GymEdsBikeShop.com - 1985 Huffy

The 1985 Huffy wasn't a high-end BMX bike by any means, but it's what I had and became part of my freestylin' years in the mid-80s. GEBS rebuilds a little BMX history, and I have some fun reminiscing about the glory days. Watch the video to find out if I can still pull off my favorite freestyle trick the gnarly "Surfer" after all these years, and read an excerpt from my book about "The Freestylin' Summer!"

Finally, I had pulled it off! I was standing up in the air like a surfer on my BMX bike—my arms spread out like a hawk—with one foot on my seat and the other one on the handlebars. That's what the old school flatland freestyle trick was called in the 80s, a Surfer—BMX is short for bicycle motocross. I can't tell you how many times I busted my skinny you-know-what, trying to learn that trick in the parking lot behind the church. My foot would slip off the handlebars or I didn't have enough speed, and I'd lose my balance trying to stand up and crash to the ground. My audience was the cackling buzzards perched on the electric power lines above me. We called them the county sanitation department, and I must have looked tastier than the flattened roadkill roasting on the hot asphalt of nearby Highway 457...

I saved every dollar I earned during the summer of 1985—mowing the church lawn and picking up pecans from the trees down by Caney Creek to sell. As soon as I had enough money, I'd go to the bike shop and buy a new GT part to upgrade my Huffy. One of the shops was Sonrise Bikes & Boards, owned by this rad surfer dude named Steve. My friend Dewayne worked for him at Sonrise for a while, repairing bikes and selling surfboards. I rebuilt my Huffy one piece at a time. Johnny Cash would've been proud. It wasn't long until I had a bike that could hold up under the freestyle tricks I was learning, and it was bitchin'! Uh, I mean, rad—it was rad! The freestylin' summer was one of the best...

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