"The Good Old Days"

Chris Blackburn a former Coast Wheels and CW team member, has kindly been through his photograph album and allowed me to post the following pictures. All the follow text is written by Chris himself. Enjoy!

1. My brand new coast wheels leathers and jersey with my bell moto 3 helmet. All were brand new. I had ordered the bw leathers without the coast wheels lettering, but hoping that one day I could be on the team. Only official members of the team were allowed to have the name on their leathers. Roger surprised me because when they arrived, the lettering was there. Yay! Roger made me part of the team. This bike was loaned to us by him for the picture as I didn't have a coast wheels bike yet. I believe the pic was used for an ad for the bike shop. Would you believe I had just gotten my hair cut?

2. Boy I was fast with my new coast wheels leathers and jersey. This was 1980, I was a 13 yr old beginner. And it had taken me 7 races to win my first trophy.

3. Roger handing me my first coast wheels bike at his coast wheels bike shop in Yorba Linda, CA. It was chrome with a mini bottom bracket. That bike would take me through novice relatively quickly to the expert class.

4. Coast wheels bike. Uniseat. Aluminium cranks. Aluminium handlebars. aluminium rims. Was trying for as lightweight as possible. 21 trophies shown. Notice the World Wide BMX sticker on the head post. Also there is a Redline Summer Series brass bronze belt buckle among the trophies in the front. I was so proud of that. All 5 of my neighbours raced and had made the main event in order to have a chance to win a belt buckle, but I was the only one who did. Redline and ABA sponsored a summer tour that season. Later that night I would win my 22nd trophy at the Corona/Norco YMCA to become a 13 year old expert.

5. Cool picture my dad did with a special effects filter. (Coast Wheels Bike).

6. Pistol Pete Loncarevich. The very best of all time. Had originally seen him race at the Corona/Norco YMCA when I was a beginner and he was a 15 expert racing for S & S. Followed his career through watching the local races and reading the national magazines. He was my hero. This pic was taken at Anaheim stadium at an indoor ABA national when he was on Diamond Back. The race was on a cement track with wooden jumps. Shortly after this, we became friends with him and his family.

7. My new CW vans. Vans shoes were the only shoes to wear back then. And vans became a new sponsor of CW. Also my first CW bike. The original frames had the oval top tube.

8. An NBL national at the San Diego downhill. Shows our leathers sponsor Aero. Had a great time because we had gone to the race with the Loncarevich family. They were always so very nice. I didn't make it out of the qualifying races. Pete of course won as always. He was especially happy because he beat his Diamond Back team mate Eddy King in the trophy dash race on his home track. Pete won a nice wooden carved clock for the trophy dash which he gave to his mom.

(Chris San Diego).

9. Tracer Finn - Racer Tracer at the NBL national San Deigo race. He was from Las Vegas. I think this was the first time I had seen him or met him. Notice the skyway rims. I think skyway was one of our sponsors for a while and Tracer got to race w/ those rims for a while. He and Roger were gracious enough to let me use them when he was finished with them.

10. Jeff Moten from AZ at the NBL national in San Deigo, CA. He was a nice guy. His dad would always smoke a pipe during his races. His dad was very nice too. I believe that is Robert Swick in the CW outfit on the outside. And #15 in the CW outfit on the inside I believe is Roger Moore's older brother.

11. Roger Worsham--The great man himself. Roger was a super terrific nice guy. He was very good to me. A very nice man. And a successful business man. I looked up to him. He always had a low key style but worked very hard. His dog was very sweet too.

12. CW trophy:-A 2nd place trophy I won at an NBL race in southern CA next to the CW team flag.

13. Clarence "Earthquake" Perry. He was from Washington state. Raced cruiser very successfully. I think that was the old 26 inch cruiser that CW first made. #1 in his home state. Notice the saber plate.

14. Earthquake Perry racing pro cruiser at the NBL national in southern CA. #58 on GT is Robert Fehd. Met him through Mike Miranda at Lake Elsinore a little bit after this. We all went for tacos one night between motos at In and Out Berger and I almost missed my race. Looks like Perry is on a brass cruiser. Brass was the rage for a while.

15. Chris Blackburn and Clarence Earthquake Perry hanging out at the Lancaster national.

16. Earthquake Perry trying the little bikes at the NBL national in southern CA. I think this is 1982.

17. My brass CW bike. Shimano DX pedals. I loved those pedals. Thought they looked totally weird at first, but they were the best pedals I ever used. When I got my red bike later, I think they were the only used item I kept for that red bike that I built from scratch with all new components because shimano stopped making the pedals and I just loved them. Had to go w/ the one piece crank because I kept bending the aluminium and was loosing too much torque. Was 15 and getting too big for all that lightweight cool stuff. Had the new CW lightning bolt pad design.

