custermustache

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCbtEPa2qCM

I raced in one or 2 of these.

steppinthefunk 

wow... pretty cool stuff.
but no protection?! not one helmet in the group.

custermustache

I must have ridden a couple of thousand miles as a kid - and I never owned a helmet. In fact, I dont' hink I owned my first helmet (a styrofoam Bell shell with a cloth cover) until 1990 something.

funrover 

Cool, that #2 did some nice saves!

mobile homeless

No one wore helmets as kids back then! That's a great movie, too, and a classic beginning although it moves to motorbikes right after. It's one of my all time favorite documentaries of that era by Endless Summer's Bruce Brown. Just a classic with great Steve McQueen footage, as well. Well worth renting.

sykerocker 

Helmets? Back then? You gotta be kidding.

Anyone kid who'd put a helmet on while riding a bicycle would have been laughed out of the neighborhood. And if he was that much of a dweeb, he'd be wearing a football helmet, which was the only kind of sports helmet available back then.

joninkrakow

Yeah, and I also took my Stingray, removed the stick shift, banana seat, hi-rise bars, and converted it to a bmx to do it. The other day, I found a '68 Stingray like mine on eBay for something like $500. Last time I looked in my parents' garage, the stick shift was still hanging from the rafters--unfortunately, they have since moved. I wonder how much that stick shift alone is worth...

Oh, and I rode better than those kids, too. ;-) Although, I am rather surprised to see the kickouts and crossover jumps in '71! My own bmx years came a bit later--mid-70s. (Think leisure suits and disco) ;-)

Is it possible to find this entire film anywhere?

-Jon

custermustache

My races were later as well.

The whole film is called "Any given Sunday" and is available on iTunes for rent.

It's a motorcycle film, however, not a bicycle film.

Still awesome

Kommisar89

Helmet? We didn't need no stinking helmets. I don't even think there were any helmets back then. Next you'll be wantin' seat belts in cars and rubberized surfaces on playgrounds. And no driving after a few beers. Jeez.

Cool video though. Early BMX. I don't remember anybody doing anything like that but I grew up in the city and we didn't have a dirt track like that anywhere. Just had to build our own dangerous stuff to jump off of

Bionicycle

I think that the number 2 kid could have done a lot better if he wasn’t trying to do so many tricks all the time… tricks don’t when races. But, maybe it was his folks who were shooting the film anyway. I had a bike set up just like the kid with the number 1 plate, same color green and all…

sykerocker 

Except that nobody called it BMX, or had even come up with the concept at that time. What it was was something very normal for the time: Kids and early teens making up for the fact that they didn't have motorcycles, wanted motorcycles, weren't about to get a motorcycle for at least a few years or a decade, and the concept of motocross bikes for kids (see all those "I wanna ride" Honda ads) didn't exist yet. There were small engined dirt bikes, of course, but they were sized for adults, not kids.

And yes, I can remember the mid 60's when I took my childhood Schwinn 20" first bike, stripped it down, had the paint shop at dad's Chevrolet dealership paint it '62 Impala dark blue, and built it into a Sting-Ray copy (Sears banana seat, used high rise bars, unfortunately the original chainwheel). My first bike build. Well, that's where it started.

Rode it to Junior High (five miles away) a lot of days in the spring and fall rather than take the bus. High School, unfortunately, was 10 miles in the opposite direction, over roads that my parents would never have allowed me to ride. Thus, my biking career was stilled for five years, until sophomore year in college.

cb400bill

The Yamaha Mini Enduro 50cc kids motorcycle was available in 1971. That is the same year that On Any Sunday came out. But there were many companies making lawn mower powered minibikes for years before that. Rupp minibikes were available in the late 60's.

Sadly, my parents wouldn't buy me any of them.

They were way too smart to do that.

Markj61

dont forget the the Hondas!
Z50 "Mini Trail" bikes came out in 1968-ish I think, Trail 70s a bit later, and these were the holy grails that me and my neighborhood roadrats could only dream of.
https://mrski.com/ct70/right.jpg

Sears, Wards and home brew mini bikes were more common in the early 70s. I remember we used to set up ramps with (swiped from construction site) 4x8 pieces of plywood, cut 'em in half and prop em up with 5 gallon buckets (also "borrowed") and make our own Evil Kneivel jumps.

PS: Head protection was usually provided by those cheap plastic souvenir batting helmets. We never saw or ignored those small print warnings printed inside.

Kommisar89

I think I remember the first BMX bikes in the late 70's. We were in our late teens by then and my friend's little brother got a red BMX bike with gold anodized components that cost $450

We were amazed at the price but not particularly interested in BMX style bikes or riding. We were already commited roadies by then.