BMX Racing History · Chapter 11 · Legend Bike Co
The Bike Shops That Made BMX
I've spent this series on the riders, the brands, and the tracks. All of it matters. But I worked every side of a bike shop counter for most of my life, and I'll tell you straight: none of it happens without the shops. The shop is where a kid bought his first race plate. Where he got a bent rim trued before Saturday motos. Where he joined his first team and talked his way into the industry. There were thousands of them, in every town in America. This chapter belongs to them.
The King: Ralph's Bicycles
Out West, the king was Ralph Mundia. Ralph's Bicycles sat on Paramount Boulevard in Downey, and Ralph figured out something nobody else had: take the shop to the track. His was the first fully mobile BMX bike shop. You broke a part at the races, Ralph had it — right there, trackside, while everybody else was packing up to drive home for the spare. The shop became a fixture at the nationals and sponsored a long line of pros across the decades. Toby Henderson rode for Ralph's as an amateur in 1976–77, and an AXO/Ralph's pro team was still going at the end of the 80s. Ralph's even had its own house frame, the Hustler, built for the shop by Cook Bros.
Ralph ran the shop with his wife, Karen, at his side. Bill Ryan, who knew them firsthand, puts it simply: "Big Daddy Ralph was truly one of a kind." Ralph's reach went past Downey too — the shop was known to the local scene around the Azusa track as well, part of the same San Gabriel Valley shop network covered below.
The house brand nobody wrote down
Here's a piece of the shop business that barely made it into print anywhere. A shop didn't have to commission a frame from scratch to have its own brand. Frame builders finished model years with stock they needed to move — wrong color, superseded geometry, a size that sat, an order that fell through — and a shop owner who heard about it first could buy that overstock, weld his own gusset onto the head tube, put his own decal on the down tube, and sell it as a house brand. It was ordinary business, done in the open, and it put a real chromoly race frame under kids whose families were never going to pay full retail for one.
Ralph's is the example we can actually document. Bill Ryan has personally seen Laguna, CW, GT and JMC frames wearing the Hustler head tube gusset (Bill Ryan, firsthand, 2026) — and by January 1981 BMX Racer was already telling its readers the gusset was the thing to look at on a Hustler. Which is exactly the problem collectors hit today: a shop-brand frame can be completely honest and still not match the next one wearing the same badge. The badge tells you which counter sold it. Everything behind the head tube tells you which factory built it. The full account is in the Hustler Bikes chapter and on Ralph Mundia's own page.
The Thousands
For every famous shop there were a thousand neighborhood ones, and they carried just as much weight. Beavers Bikes in Tarzana. Dad's Bike Barn. The Bicycle Source in Lomita, owned by Steve Potts — Mike Buff's older half-brother — where R.L. Osborn and Mike Buff hung out — their stickers ended up on half the bikes in Orange County. Potts built the ACS Rotor right there at the shop, for Mike's own bar-spinning riding, and licensed it to ACS — one shop counter, one invention that changed freestyle for good. Steve Blackey, who had worked for Potts at the original shop, reopened Bicycle Source in Anaheim in the early 2010s with Danny Hubbard as a partner — it ran about two years before closing again (Bill Ryan, firsthand, 2026). Baron's Bikes, whose shop team gave a young Bob Morales his start in 1977–78. Take away shops like these, and the thousands more like them, and there's nowhere for a kid to buy a part. No part, no sport. Simple as that.
Out in the San Gabriel Valley, the shop scene around the Azusa track ran just as deep. Norm's Bicycle, run by Norm Massey, and El Monte Cycle, run by Dennis, both kept the local racers outfitted. And S&K, run by Ratcliffe, fielded the shop team the Azusa locals actually rode for — S&K's race team and its co-factory sponsorship from Free Agent are covered on the Azusa BMX page.
Hutch — from East Coast mail order
Rich Hutchins ran a bike store in Pasadena, Maryland, where East Coast kids couldn't get their hands on the West Coast parts the magazines kept showing them. So in 1979 he started a mail-order operation out of his own house. It grew until the mail order WAS the business. The first Hutch Pro Racer frames showed up in 1981, and that mail-order house turned into one of the most loved brands of the 80s. "The Most Beautiful Bike in the World."
Custom Wheels — the shop behind CW
The CW brand came out of Roger Worsham's wheel shop on the Placentia/Yorba Linda line. I remember it as Custom Wheels in Placentia. The surviving online record calls it Coast Wheels over in Yorba Linda and says the initials stood for "Custom Works." Where the record and my memory don't line up, I'll say so plainly — and if you bought wheels off Worsham's counter, settle it for me. Either way, the race brand launched around 1980, and CW's run in the sport — including the team that signed Pistol Pete — is its own chapter.
