BMX Racing History · Chapter 4 · Legend Bike Co

Torker: The Frame That Built Two Sports

Most companies in BMX history did one thing well. Torker did two. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, their factory team was the most dominant racing program in the country. At the exact same time, their factory in Fullerton, California was manufacturing the world's first purpose-built freestyle BMX frame. No other company was at both of those intersections simultaneously.

This is how that happened.

Built From Airplane Parts

Before there was a company called Torker, there was a kid named Doug Johnson who wanted a better BMX frame. His father John had spent his career as an experimental airplane test pilot for the FAA — a man who understood chromoly tubing and fabrication at a level almost no one in Southern California could match. When Doug lined up at the Lincoln Avenue track in Anaheim and looked at what everyone else was racing, John built the first prototype himself from aircraft-grade tubing salvaged from a small airplane fuselage.

The company started in 1975 as Texon. Steve Johnson — Doug's older brother — stepped in, renamed it Johnson Engineering, then settled on a name pulled from the word torque: Torker. Their mother Doris was the bookkeeper. Doug eventually ran a sister brand called MAX, which launched in 1980. From the first day it had a name, Torker was a family operation built by people who had been inside BMX from the beginning.

The first ad appeared in BMX Weekly in December 1976. The frame behind the ad: the Torker MX, a large Pro-size frame with a twin top tube design unlike anything else on any track in America. Forward-facing dropouts in the earliest version, switched to rear-facing in May 1978. Available in mild steel and chromoly. Twenty-inch top tube. A bike that looked serious because it was.

The LP and the Shape That Changed Everything

In May 1978, Torker introduced the LP — Low Profile. Where the MX was built for Pro-class racers with room to spare, the LP was refined geometry for smaller and expert racers: an 18.5-inch top tube, lower stand-over height, a frame that responded faster in corners and on berms. The LP would become one of the most copied geometry templates in BMX history.

The LP Long came shortly after — same concept, 19.5-inch top tube, a longer front end that 6-foot-3 factory rider Doug Olson helped develop through his own custom requests. His work on extended front-end dimensions fed directly into the 280X frame that came later.

By 1979, Torker had produced complete bikes — the TorkFlyte (Expert class), MaxFlyte (Pro class), and eventually the TrashFlyte — and introduced an Eddy King Replica model, a Low Profile with European bottom bracket built to spec for their first signature rider. In 1981 came the 26-inch chromoly cruiser. In 1982, the 24-inch. The 340 complete cruiser. The 280 and 280X. Torker was building bikes for every class, every size, every level of racer.

The serial number system told you exactly what you had: M for mild steel LP, E for European bottom bracket, O for LP Long, C for cruiser, R for Mini, P for Pro-X. After late 1979, serial numbers moved from the bottom bracket to the right rear inner dropout. Collectors still use these codes today to date and identify original examples.

The #1 Team in America

The first proof came in 1977, when Kevin McNeal — Torker's first big-name factory rider — won the California State Championship and the NBA/Mongoose Grand Nationals riding the original MX Big Bike. Yellow and black on top at the biggest race of the year. The program was barely a year old.

The golden era ran from 1978 to 1982. Eddy King joined the factory team in Fall 1978. He won two #1 number plates on Torker, became the first rider in the brand's history to get a signature frame — the LP Eddy King Replica, a model he had direct input on for top tube length and head tube angle — and landed the cover of Bicycle Motocross Action in June 1980 with a five-page pictorial inside. He was inducted into the ABA BMX Hall of Fame in 1989. When he left for Diamondback in October 1980, the program didn't skip a beat.

The official 1979 team photo — Eddy King, his younger brother Mike King, Doug Olson, Mike Aguilera, Jason Jensen, Doug Davis, and Steve Johnson — became one of the most reproduced images in old-school BMX. The headline that ran with it: Torker Factory Team Was #1 in America. The race results from that year backed it up.

