Two Wheelers

A Legend Bike Co. BMX history chapter · researched from museum, catalog, and BMX Society community archives

Two Wheelers is one of the small handful of brands that were there at the actual start of BMX frame manufacturing - not building parts for a motocross crossover crowd, but building a purpose-made race frame from the beginning. Marshall Wheeler's Stroker showed up in print in March 1975, the same opening stretch of BMX history that produced Redline and Mongoose. The name causes real confusion today, and this page exists partly to sort that out.

What Two Wheelers actually was

Two Wheelers - written "Two Wheeler's" in some period and museum sources - was a California BMX frame brand founded by Marshall Wheeler, documented from the early-to-mid 1970s. Its first frames, the Stroker I and Stroker II, were advertised in BMX News in March 1975 - placing Two Wheelers among the first wave of dedicated BMX frame builders, alongside Redline and Mongoose, both of which also trace their earliest rigid BMX frames to 1975. The Stroker II's square-tube design became the template the brand built its later models around.

The RC Cola/Two Wheelers Race of Champions

Two Wheelers put its name behind one of the more visible amateur race series of the era: the RC Cola/Two Wheelers Race of Champions, a seven-race NBA series pairing the soft drink brand with the frame builder. Six regional qualifying races were held across California and Arizona, leading to a championship event on May 15, 1977, at Ascot Park in Gardena, California - a venue that hosted a fair share of early Southern California BMX racing. Marshall Wheeler's own profile in the sport went beyond the business side; period and community accounts describe him as an active rider and promoter in the same stretch of years, though the specifics of his personal competitive record are not independently confirmed for this page.

Not to be confused with

Four different BMX-era names cluster around the word "wheel" or "wheeler," and they are not the same business:

• Two Wheelers (this page) - Marshall Wheeler's California frame brand, documented from March 1975.
• TW Racing - James Taylor and Brian Wimple's Walnut Creek, California brand, documented from about 1979 to 1981, and the brand that gave Pete Loncarevich one of his first factory rides. A different company, a different era, and a different part of California - covered in full on its own Legend Bike Co. page.
• Two Wheeler Dealer - a still-operating retail bike shop chain based in Brea, California, founded in 1981. A modern bicycle retailer, not a 1970s BMX frame manufacturer.
• Wheeler-Dealer Bicycles of Fort Lauderdale, Florida - an early sponsor of racer Tim Judge in 1976, on the opposite coast from Marshall Wheeler's California operation and with no documented connection to it.

What we don't know

• The exact founding date of Two Wheelers - the record supports "early to mid 1970s" with the first confirmed ad in March 1975, not a precise start date.
• A full factory model lineup beyond the Stroker I, Stroker II, and later Super Stroker variants documented on surviving bikes.
• Marshall Wheeler's personal racing and promotional record beyond his connection to the Race of Champions series.
• When Two Wheelers stopped building BMX frames.

Related Legend Bike Co. chapters

The History of BMX (1970–1995) · TW Racing · Redline · Mongoose · Tim Judge

Sources

bmx-catalogue.com - Two Wheelers brand page, confirming the March 1975 BMX News debut of the Stroker I and Stroker II and the square-tube design lineage. bmxmuseum.com - "Two Wheeler's" brand and model pages documenting surviving Stroker II frames from 1975 and 1976. bmxsociety.com community forum, "How about a complete Two Wheelers thread?" - period recollection confirming Two Wheelers' place among the 1975 wave of BMX frame builders alongside Redline and Mongoose, and the RC Cola/Two Wheelers Race of Champions series details, checked via search snippets rather than a full page fetch. Legend Bike Co. - TW Racing and Tim Judge chapters, cross-referenced to confirm these are separate businesses from Two Wheelers.

← The History of BMX (1970–1995)