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All bikes from the previous 150 years were made of crap, looked like crap and were nothing but crap. It wasn’t until the true BMX bike was born that bicycles finally became something worth noticing. Few now know the true story of how BMX was born, but I will tell you.

Most know the story of how our dark lord Sauron was destroyed when the hobbit Frodo brought his ring of power into the cracks of Mt Doom. Although Sauron was destroyed the power of his ring was not completely lost. When the ring was melted into a vast molten sea of iron and steel its power was distributed throughout the liquid metal.

Centuries later, when the metal finally cooled and hardened, a new material was born. A metal that was harder and stronger and more metal then any metal ever before known to man. That metal was Chromoly. Bike builders tried to build bikes from this new indomitable metal but they could not shape the metal into any form of a bike they new. The metal seemed to want to become its own new type of bicycle… and through the hands of great craftsmen eventually it did. Carved from the very bones of the earth, from the ashes of the cold fires of Mt Doom itself BMX was born.

His eyes pierce through your soul with the power only BMX can give.

Any BMX bike fit to carry the name BMX is made from this one deposit of true chromoly. It is true that some other bikes made from inferior materials (like the bastard metal aluminum) try to call themselves BMX bikes, but of course, these are hardly worth noting in the history of bicycling and shall never last. In recent times some bike smiths have discovered ways to even further increase the greatness of Chromoly. For instance, it is rumored that Odyssey’s patented 41 Thermal metal is really just true Chromoly mixed with fingernail clippings from the dead god-man Hercules. Whatever the case, we know that BMX has been and always will be the child of metal’s metal: 4130 Chromoly.

In the beginning, sometime in the late 60’s, BMX was young and misguided. Often imitating the popular motocross bikes of the day. However, it was quickly understood by the new followers of BMX that motocrosses influence was not needed. Suspension systems and shock absorbers made you weaker. Large banana style motocross seats made you lazy and slow. There was no place for them in BMX.

Some examples of true metal. Mongoose and Webco bikes of the mid 70’s.

The late 70’s and early 80’s brought the birth of air.

The mid 80’s brought a lot of this.

And then the BMX warrior arrived from the wastelands. Mat Hoffman. Fully armored and ready to wield the Chromoly.

Mat Hoffman pedaled through snake infested waters to an amazing 65 MPH to achieve this 28 foot air.

As far as I know BMX history ended after that.

At the end of part 1 we had just seen the invention of the bikini. Now things take a much darker turn in the history of bicycling. The bicycles arch enemy the car is born.

As if the entire world simultaneously turned 16 and started driving the exploding bicycle industry abruptly comes to a halt as the world moves to the motorcar. The bicycles clean, quiet and simple transportation for the masses is replaced by the polluting, loud and expensive motorcar. Roads originally built for the bicycle suddenly become too dangerous to ride on and cycling turns from a wildly popular form of transportation into a side show.

Bicycle riders are now captured and forced to ride around on small oval tracks for heckling motorcar enthusiast enjoyment.

The auto industry, bent upon destroying the bicycling industry which it sees as competition, declares all out war on cyclists. Bounties are placed on the heads of cyclists and points are awarded on a nationwide level for running down “road hogging bicycles”. The bicycle industry retaliates by mounting heavy automatic machine guns on to all bikes sold through the 1920’s.

This dangerous trend continues for some 40 years. Even this child’s horse themed bikes from the 1950’s comes standard with a .38 caliber pistol and top tube mounted holster.

Luckily war and bloody death was not the only advancement made in bicycle technology. Thankfully there was also speed! In an  attempt to outrun the motorcar new technology in the bicycle world is driven forward. I know this might look like a joke but this is the bike I use for hill climb training.

No seriously, in 1941 some guy rode this crazy bike 108 miles per hour while drafting behind this thing.

Outside of all the drama on the busy roads Captian J.S. Fairdale was still continuing his mission to ride to the north pole. Here he at the summit of Mt Rainier in 1945.

Bikes of the 1950’s start to get really weird and weigh as much as cars.

To keep up with 1955’s growing demand for iPod compatible stereo systems in cars the bicycle industry invents its own iPod docking bicycle.

The volume goes to a whopping 16! Way louder then 11.

A direct result of government sponsored experiments with marijuana and LSD comes this Bowden fiberglass bike from 1964.

This 1970 Chopper is mostly what I ride for my daily 30 mile commute.