RRS — the Schwinn stores that went racing
Riverside and Redlands Schwinn was the Kundig family's pair of Schwinn shops — Joe Kundig had turned Redlands' old Griswold's Sporting Goods into a Schwinn franchise back in 1969. The stores started the RRS Racing brand, whose 1980–81 frames ran a signature eccentric bottom bracket, and whose 24-inch UNCruiser is remembered as the bike that changed cruiser racing. Lee Medlin — the Corona kid — rode for RRS in 1982, including the NBL's Ascot national.
Peddlepower — one shop, three brands
No single counter put more history into this sport than Peddlepower in Orange. Steve Rink ran it — the same Steve Rink who helped build the first Torker prototype — and out of that shop came the SR frame in 1977, which became Powerlite by 1979. When Powerlite outgrew the shop, the family sold Peddlepower. It passed to Jeff Bottema of the Bottema fork family in 1981. Bottema ran the shop until 1983, then sold it to Rob Lynch, and Lynch started the Privateer brand out of the same four walls. This chapter had already put Lynch's purchase at around 1983 from its own sources, before Bill Ryan gave a year; his firsthand account, 2026, lands on the same 1983, and adds 1981 for Bottema's purchase. Only the years are known, and no months or days are claimed. (Steve Rink's son Mark also remembers a brief Bob Osborn ownership in between — one more detail we'd love a second source on.) Powerlite itself sold to GT at the end of the 80s. One neighborhood bike shop. Three brands and change.
And Lynch didn't stop at a decal on a down tube. He ran a race team out of that shop that went to the top of the country: Peddlepower was the number one bike shop team in the nation in 1986 or 1987 — Bill Ryan, firsthand, 2026, is sure of the standing and not of the year, so both are left standing. The roster read Chris Moeller before S&M, Billy Harrison before Supercross, and Rich Bartlett before Block, plus Joe Tippit, Darren Martin and Lonnie Tatton — with a girls division of Holly Dunn and Mapuana Nakii, two national-caliber Southern California racers the written record has almost nothing else on. JMC, the next shop down this page, was fabricating the custom Privateer framesets in the team's early era. The full roster, and what is still missing from it, is on Rob Lynch's page.
JMC — Jim Melton Cyclery
Jim Melton started fixing up bikes at home in 1969 and opened JM Cyclery in Azusa in 1974 — the same town where Rich Long's track would host the ABA's first national. The shop team formed in 1975, the first JMC prototypes appeared in 1976, and frame production began in March 1977. By 1979 Melton sold the shop to build JMC frames full time. The team won the IBMXF World Team title in 1982 with riders like Harry Leary and Clint Miller before the brand closed in July 1985. Melton went into the ABA Hall of Fame in 1989. Melton's shop also built for other people — the custom Privateer framesets came out of JMC in the early Privateer era (Bill Ryan, firsthand, 2026).
La Palma Cycle Center — the shop that closed
Not every shop on this page turned into a brand, and not every one of them is still standing. La Palma Cycle Center was owned by Turnell "Tuni" Henry and Richard Schaeffer, and I worked there for them — as an employee, never a partner and never a co-owner, and a secondary source that says otherwise has it wrong. The counter crew was Tommy Brackens, Kevin Hull, Sean McKinney and me. Brackens Bikes was designed and started while Tommy and I were both working out of that shop.
La Palma shut down (Bill Ryan, firsthand, 2026). No closing date is on the record, and no cause, and neither is invented here. What is known is what followed, and how fast: the next shop on this page opened two weeks later.
Power Plus Cycles — where Supercross started
And then there's mine, and it begins with that closure. Power Plus Cycles is the shop that came after La Palma — two weeks after, and that gap is the firm part of the record (Bill Ryan, firsthand, 2026). I opened it in Stanton. I put the year at 1986, but I may have been off on the year, so read that year as my recollection and not as a settled date. When my shop team couldn't land a bike sponsor, I built them one. Supercross BMX came out of that shop in 1989 — the exact same way Powerlite came out of Peddlepower and CW came out of a wheel shop. A counter, a team, and a problem worth solving. It's the same pattern that built GT, whose frames first sold through the Pedals Ready shop at Western Sports-A-Rama and Richard Long's Anaheim Cycles. Power Plus did more than sell bikes and start one: it was also where TECH Racing Pants ran from, and where TECH's heat press printed the team jerseys.
Where this runs thin — the date of Power Plus Cycles. The gap is firm and the year is not. Power Plus Cycles opened two weeks after La Palma Cycle Center shut down, so whenever a date is established for one, the other follows two weeks later. Three things bear on the year and they do not all agree. Bill Ryan recalls 1986 and says he may have been off on the year, so 1986 is recorded here as his recollection and not as a settled date. This library elsewhere dates La Palma Cycle Center to 1987 through 1989, sourced to BlackCycling — the same secondary source that wrongly made Ryan a co-owner of La Palma, so its reliability on this shop is already poor and it is not given equal weight here. And the Supercross BMX chapter has Ryan already running Power Plus when Supercross began in 1989, which sets a ceiling: Power Plus opened in or before 1989, so La Palma closed in or before 1989. No year is chosen here, and no month or closing date is guessed at.
