What was Ultramax in BMX?

Ultramax was a Southern California BMX components company founded and run by Don Parscale, best known for a tubular one-piece crank marketed in 1982 as the world's lightest BMX crank, and for seatposts. Parscale also ran a factory race team from late 1981 to late 1983.

Who founded Ultramax?

Don Parscale, an engineer, founded and ran Ultramax, also documented as Ultramax Distributing.

Did Ultramax make anything besides cranks?

Yes. Ultramax also made seatposts during its early-1980s run. By the mid-to-late 1980s, the Ultramax name appeared on a separate line of chromoly freestyle frames, including the ST, ST Styler, and Pro ST, advertised through 1987. Period sources do not spell out how directly that frame line connects back to Parscale's original crank operation, beyond carrying the same name.

Why are Ultramax cranks so rare today?

They were built to be extremely light, which made them prone to bending or breaking. Few survived hard use, and collectors report that only a small number of sets have traded hands over the past several decades.

Ultramax — Don Parscale's Featherweight BMX Cranks, and a Freestyle Frame That Borrowed the Name

Ultramax

Don Parscale's Featherweight BMX Cranks, and a Freestyle Frame That Borrowed the Name

A Legend Bike Co. brand history · researched from period advertising and the BMX collector record

Before we get into what Ultramax was, it is worth saying plainly what this page is not: a page about golf equipment, batteries, or any of the other products that share the Ultramax name outside BMX. This is the Ultramax that raced, and it starts with one man's crank design in a garage rather than a boardroom.

An engineer's crank

Ultramax was founded and run by Don Parscale, an engineer by trade. The company's signature product, and the one it is remembered for today, was a BMX crank built as a single welded tubular unit rather than the forged or cast designs most other companies were selling. The construction was distinctive: individual pieces welded into one tube, a double-pinned and welded threaded sleeve, pedal bosses welded in place, a sprocket pin attached, and the whole assembly heat-treated and finished in a coating rather than chrome. A September 1982 print ad sold it plainly as the world's lightest BMX crank.

That lightness cut both ways. The cranks were fast and stiff enough to win races, but the same thin-wall construction that made them light also made them fragile. They bent and broke more easily than heavier cranks from other makers, which is exactly why so few have survived. Collectors who have tracked the BMX market for decades report only a handful of sets changing hands over that whole span, and rider-etched team sets, with a racer's name alongside the Ultramax name on the crank arm, are rarer still.

The factory team

Parscale ran an Ultramax factory race team from late 1981 through late 1983, a two-year window that lines up with the crank's period advertising and puts Ultramax squarely in the wave of small Southern California component makers competing directly against bigger names like Redline and Profile through the early 1980s. Beyond the crank, Ultramax also sold seatposts during this run, remembered by riders mainly for holding up better than the competition.

A second life on a freestyle frame

By the mid-to-late 1980s, as BMX racing gave ground to freestyle, the Ultramax name turned up again, this time on a line of chromoly freestyle frames: the ST, the ST Styler, and the Pro ST. A full-page color ad for the Pro ST ran in BMX Plus in October 1987, positioning it against mid-level freestyle frames from Skyway, GT, and Haro. We have not found a period source that explains the exact relationship between this frame line and Parscale's original crank and race-team operation beyond the shared name, so we are presenting them as two chapters of the same brand rather than claiming a confirmed direct line between them.

What we do not know: we found no birth date, hometown, or fuller biography for Don Parscale beyond his role founding and running Ultramax. A community tribute post exists marking his passing, but we could not independently verify a date from it, so none is given here. We also could not confirm the exact link between the early-1980s Ultramax crank and race-team operation and the later-1980s Ultramax freestyle frame line, beyond both using the same company name during overlapping years in the same BMX market.

Where Ultramax fits in the bigger story

Ultramax sits alongside the wave of small Southern California parts makers, alongside names like Profile, Bullseye, and Cook Bros. Racing, that supplied BMX racers directly rather than through a bigger bike brand. The bigger arc is in our History of BMX series.

Sources

vintage-bmx-ads.blogspot.com, World's Lightest BMX Crank, Ultramax (BMX Plus, September 1982), for the original crank advertisement and marketing claim. bmxmuseum.com, Ultramax bike-database entries and forum threads, including the 1987 Ultramax ST Styler build and the 1987 Ultramax Pro ST thread, for the freestyle frame line and construction detail on the crank. bmxmuseum.com forum threads on rare Ultramax cranks, for the factory-team window of late 1981 to late 1983, the coating and etching detail, and the crank's reputation for breaking and bending. A community tribute post identifying Don Parscale as the founder of Ultramax Distributing was located but not independently corroborated for biographical detail. oldschoolmags.com and bmxsociety.com were checked first per this library's standing research order; neither site's search index surfaced a dedicated Ultramax company history, so the period advertisement and the BMXmuseum.com collector record carried this page.

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