Jason "Juicy Jaws" Jensen joined as a nine-year-old mini rider. His copper and black mini Torker appeared on the cover of Bicycle Motocross Action. Mike Aguilera was 13 when he got his factory ride; he toured the country on the Torker program, and decades later described it as a dream at that age. The 1980 team feature in BMX Plus! ran 12 pages.

The Barbarian

Clint Miller arrived at the end of 1979. His nickname was The Barbarian, and Torker leaned into it completely — the ad that defined his run on the team featured him shirtless, war-painted, styled after Conan the Barbarian, holding a Torker frame like a weapon. It was one of the most memorable pieces of advertising in the sport's history.

Miller's game was the cruiser classes. He first raced Torker's 26-inch cruiser in April 1981 and won immediately. He dominated Pro Cruiser racing for the next two years, added the 24-inch class in 1982, and appeared on the cover of Bicycle Motocross Action in February 1983. He left for Kuwahara in January 1983 — and went on to win the IBMXF BMX World Championship in Slagharen, Holland.

That pattern — riders leaving Torker and winning world titles — said something about the program. The talent was real. The development was real. It didn't just put people on bikes; it produced champions.

The Frame That Started Freestyle

In 1978, two people at BMX Action magazine — artist Bob Haro and test rider R.L. Osborn — started doing trick riding on their BMX bikes after hours. Their first public performance was at the ABA Winternationals in February 1980. The moves they were developing — spinning, hopping, lifting front wheels, working ramps and parking lots — became the vocabulary of an entirely new sport. The frames under them were Torkers.

By 1982, Bob Haro's profile in BMX had grown large enough that a dedicated freestyle frame made commercial sense for the first time. He went to Torker. The Fullerton factory built the Haro Freestyler — the world's first purpose-built freestyle BMX frame — with serial numbers ending in "F." Collectors identify the 1982 Torker-made examples as the most historically significant of all Haro Freestylers. When manufacturing moved to a factory in Taiwan in late 1983, the character of the frame changed.

Eddie Fiola's early career ran on Torker equipment. Born September 28, 1964, in Bellflower, California, Fiola rode Torker Low Profile frames in the earliest King of the Skateparks events — the competitions that invented competitive freestyle BMX. "My first sponsor was Premier helmets, then Torker — they just gave us bikes," he said in his BMXmuseum.com interview. He won the King of the Skateparks title six times and was inducted into the ABA BMX Hall of Fame as a Freestyle Pioneer in 2009.

In 1984, Martin Aparijo — the first officially factory-contracted Torker freestyle rider — co-designed the Torker Freestylist with Harold "Magoo" McGruther. It was the first freestyle-specific frame produced under the Torker name. Very few were made. In November 1984, Torker filed for bankruptcy. An original 1984 Torker Freestylist is now one of the rarest pieces in all of old-school BMX collecting.

The Torker Twins

Tommy Brackens joined the Torker factory team on October 1, 1983, coming over from Powerlite. His best friend and teammate Mike Miranda signed in January 1984. They lived together in a Fullerton apartment directly above team manager Mike McLaughlin. They traveled together, trained together, raced together. The press called them the Torker Twins.

In 1984 — the last year of the original Torker factory team — Brackens won four Pro races and Miranda won four Pro races. Neither man knew the company was about to go under. They found out from other racers at an East Coast event while the team was still on the road.

Brackens went to GT after Torker folded, won the 1987 BMXA NORA Cup (17.91% of the vote), and was inducted into the ABA BMX Hall of Fame in 1991. Miranda won the 1986 BMXA NORA Cup — #1 Racer in America — beating Greg Hill by exactly three votes. Richie Anderson "The Avalanche," and others from that final 1984 roster went on to careers that defined the sport's next decade. Torker's bankruptcy didn't end their run. It just moved it somewhere else.

November 1984

The auction happened fast. Seattle Bike Supply bought the Torker name for $3,000. Harold "Magoo" McGruther — who had raced for Torker from 1979 to 1981 and then worked at the Fullerton factory until its last day — bought his wooden desk and chair for $25.