There is one more thing about the name, and it belongs here because it is a bike shop story. Rob Lynch ran his company, Power Racing Products, out of Peddlepower. Bill Ryan's firsthand account, 2026, is that Lynch was very mad when Power Plus Cycles opened, because he thought Ryan was copying his name, and that no copying was intended. Lynch died in 2015 and cannot give his own side of it. Both halves are recorded on his page, and this chapter does not decide between them. What it will say is that the two counters kept trading right through it. Peddlepower sold TECH pants, Ryan's own brand, and Lynch used the TECH heat press at Power Plus to print his own Power Racing Products and Privateer jerseys — leaving Peddlepower decals all over the bathrooms every time he did (Bill Ryan, firsthand, 2026). No dates are recorded for any of that, and none are guessed at.
The Team Builders
Shops didn't just sell the sport. They staffed it. Sandy Finkelman ran Wheels N' Things in San Diego, built the NBA's first San Diego track at the Velodrome, and became the great team manager of the Torker factory team in 1979. In 1980 he took over the Diamond Back program for Western States Imports — stepping in after Dennis at Europa Bikes in Van Nuys stopped working with the importer — and became Diamond Back's original team manager and head of product development. A shop guy, twice over, building two of the sport's great teams.
That pattern never stopped, and I'm proof of it. Tuni Henry — the Hall of Famer — taught me to ride at Harbor BMX and co-owned La Palma Cycle Center with Richard Schaeffer, a CPA who also worked as Tuni's coach and manager. I went to work for Tuni there after I left GT — as an employee, not a partner. When that shop closed I opened my own, two weeks later. Ruben Sanchez of Bike Alley in Orange managed the Orange Y for its final sixteen years. Behind almost every track, team, and brand in this series, there's a shop counter. I was standing at one.
Worked at one of these shops? Raced for a shop team? Still have the jersey, the stickers, or the stories? Legend Bike Co wants to hear from you — the shops kept the sport alive, and this page exists to return the favor. We are especially short on La Palma Cycle Center: when it closed, why, and what its address was are all missing from the record. Its closing date would settle the Power Plus Cycles opening date too, because Power Plus opened two weeks later.
Sources: Bill Ryan, firsthand — Ralph's mobile shop, the Karen and "Big Daddy Ralph" detail, the neighborhood-shop roll call, Power Plus Cycles, La Palma Cycle Center and its ownership by Tuni Henry and Richard Schaeffer, the shop-to-brand histories he watched happen, and the Bicycle Source's Lomita origin, ACS Rotor origin, and Anaheim revival; Bill Ryan, firsthand, 2026 — the overstock-and-gusset house-brand method and the Laguna, CW, GT and JMC frames he has personally seen wearing the Hustler head tube gusset; Bill Ryan, firsthand, 2026 — the Peddlepower / Privateer factory team roster, its number one national shop team standing in 1986 or 1987 (year uncertain, both left open), and JMC's fabrication of the custom Privateer framesets; Bill Ryan, firsthand, 2026 — the Peddlepower ownership years, Bottema buying the shop from Steve Rink in 1981, running it until 1983, and selling it to Rob Lynch that year, which independently matches the around 1983 this chapter already carried; Bill Ryan, firsthand, September 2026 — that Power Plus Cycles opened two weeks after La Palma Cycle Center shut down, which is the firm point; that the year is his recollection of 1986, which he says he may have been off on, and not an established date, replacing both the late 80s this chapter once carried and the flat 1986 it carried after that; the La Palma counter crew of Tommy Brackens, Kevin Hull and Sean McKinney; and Rob Lynch's reaction to the Power Plus Cycles name, recorded as Ryan's recollection of another man's view rather than as settled fact; Bill Ryan, firsthand, September 2026 — that Peddlepower sold TECH pants, that Lynch used the TECH heat press at Power Plus Cycles to print his own Power Racing Products and Privateer jerseys, and that Peddlepower decals turned up in the bathrooms every time he did, with no dates given for any of it; BMX Racer, January 1981, page 6 — Hustler Super Pro test, photo caption identifying the ventilated head gusset, archived PDF scan via oldschoolmags.com; bmxmuseum.com (Hustler house-brand records, Peddlepower and Wheels N' Things archives); hutchbmx.com official history and 23mag.com (Hutch, CW/Revcore); the Powerlite history archive with Mark Rink's firsthand ownership-chain account; jmcbmx.wordpress.com — Jim Melton's own written history; BMX Society (RRS/Kundig family history, Sandy Finkelman memorials); Diamond Back official brand history (Finkelman as original team manager); USA BMX Hall of Fame records (Lee Medlin, Tuni Henry); contemporaneous magazine scans via oldschoolmags.com. The Norm's Bicycle, El Monte Cycle, and S&K shop names, and their place in the Azusa-area scene, are per Thomas Ainsworth's third letter to Legend Bike Co, 2026. Where the record and memory differ — the CW shop's name and city — both versions are presented.