The 1972 Lemon Peeler expands on the ideas of the previous chopper but introduces a dangerous spike pointing directly straight up from the top tube instead of a pad or cushion like on modern day trick bicycles.

The beginning of the important part of bicycling history is here. Stay tuned for Part 3 of Fairdale’s the History Bicycling as we tackle BMX. Coming soon…

The bicycle has been such a huge force in changing the world, yet its history is not commonly known and the impact of the bicycle can not be understated. The first roads were paved for the bicycle, cycling played an enormous part in the liberation of women, began the modern day assembly line manufacturing process years before Henry Ford,  and made personal transportation possible for the masses. Today Fairdale will begin an exhaustive several part series that will expose and explain the wonderful history of bicycling. Many hours of preparation and fact checking have gone into this informative series, we hope you enjoy.

One of the earliest known representations of the bicycle stem from drawings found in Leonardo da Vinci’s manuscripts. Orginally dated at 1493 the drawings were later believed to be faked.

Apparently the Leonardo was not actually designing a bicycle at all, he was simply trying to ease the laborious margarita making process with a motorized blender. Similar to the modern day Fender Blender above.

Oddly enough the first bicycle like device ever developed was created by accident. The legendarily well endowed Sir Edmund Hillary of Scotland commissioned a designer in 1825 to help him support his weighty man hood while walking. The designer misunderstood the written instructions and instead of a “loins” supporting device on wheels that was ordered he (through great pains) created a wheeled “lion” supporting device. Thus the first bicycle device was actually created for a large cat.  Eventually the mistake was corrected and Sir Edmund did indeed find the support he needed to carry on an ordinary life.

“Lions” or  Sir Edmund’s famous “Loins”. The bicycle can support them all.

The Smart Feller from 1829. This odd contraption was another early attempt to create the bicycle.

1835, this two person Segway never really caught on because everyone made fun of these guys for being on a Segway.

Camp Woodward X-games training camp opens its doors in 1858 to great popularity.

1880: One of the earliest known photos of Captain James Alibaster Fairdale, our namesake. His relentless attempts to ride his bicycle through the arctic tundra in hope of reaching the north pole are legendary. Despite repeated failures his indomitable spirit lives on today.

1885: An almost forgotten fact of history;  long before the Pope had an armored Pope-Mobile he would ride to battle against the devil on a specially designed bicycle.

1890: Bicycle shop employees have been playing the try-to-get-the-new-guy-to-smell-the-seat joke for over a century.

Because the Boneshaker bikes of the late 1800’s were so dangerous some company actually patented a handle bar that would fly off on impact freeing the riders legs so he could elegantly jump to safety. Seriously!

Few people know what a street shredder Dennis McCoy used to be. Here he pulls one of the first documented rails in 1896. Photo from BMX Plus!’ 32nd issue.

Bicyclists would often fight each other for rights to a smooth roadway. Not unlike today’s flatland riders and their rolling knife fighting battles over the center of that circle.

A women’s bicycle race from 1898. Until this point women had been forbidden to show their legs in anyway. The freedom of transportation created by the bicycle was irresistible to women of the age and quickly brought about a massive revolution in women’s freedoms.

Photo from 1899: A mere one year  after the women’s cycling revolution had begun and women all over the world were dressing like this so be more comfortable while cycling.

People often compare skateboarding to bicycling and debate which is better. Although it is true that skateboarding has given us the pop shuv-it and will someday give us the hover board, there is no match for the things cycling has given us. To top that list is with the advancing freedom and women’s liberation it has given the world the bikini. “Bikini” is even derived from the word “biking”.

The photo above from 1910 shows the now common place outfit we are all used to seeing women wearing while cycling. The bikini. Created in an effort to making bicycling more comfortable for women.

1894: Fixed gear hipster chick poses with her bike while smoking. Somethings never change….

All mega-corporations need a good logo. Here at Fairdale we know we are no different. Been playing with all kinds of logos lately… not sure any of these are permanent. Fun to mess around with though.

The OG logo. This logo is like close to 2 weeks old.

Eh… not so much.

Rrrrrrr!

I wanted this on to look like leaves….

…but it looked more like a dragon to me. Dragons don’t impress people the way they used to though.

Clean logo in some different variations.

Narrow?

Do you know those things where the words can flip around upside down and it still reads the same? That’s what these are.

And every company needs a mascot… this is probably to T-1 ish though.

Back to the drawing board….

