BMX - Old guy and a 24"

Hey gang, i"m a 40 year old road cyclist. However I grew up racing BMX in central Florida. I'm restoring a 05 Redline MX24 Cruiser I found to kick around town with my son. I repainted the frame, added some old school decals I found on eBay, but I wanna replace the bars with a lower profile bar and I want a new saddle. What recommendations do you have and any other advice for this build would be appreciated. I'll post a pic when it's done.

nice,

the snafu seats are pretty nice. Not 'too' small like everything else you see now adays. Odyssey too.

cant go wrong with either one, they have a decent amount of seats to choose form

ill be checking back for them pictures

Good for you.

I'm forty as well, and firmly agree that you're never too old to break your neck acting like a kid again.


I was in the LBS buying an old man bike (Trek Navigator) today, and started asking about the Redline 24s. I sat on one and thought, "Hey I could do this."

So, now I'm thinking of getting a neckbreaker, er, Redline. Of course, I'll probably have to go the old school route too and get something cheap to refurbish. We have a cool bmx track here in Peachtree City, GA with old guys, young guys, and even dumb guys like myself.

It felt really good to sit on that bike, something I couldn't afford as a kid. I rode a Huffy. Total piece of crap.

Hey gang, i"m a 40 year old road cyclist. However I grew up racing BMX in central Florida. I'm restoring a 05 Redline MX24 Cruiser I found to kick around town with my son. I repainted the frame, added some old school decals I found on eBay, but I wanna replace the bars with a lower profile bar and I want a new saddle. What recommendations do you have and any other advice for this build would be appreciated. I'll post a pic when it's done.

Why not see if you could find all original stuff and make it a fully restored retro?

I did the BMX 24" cruiser thing too back when I was 40... bonding thingy with my kids (great times). I got bored of watching my son and daughter race so I joined the club and started racing too. I thought to myself this'll be easy, most of the parents I saw don't even look like they rode bikes... man, was I wrong!! Most of them we're ex-BMXers like me from way back when it all began... haha! :rolleyes:

(There a really old BMX movie called "RAD" if you can find a remastered DVD somewhere. It's really old school and so funny to watch, but surprisingly my kids think it's the coolest thing, even to this day.) :)

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FYI, there isn't an official DVD release of Rad yet, something about a licensing/royalties fight somewhere. If you want a legit copy you're stuck buying it on VHS; if you don't mind a dodgy copy, there's one floating around online that's been recorded off a HD TV broadcast and converted to DVD.

^ You know about RAD?! Ha, not many people do... :)

The local video rental in my neighborhood probably has the last surviving VHS copy in the country! They won't sell it to me no matter how hard I tried to buy it off them, they say it's one of their most popular rentals - and lots of people try to buy it off them too! :lol:

As you can imagine it's pretty munted but we still rent it out every now and then. I tell you this... even though it's so old school, I have never seen anything inspire kids to do BMX more than the opening and closing credits of that film...

... that, and creating yet another generation of kids who want "mullet" hair!! :D:D

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I still haven't seen it but I've been hanging out to for a while. I've got a copy burnt here all waiting for me to have a couple of hours spare.

I'm not really old enough to be posting in this thread, but I got back into BMX by way of restoring an 80's 'goose earlier this year. I heard about Rad from the older chaps on the bmxmuseum.com forums where I was hanging out a lot at the time.

(Also bonus points for using "munted" in a sentence)

I am... old enough I mean. :) But the topic title didn't say you had to be...

Yep, grasshopper... I was around when the first ever Shimano DX pedals came out... we were all in disbelief that a few little pins would replace all the teeth on the bear-trap pedals we had at the time. Prior to the DX, there were NO pin studded platforms ever, so they were pretty... errr, ummm, uber?

Long story short, we didn't bother with shin guards because of the little pins, that and the shoe grip was phenomenal compared to what we're used to... big mistake! Those things gouged our shins to the bone!

Do I get points for using uber in a sentence too? :D

Come back and tell me what you think, once you've seen Rad...



