A Legend Bike Co. rider history page. Built on the period magazine record — BMX Action, BMX Plus!, Super BMX, Bicycle Motocross Action, Bicycles And Dirt, American BMXer — surfaced through the 23mag.com issue indexes and the oldschoolmags.com PDF archive. Cross-checked against the USA BMX / ABA Hall of Fame directory, the United States Bicycling Hall of Fame inductee record, BMXmuseum.com, the SE Bikes company blog, BMX Society community threads, and long-form modern interviews on FatBMX, BMXultra, and Vice.

Stu Thomsen

"Stompin' Stu" / "The Man" / "Stu Magoo" · born May 20, 1958, Whittier, California · ABA BMX Hall of Fame 1986 · United States Bicycling Hall of Fame 1998 · NBL BMX Hall of Fame 2008

At a glance

Born: May 20, 1958, Whittier, California.
Nicknames: "Stompin' Stu" · "The Man" · "Stu Magoo"
Known for: The first pro to win National No. 1 with three different American BMX sanctioning bodies — NBA, ABA, and NBL · The rider the SE Racing STR-1 (later renamed the Quadangle) was developed for · The only BMX racer in the ABA Hall of Fame, the NBL Hall of Fame, AND the United States Bicycling Hall of Fame
Major titles: NBA National No. 1 Pro, 1977 and 1978 (first pro to win consecutive No. 1 plates) · ABA National No. 1 Pro, 1979 (the ABA gave him a new white 1979 Chevrolet van as the prize) · NBL National No. 1 Pro, 1981 and 1982 · 1977 NBA Open Pro-Am Grand National · 1977 ABA Open Pro Gold Cup · 1978 ABA Pro Class Grand National · 1978 and 1981 Jag Pro World Champion · 1979 ABA Pro Money + Pro Trophy + 15-and-Over Trophy Dash triple at the Grands · 1980 UBR Pro Grand National · 1981 NBL "A" Pro Grand National · 1981 Knott's Berry Farm Pro Grand Champion · 1982 NPSA 20" Pro Grand National · 1983 ABA Pro Cruiser Grand National · 1984 ABA Pro Cruiser U.S. Gold Cup · 1984 Bicross International de Paris Bercy Champion ("King of Bercy 1") · Bicycle Motocross News 1977 Rider of the Year · NORA Cup (1980 and 1982) · 3rd place downhill, 1988 World Mountain Bike Championships, Mammoth · ABA BMX Hall of Fame 1986 · USBHOF 1998 · NBL BMX HOF 2008
Primary sponsors: Newport Design & Manufacturing (pre-July 1974) · Dirtmaster Racing Products (July 1974 – Aug 1975) · Webco Inc. (Aug 1975 – late March 1976) · D.G. Performance Specialties (late April 1976 – October 1976) · FMF / Flying Machine Factory (October 1976 – mid 1977) · SE Racing (mid 1977 – December 31, 1979) · Redline Engineering (January 1, 1980 – December 31, 1983) · Huffy Corporation (January 1, 1984 – early November 1986) · Motobecane / MBK (November 22–23, 1986, one weekend in Paris) · Stu Thomsen's Family Cycle Center, Riverside, CA (late 1986 – ~1992) · Southridge Cycles (1992) · SE Racing (1993 onward) · Redline Bicycles (1999 – c. 2014) · SE Bikes (2015 – current)
Active years: 1974–1987 (first career, retired in July 1987 at age 29) · 1992–present (Veteran / Master Pro and Cruiser racing as a reclassified amateur)

There's a short list of riders whose names actually shaped the first decade of American BMX, and Stu Thomsen's name sits near the top of it. He was on factory teams before factory teams were really a thing. Turned pro before there was money in it. He won National No. 1 with the NBA, then the ABA, then the NBL. Every major sanctioning body of the era, in other words. He had a frame built for him at SE Racing that wore his initials, and it's still in production today under the name the company slapped on it after he left. He retired at 29, ran a bike shop in Riverside with his wife, then pinned on a sheriff's badge. No other BMX racer is in all three of the major American Halls of Fame. He is.

Whittier and the start, 1974

Stuart L. Thomsen was born May 20, 1958 in Whittier, California. He was tall for his age — six feet one and a half inches and 200 pounds at his racing peak — and that build let him put power through a 20-inch bike that smaller riders simply couldn't match. His first race sponsor was Newport Design & Manufacturing, before July 1974. By July 1974 he was on Dirtmaster Racing Products, and he stayed there a year. Webco picked him up in August 1975 and ran him on the factory team until the company folded the team in late March 1976.