Oh man, blast from the past number 2. There was a time (Jan 22, 1997 to be exact according to the date on this fax) that I really was not a fan of the then new trend of riding motocross full face helmets visorless. Ha… seems hilarious to me that this was faxed. Didn’t have the internet then… but I could still send stupid drawings electronically. Faxes and pagers…. 1990s!!

Anyway, Mat responded to my previous post about the stunt-doubling in the comments. He also emailed me this old drawing I sent him when I heard the terrible news that he had stopped riding with a helmet visor. Can’t believe he saved this… love that guy!

In honor of Mat Hoffman’s new documentary I was remembering some stories.

I don’t think many people can claim this, but its true that I was once (twice actually) Mat Hoffman’s stunt double. Back in the 90’s when I rode for Hoffman Bikes Mat got a few offers to do some TV commercials. Around that time was more or less the peak of my vert riding career and it also just so happened that I wore the same size clothes and shoes as Mat. That made me a perfect stand in for Mat… but stunt double? Well, that’s what the commercial people called me.

TV commercials are usually shot in a hurry. It takes so much money to have all that film equipment, lighting and crew on hand, so they try to get all the filming done as fast as possible. There’s so much pressure on those 2 or 3 days of shooting they can’t risk something happening to Mat and then having to shut down the shoot. So, they need a stunt double just in case.

Hollywood is f-in weird. I don’t know how people could be into acting… even that little bit of being in that world that I had turned my stomach. Well… I’ll keep my opinions to myself I guess but it seemed like I ran into every stereotypical Hollywood character you could imagine. Smoozers, losers, druggies, hanger’s on, and crazy ego douche bag directors.

I actually watched the hip young director (straight from MTV) meltdown and scream at his assistant, ” I don’t pay you to think, I pay you to do!!). It was nuts… Maybe, lets hope, on films with higher artistic value then TV commercials people aren’t so shitty to each other.

On set it was mostly sitting around for Mat and I. Even more so for me since I was never the main talent. We would just wait and wait and then someone would come running for us needing us to ride right away. On one commercial I was really bored. Sitting around for almost an entire 12 hour day. I was itching to do something. Also they had me set up on a pay schedule where I got paid a base rate to be there, another rate if they asked me to ride, and and even higher rate (and residuals) if they used footage of me in the commercial. When they finally called me out I was charged to ride. Mat had just landed a 7 or 8 foot high tailwhip on vert and they asked me if I could do that. I kind of could, or, I could only do downside whips and I had never really tried them quite that high. They threw me on the ramp and off I went. Trying downside whips the highest I had ever done and eating shit!!! I pulled maybe 4 out of 20 and was getting my ass kicked. I was exhausted and beat quick but I kept getting up and trying more and more. On a particularly hard crash I knocked my head and slid across the flat bottom on my stomach. I laid there catching my breath with my head ringing when I heard the director say, “Ok, we got the lights set, bring out Mat.”

Ha! All they had needed me to do was normal airs so they could focus and set the lighting.

On another commercial shoot they filmed Mat for what seemed like hours. They just kept asking him to do the same thing over and over. He was finally so exhausted he had to stop riding. The director was clearly frustrated but we couldn’t understand why. In typical Mat fashion he was going way higher and riding way better then he could have ever needed to. Finally the director came over to us and explained that he had been waiting for Mat to crash. It was part of his plan to have an amazing slow motion shot of Mat slamming. Mat was shocked. “Look, if I crash you can film it, but I’ve spent my life trying not to crash. I’m not going to do it on purpose and I don’t want you to make it look like bike riding is all about crashing.” The director argued with him for a bit, but Mat wasn’t budging. There was going to be no on purpose crashes. They asked me too, but if Mat wouldn’t do it I sure as hell wasn’t going to. We took our break and went to lunch.

When we walked back into the studio what we saw was fantastically comical. There was a “real” stuntman (who had never ridden a bike) wearing Mat’s clothes standing on the top of a 12 foot ladder on top of a vert ramp. He had Mat’s bike in his hands and he was preparing to jump into the ramp to his doom. He was visibly shaking.

Mat shut that down quick and the stuntman was understandably relieved to not have done that stunt. I think later on Mat finally did crash and so everyone was happy. I don’t believe that they ever used the crash footage anyway.

I think I’m going to put on a premier for Mat’s documentary here in Austin. I don’t quite have a date worked out, but stay tuned.

I’m not really sick of my city… kind of lovin’ this Austin spring to be honest… but someone some where is sick of their city and maybe somehow this will make them feel better about it.

I have really nothing to say about this. I don’t want to offend any of my friends.