The brand drifted. In 1986, Tioga bought the name and introduced a Torker 2 Freestyle line. Seattle Bike Supply picked it up again in the 1990s, produced alloy 20-inch and 24-inch frames, and rebuilt the program enough to sign Steve Veltman — one of the most decorated racers in the sport's history. Veltman held the 1993 ABA National #1 Pro title, won multiple IBMXF World Championships, and remains the only BMX racer ever to appear on a Wheaties box (1983). He raced for Torker under the SBS program from October 1996 to November 1997.

Matt Hadan — "The Diesel," born in Azusa, California — carried the Torker name into the early 2000s. 1986 BMX World Champion. Top national rankings in the late 1990s. He was the last great Torker factory pro before the brand slipped into two decades of irrelevance: unicycles, townie bikes, three-wheelers. The name still existed. The program didn't.

The Revival

Bill Ryan and Supercross BMX started the purchase process in 2015, acquiring the Torker name from Accell North America. The goal was straightforward: go back to the racing and freestyle roots completely, and treat the previous 20-plus years as if they never happened.

Torker officially relaunched on April 12, 2024, operating from Apple Valley, California. The current frame lineup honors every era of the original program: the EK (Eddy King), LP, Barbarian, Pro-X, Diesel (Matt Hadan tribute), Freestylist, MX26, MX29, and the Big Bike 50-Year Anniversary. Every frame is limited production. Every one ships same-day.

"It couldn't be in better hands with Bill Ryan and his team. I can't believe 43 years later I'm still as excited to be part of the Torker legacy as ever." — Alan Woods, Alan's BMX UK, Torker's UK importer since 1981

The Hall of Fame record is what it is: Steve Johnson (National BMX Hall of Fame, 2012), Eddy King (ABA 1989), Clint Miller (BMX Hall of Fame), Tommy Brackens (ABA 1991), Bob Haro (BMX Hall of Fame), Eddie Fiola (ABA 2009), Steve Veltman (USA BMX Hall of Fame), and more. No other original-era factory BMX program produced as many Hall of Fame inductees as Torker.

Timeline

• 1975 John Johnson founds Texon after son Doug wants a better BMX frame. First prototype built from aircraft-grade chromoly tubing.
• 1976 Steve Johnson renames the company Torker, from the word torque. First ad runs in BMX Weekly, December 1976. The MX (Big Bike) enters production in Fullerton, California.
• 1977 Kevin McNeal wins the California State Championship and NBA/Mongoose Grand Nationals — Torker's first big-race wins.
• 1978 LP (Low Profile) enters production at 18.5-inch top tube. Eddy King joins the factory team. Bob Haro and R.L. Osborn begin developing trick riding at BMX Action magazine.
• 1979 Torker factory team declared #1 in America. LP Long introduced. Eddy King Replica frame launched. Clint Miller joins at year end.
• 1980 BMX Action Trick Team performs first public show at ABA Winternationals. Eddie Fiola rides Torker equipment in the first King of the Skateparks events.
• 1981 26-inch cruiser enters production. Miller wins Pro Cruiser class immediately.
• 1982 Torker manufactures the world's first purpose-built freestyle BMX frame: the Haro Freestyler (serial suffix "F"). Pro-X frame introduced.
• 1983 Pro-X in full production. Haro Freestyler manufacturing moves to Taiwan. Tommy Brackens joins October 1.
• 1984 Mike Miranda joins January. The Torker Twins win four Pro races each. Martin Aparijo designs the Freestylist. Torker files for bankruptcy, November 1984.
• 1984–2015 Name passes through Seattle Bike Supply, Tioga, SBS again. Steve Veltman and Matt Hadan carry the program through the 1990s and early 2000s. Brand goes dormant by 2013.
• 2015 Bill Ryan and Supercross BMX begin acquiring Torker from Accell North America.
• 2024 Torker officially relaunches April 12 from Apple Valley, California.