. Supercross BMX, supercrossbmx.com — Tiger Teeth Ryan Sheehan Tribute Chainwheel product page, source for his role as founding member of the S&S team, for his part in starting Tiger Teeth, and for the Bitchin' Bolts, chainwheel and JIVE panel product sequence. Austin American-Statesman — obituary for Robert Ryan Sheehan, published October 2, 2005, confirming his full name and dates (index entry consulted; full text not retrieved). Bill Ryan, founder of Supercross BMX, 2026 — first-hand recollection of the Sheehans' influence in BMX. oldschoolmags.com and bmxsociety.com were checked for period race coverage naming him; neither returned results.

Last reviewed: August 2026. Written with respect for the Sheehan family, who have made Ryan's story public themselves. Corrections and firsthand memories are welcome through the contact page.