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Hey, I found it! :)

For your viewing pleasure... old school BMX! :thumb:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgU3pXK2Ls0

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Hey, I found it! :)

For your viewing pleasure... old school BMX! :thumb:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgU3pXK2Ls0

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Great soundtrack! Whatever happened to TUFFWHEELS? I had some on my early 80's Mongoose

http://coloredtuffs.com/

http://coloredtuffs.com/

Wow... that site takes me back... I also had a PK Ripper Quad angle. Does anyone use tuffwheels anymore or are they "out of cool?"

Only old guys with resto/repro bikes :P

another "old" roadie guy checking in here.....

kudos on your project.....i also picked up/resto'd a pawnshop 97 vintage rl cruiser, and man thats a nice ride...more roomy than a 20", and i love riding alongside/teaching riding to my nephew nowadays....i did mine as a restoration with what original rl parts i could find....except the seat....i value my comfort more than in 1982. i went with the new school stolen "hot seat"...nice and comfy.

be forewarned tho...once you get started, you won't wanna stop....the rl led to to a haro tr2.2 cruiser resto, then a 07 quadangle retro build, then a retro pk ripper....

but my first love in riding is still the 20"....try riding the skate parks...better workout than the roadbike will ever be.:thumb:

I just turned 39, and raced a Haro cruiser a few years ago. I'm hoping to get back on the track this spring. Good to see other old dudes rockin' the 24".

By the way, the Tuff Wheel design has been given a new life (http://www.tagwheels.com/).

^ Oh nice!!!

It's about time too... I love mags on bikes! :)

Hey Brian
I still ride 24 inch and I just built a Thursday 26 inch cruiser BMX with rear disc.I am going to be 46 this year and still race and jump.Been doing it for 36 years. Just go out and have fun and ride hard.
TOM

Hey Brian
I still ride 24 inch and I just built a Thursday 26 inch cruiser BMX with rear disc. I am going to be 46 this year and still race and jump.Been doing it for 36 years. Just go out and have fun and ride hard.
TOM

My son's other 20" park bike has a rear disc too! :) It's an old-school Schwinn cromo frame with a "nip & tuck + facelift.

The reason it came about was, my son is 6'-4" tall and his old Specialized was too small for him and giving him lower back pain. At the time, this was the longest frame we could find so we built this bike from scratch (father/son project). He didn't like weak brakes and I had spare MTB discs lying around at the time so in it went just for fun.

He's got another frame now with better geometry, but he went from this tire-shredder to using no brakes at all... :mad:


http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t24/Rollopics/rear-disc-bmx.jpg

how did you do the disc breaks? i have wanted a disc for years.

how did you do the disc breaks? i have wanted a disc for years.

Sorry for the late reply... not a lot of forum time for me this week.

There's a some amount of technical work involved in doing this mod, so you need someone capable of basic metal work and machining if you're not able to do this yourself.

Your biggest hurdle would be the hub, but there is a way around it. The hubs (and rims) on my son's bike are "custom one-offs" and are not available over the counter.

However, you can make your own "disc" hubs by modifying a "flip-flop" BMX rear hub (those with freewheel threads on both sides). You need to machine a threaded aluminum rotor flange and screw it on the left side. It will tighten the more you use the brake so it's likely you'll never going to be able to take it off again, which is a good thing. I've made a hub like this previously and to make sure the flange didn't accidentally unscrew during backwards braking, I epoxy-ied the threads while braking it on the bike until it couldn't tighten anymore. Then I put a permanent locator pin for good measure.

I didn't bother sourcing and modifying a MTB single-speed hub because besides being 135mm wide, they usually only have 32 holes, but most BMX rims are 36 or 48 spoke.

You need to weld a plate to the left drop-out as a mounting tab for the caliper adaptor mounts... the crucial part here is that the inner surface of that plate must be flush with the inner surface of the drop-out. The shape of this plate will vary depending on the shape of the drop-out of your bike - and the specific brake you're planning to use.

There are also certain disc-brake measurement standards you also need to adhere to, otherwise whatever you make will not be compatible with bicycle standard componentry.




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