DG and the kick-off, April – October 1976

When Webco shut its team down, Stu landed at D.G. Performance Specialties about a month later, in late April 1976. DG — the initials of co-founders Dan Hangsleben and Gary Harlow — was one of the early factory programs running riders out of Southern California. Chuck Robinson managed the DG team. Stu lasted about six months. After a poor showing at a race he bad-mouthed his DG-issued bike out loud, right where Robinson could hear him. By his own account in Bicycle Motocross Action June 1977, he was off the team within days.

"... for some unknown reason I was dropped from the team. I never really found out why."

— Stu Thomsen, Bicycle Motocross Action, June 1978

The DG exit was October 1976. A week and a half later he was on FMF.

FMF — the Scot Breithaupt connection, October 1976 – mid 1977

FMF — the Flying Machine Factory — was a Southern California BMX team and brand co-founded by Scot Breithaupt, Tony Rogers, and Donnie Emler. (Emler is the same FMF lineage that still makes motorcycle exhaust today.) Stu turned pro on FMF. He was there about six to eight months. When Scot left FMF in mid-1977 to start his own thing — Scot Enterprises Racing, almost immediately shortened to SE Racing — Stu went with him.

SE Racing — mid 1977 to December 31, 1979

SE Racing was founded in 1977 by Scot Breithaupt in Long Beach, California. The early-SE pro lineup that ran with Stu included Scot himself, Jeff Utterback (whose NBA No. 6 ranking gave the JU-6 — SE's first frame — its name), and Perry Kramer, recruited from Mongoose in 1977.

"I was on the Mongoose team when Scot recruited me. Mongoose had everything. They had money, they had bikes, they had a bitching van. Scot didn't have anything, but I said, let's go, let's do this."

— Perry Kramer, Vice, July 11, 2015

The first two and a half years of SE Racing belong to Stu Thomsen on a results basis. He won NBA National No. 1 Pro in 1977 and 1978 — the first pro to win consecutive No. 1 plates. He took the 1977 NBA Western States Championship, the 1977 NBA Open Pro-Am Grand National, and the 1977 ABA Open Pro Gold Cup. Bicycle Motocross News named him 1977 Rider of the Year. In 1978 he won the ABA Pro Class Grand National and the Jag Pro World Championship. In 1979 he took the ABA National No. 1 Pro plate, and at that year's ABA Grand Nationals he won the Pro Money main, the Pro Trophy main, and the 15-and-Over Trophy Dash. The ABA's prize for the No. 1 plate that year was a new white 1979 Chevrolet van.

The STR-1, and what it became after he left

The frame Stu is most identified with started life as the SE Racing STR-1. The letters stand for Stu Thomsen Replica-1 — not, as some accounts have it, "Stu Thomsen Racing." SE Bikes' own historical blog and the company's 2020 press release for the modern reissue both confirm the naming directly.

"Man it's hard to believe, but that's about 44 years ago. I don't think the collaboration with Scot and my bike, STR-1 Quadangle, happened until after my first year on SE. While riding for SE Racing or even Scot Enterprise (SE) you can see that I rode at least three other brands other than the PK Ripper, including Mongoose, GJS and a Redline Proline. I rode all those before the STR-1 came into production."

— Stu Thomsen, FatBMX, April 2021

The frame design was the most ambitious thing SE had built. Double down tubes wrapped underneath the bottom bracket shell, ran continuously around the looptail rear end, and back up to the seat tube. Fewer than ten STR-1 frames were made in the 1970s. The only one that has surfaced in the modern era is a 1979 prototype, now in private hands.

Stu left SE for Redline on December 31, 1979. The frame stayed at SE. Within the first half of 1980 the company renamed it the Quadangle — the name pin shows up in the SE QUAD-ANGLE bike test in BMX Action, June 1980. The Quadangle ran through the 1980s as one of SE's two flagship race frames alongside the PK Ripper. In 2020 SE Bikes reissued the bike under its original name — the STR-1 Quadangle.

Why Stu left SE for Redline

"At the time, pro racing had been going on for a few years, but the prize money wasn't all that big yet. Redline was a much bigger company than S.E. Racing. The dollar signs were what attracted me more than just wanting to change. I needed to get more out of racing if I was to stay in it any longer."

