BMX Racing History · Rider Profile · Legend Bike Co

Stu Thomsen

Stu Thomsen is one of the most decorated racers in the history of the sport. He's been called the Babe Ruth of BMX — a fitting comparison for a rider who combined physical size, raw speed, and relentless consistency at a level nobody else was operating at during the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Thomsen grew up in Whittier, California, and was already competing seriously by 1974. He rode for Webco as an amateur, then joined SE Racing's factory team in 1977, where he raced alongside the core group that built SE into one of the sport's flagship programs. The 1974 Yamaha Gold Cup at the LA Coliseum — one of the first major BMX events ever staged — had Thomsen winning the Expert class in front of more than 5,000 spectators. He was 16 years old.

He joined Redline in 1980 and the next three years were the peak of his career. The Redline Proline and Proline II were the frames he raced, and his results through 1983 made Redline the most visible factory team in the sport. At 6'2" and 200 pounds, he was physically bigger than almost every rider he lined up against, and he rode like it — aggressive in the gate, powerful through the straights, hard to beat in tight finishes. When BMX Plus and BMX Action put Stu on a frame, it sold.

He moved to Huffy in 1984. After retiring from competition in the late 1980s, he operated his own bike shop and returned to amateur racing in the late 1990s, eventually becoming an ambassador for SE Bikes. His prime competitive years — 1976 to 1985 — cover the entire formative era of the sport as a professional enterprise.