18. Billy Griggs--holeshotting the cruiser competition at the NBL national in southern CA. He was 14x. MAX leathers. CW had a new sponsor.

19. CW in its hey day at the ABA National in Lancaster CA, summer of 1982. Debbie Kalsow is on the left holding the flag. #63 is Randy Street who raced cruiser. #1 in the front is Roger Moore. Behind him standing is Tracer Finn. To the right of him standing is Clarence Perry. In front of him and next to Roger Moore is a guy I can't remember his name. I believe you seem him in that Vietnam movie made in the 80's that showed BMX in the beginning. He raced in southern CA. Behind him to the right is #21, me, Chris Blackburn. To the right of me is #16, I want to say Jerrit Justice, but am not positive. To the right of him in the blue shirt standing is Mike "Hollywood" Miranda (he was an A pro at the time and really beginning to make a BIG name for himself.) #7 in the front I believe is Roger Moore's brother. And to the right of him, I can't remember his name, but he was about a 13x who raced in Northern CA.

(CW Lancaster).

20. The CW team lining up on the gate. I think CW had won the team trophy at the last national so we got to open this national taking the parade lap with the CW flag while the national anthem played. That was a lot of fun.

21. Mike Hollywood Miranda, Chris Blackburn, Tracer Finn at the Lancaster ABA national in 1982.

22. Mike Miranda #5, A pro, pulling the holeshot out of the gate. He dominated the A pro class at the time. #4 might be Mike Poulson from Utah.

23. Tracer Finn racing.

24. Late 1982. Me with my 2 bikes. The older brass one and the new red one I had yet to race on. We had locked it up to that fence while I was racing and had a crowd standing around it when we came back. It was such a beautiful bike.

25. My new red bike. Built completely from scratch with every component selected by me. Was completely red, black, and chrome. I loved that bike. Had the new CW bars. We had sold items in several garage sales to get money for it and to afford the World Championship race in Las Vegas. It had red spoke nipples, chrome shimano rims, shimano dx pedals, redline flight cranks, Phil Wood hubs, CW frame, forks, handlebars, and seat post. Was worth about $600.

26. Chris Blackburn and Mike Miranda on our Red bikes. Most everyone was racing on chrome. Mike got a red bike made by CW. CW wasn't making painted bikes at the time and it was special ordered for him. Roger was kind enough to order one for me too at my request. But it took quite a while to come in. I had the rims probably 4 months before the frame came in. Mike picked it up from Roger at the factory and brought it to me at my house on his way home. He stayed for dinner too. That was cool. It was great we both had the red bikes. Mike was a cool guy. He and his little brother, and a friend, and I all went to Knotts Berry Farm one time. It was great fun.

27. Chris and Hollywood--Chris Blackburn and Hollywood Mike Miranda giving the CW handshake.

28. Me and all my trophies w/ the Red bike. All set to go to the World Championships in Las Vegas Dec, 1982. I think I ended my career w/ about 82 trophies. Not too bad. I got a few big ones. Pete Loncarevich had about 3 times the amount of trophies shown here. But all big ones. He was something else. He was a great guy too. He generally didn't pick up his local trophy wins anymore because he won so often and had so many, but a few times he would give me his first place trophy to help inspire me. One of the big trophies shown here is one of his from a national. He really was an inspiration and a great guy.

29. This is Chris Blackburn, Roger Worsham, Billy Griggs, and Billy's dad (Mr. Griggs). It was the Las Vegas World Championship race around December 28, 1982. It was held at the Tropicana hotel. They made a dirt track on top of the indoor tennis courts. It was a great time. I was racing 15 novice at the time and Billy was racing 14x. It was pretty cool because he would race many of his races right in front of mine. I remember he had taken 2nd in the open class. And in the main event for his expert class he had been in a secured 2nd place spot, but then went for first in the last turn and unfortunately crashed instead of taking the lead. So many times I saw him take the lead in the last turn at the local races. He never gave up and always tried to win. I told him it was a bummer he had crashed. He was like yeah. I said why did you try for the lead in the last turn like that. He said well, I knew 2nd place was not going to make me the world champion and I had already come in 2nd in the open, so I wanted to win this one and be world champion, so I went for it. I thought that was a great attitude and admired that. He was #1 locally.

30. I ended up with a 4th place trophy in Las Vegas. It was a really cool trophy because it had a coke can on it. Coke had been one of the major sponsors.

31. Unfortunately, Mike went over to race for Hutch. I think his first race with hutch was the National in AZ, probably 1983. Mike gave me his new sticker. I was sorry to see he was not on CW anymore, but still supported him. We knew riders had to do what they felt was best for them. And we were still friends with Mike. He and Tommy Brackens shared an apt in Fullerton CA and they invited me to practice with them a few times on a local dirt track in a field by their house.

I would like to thank Chris Blackburn for his contributions to this website.

All pictures and information has been donated or  borrowed.

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