— Stu Thomsen, Bicycles And Dirt, September 1983

Redline — January 1, 1980 to December 31, 1983

The Redline run was the four-year peak of Stu's racing income. The December 1980 issue of BMX Action put him on the cover for the first time — 23mag.com calls it out specifically as "Stu Thomsen's first BMXA cover." The August 1981 issue ran him on the cover again. The October 1982 issue put him on the cover a third time, sharing it with Andy Patterson and Jeff Ruminer for the NORA Cup ballot issue. The April 1983 cover of Super BMX was his too, tied to the World Championship in Las Vegas.

On the track he won the 1980 UBR Pro Grand National, the 1981 NBL "A" Pro Grand National, the 1981 Knott's Berry Farm Pro Grand Champion, the 1981 Jag Pro World Championship (USCF-sanctioned), and the 1982 NPSA 20" Pro Grand National. He won NBL National No. 1 Pro in 1981 and again in 1982 — and with that he became the first pro to win National No. 1 with NBA, ABA, and NBL all three. In 1983 he added the ABA Pro Cruiser Grand National.

Bicycle Motocross Action's NORA Cup — the Number One Racer Award voted by readers and the industry — went to him in 1980 and 1982 under the reset accounting rules.

Huffy and the 1984 signature line

Stu signed with Huffy Corporation on January 1, 1984. Huffy gave him a signature frame line — the Huffy Stu Thomsen Model.

"Huffy's frame engineers were tied up with the 1984 US Olympic Cycling Team contract, so they let GT Bicycles build the Stu Thomsen 20" frames to my spec. My 24" cruiser was a re-stickered Redline Proline 24, because Huffy didn't make a cruiser."

— Stu Thomsen, FatBMX, April 2021

The Huffy years brought the 1984 ABA Pro Cruiser U.S. Gold Cup and the 1984 Bicross International de Paris Bercy Champion title ("King of Bercy 1") in France. His last Senior Pro 20" main-event win came at an NBL National in Sarasota, Florida on March 28, 1986. Huffy ended the Stu Thomsen signature line in early November 1986. He raced one more weekend for hire that November — November 22–23, 1986, at the Bercy Yop King race in Paris on Motobecane.

Retirement, the shop, and the badge

Stu retired from professional racing in July 1987 at age 29. He and his wife Tanya ran Stu Thomsen's Family Cycle Center (also called Family Bicycle Center) in Riverside, California from the late 1980s through about 1992. He raced for Southridge Cycles when he came back to the gate in the Veteran Pro and Pro Cruiser classes in 1992. In January 1993 he was back at SE Racing on the comeback side.

In 1994 he was hired by the Orange County Sheriff's Department. He has been a deputy ever since. He earned the department's Medal of Courage for an on-duty rifle shooting incident.

The post-retirement racing kept going. He was reclassified as an amateur in the late 1990s. He won the 1999 ABA 41–45 Cruiser Grand National. He won the 2008 NBL 50–54 Cruiser Grand National. He rode for Redline Bicycles from 1999 through about 2014. Since 2015 he has represented SE Bikes again — the company that built his signature frame in 1977 and reissued it 40-plus years later.

The three Halls of Fame

Stu Thomsen is in three of them:

The ABA BMX Hall of Fame inducted him in 1986. The ABA Hall is now the National BMX Hall of Fame, operated by USA BMX in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

The United States Bicycling Hall of Fame inducted him in 1998 in the Racer/BMX category. He was the first BMX racer the USBHOF ever inducted.

The NBL BMX Hall of Fame inducted him in 2008.

No other BMX racer is in all three.

The rumored retirement that became a joke

Through the late 1970s and into the early 1980s, the BMX press kept asking Stu if he was about to hang it up. He told them he was — every year.

BMX Plus!: "When you were interviewed by BMX PLUS! last year you said you were going to retire at the end of 1979. In fact you said you were going to retire every year since 1976. Are you going to tell us the same thing this year?"

Thomsen (laughing): "I always say that. You know me."

— BMX Plus!, January 1981

When he actually did retire — six and a half years later, in July 1987 — he meant it. Then he came back twelve months later in mountain bike downhill and took 3rd in the 1988 World Mountain Bike Championships at Mammoth, California.

Legacy

Stu Thomsen's place in BMX history is fixed by a record nobody else has matched. First pro to win consecutive National No. 1 plates, NBA 1977 and 1978. First and still the only pro to win National No. 1 with three different American sanctioning bodies — NBA, ABA, NBL. The rider the SE Racing STR-1, later the Quadangle, was developed for. And the only BMX racer inducted into the ABA, NBL, and United States Bicycling Halls of Fame.

If you grew up reading BMX magazines in 1978 through 1983, the Stu Thomsen cover was the one that told you the magazine was serious. If you raced anywhere in the United States in those same years, you were chasing him. And if you walk into a USA BMX Grand National today, the bike on the table at the SE Bikes booth — the one with the wrapped double down tubes and the looptail rear end — is named for the frame he developed in Long Beach in 1978 and 1979.

Sources

Wikipedia "Stu Thomsen" — densely footnoted to period magazines. Wikipedia "SE Racing." Wikipedia "Scot Breithaupt." United States Bicycling Hall of Fame inductee record — Stu Thomsen, 1998 Racer/BMX. USA BMX / ABA Hall of Fame directory. FatBMX, "Re-Up; Preserving BMX History. Episode 78: Stu Thomsen (USA)," Bart de Jong, April 2021. BMXultra, "Stompin' Stu Thomsen Interview," September 2017. Vice, "Remembering a BMX Pioneer," Will Grant, July 11, 2015 — the Scot Breithaupt obituary feature with extensive Stu Thomsen and Perry Kramer direct quotes. BMX Museum reference — the surviving 1979 SE Racing STR-1 prototype. SE Bikes company blog Quadangle tag. Sugar Cayne 2020 SE Bikes Stu Thomsen Replica Quadangle STR-1 reissue press release. BMX Society community forum threads on the STR-1 and Stu's bikes. Period magazine coverage indexed at 23mag.com and archived at oldschoolmags.com: Bicycle Motocross News May 1976, April 1977, January 1978; Bicycle Motocross Action June 1978 (DG kick-off interview); BMX Action June 1980 (the SE QUAD-ANGLE rename-pin issue), December 1980 (first Stu BMXA cover, Redline), August 1981 cover, October 1982 cover (NORA Cup ballot), December 1986 (ABA Hall of Fame induction), April 1987 (Bercy / Motobecane weekend); BMX Plus! January 1981 ("I always say that" interview), December 1986 (Huffy Stu Thomsen Model test), February 1987 (last 20" Pro win); Super BMX April 1983 (cover); American BMXer September 1984 (Huffy Stu Thomsen Model test); Bicycles And Dirt September 1983 (long-form Stu interview, the "dollar signs" SE-to-Redline quote); Garage Magazine No. 19 (sheriff's deputy and Medal of Courage profile).

Stu Thomsen and Legend Bike Co.

Stu Thomsen isn't a Legend Bike Co. rider in the way Eddie Fiola, Pete Loncarevich, and Bill Ryan are co-founders of the company. He's on this page because two of the brand stories Legend tells run directly through him.

The first is SE Racing. Stu is the central pro of the original SE factory team from mid-1977 through December 31, 1979 — the two and a half years that established the brand. He earned two of his three National No. 1 plates on SE. The frame he helped develop with Scot Breithaupt — the STR-1 — became the Quadangle after he left, and remains in production today under the original STR-1 Quadangle name in the modern SE Bikes reissue.

The second is Scot Breithaupt. Scot — the godfather of BMX, founder of SE Racing, the "OM" — was Stu's team manager at FMF and then his founder-mentor at SE.

"He pushed me to be a better rider, and he pushed all his kids to be better. He could bring that out in people. I had good mentoring under Scot."

— Stu Thomsen on Scot Breithaupt, Vice, July 11, 2015

---

Read more on Legend Bike Co.

Riders: Pete Loncarevich · Eddie Fiola · Eddy King · Matt Hadan · Clint Miller · Billy Griggs · Damian Fulton · Scot Breithaupt · Greg Hill · Mike Miranda · Perry Kramer · R.L. Osborn · Todd Anderson · Tommy Brackens · Denny Davidow · Jeff Bottema · Darwin Griffin · Brian "Bogi" Givens · Todd Steen · Martin Aparijo · Bob Haro · Frank Post · Byron Friday · Kevin McNeal · Brian Hernandez

Brands and shops: SE Racing · Robinson Racing · Redline · Diamond Back · Centurion Cycles · Torker · CW Racing · GT · Haro · Hoffman Bikes · Hutch · JMC · Mongoose · Schwinn · Skyway · S&M Bikes · Webco · TW BMX · California Racing Designs · Bottema Forks · Hustler Bikes · Voris Dixon Bikes · Hyper Bikes · Hi-Tech BMX · Panda Racing Products · Free Agent · White Bear · Rebel Racing · Titan BMX · Brian Scura / BS Bikeworks · LRV · SS Performance · Bassett Bikes

Sanctioning bodies: BUMS · NBA · NBL · ABA · IBMXF · USA BMX

Overview: The History of BMX