race-pace.net: 1985 BH Trickstyler Refurbishment

Chatting over dinner with my mum in readiness for my brother moving to Australia, she mentioned a BMX that had been in her loft for over 25 years and whether it should go to the dump or not.

Imagine that, a loft find of a retro BMX. My ears immediately pricked up, I had no knowledge of the bike still being up there. My brother was for taking it to the dump, I said I'd have it and maybe thing of refurbishing it.

Going Back

The bike was bought in Halfords on 06/01/1985 for £144.95 (my mum still had the original receipt and point of sale card which I now have for provenance). Back in the day, I was a keen BMX rider, owning a Mongoose Supergoose and an ET Edition Kuwuhara and I remember this bike coming home and my younger brother bombing round on it.

Original Till Receipt and Point of Sale

It was a lovely looking thing, bright orange in design and functionally it was a trick bike, with double rails for standing on. I had no idea when we did the loft clearance what condition the bike would be in, as it turned out, it was pretty poor.

What A State

This is what I picked up. A wreck of a bike, full of rust and a myriad of parts which my brother must have fitted when bits fell off. It was going to be a bigger project than I thought.

Nevertheless I set about detailing all the parts I'd need to bring in back to new. New Skyways, a back to metal re-spray, decals, in fact every part other than the frame, forks, bars and saddle post. I was able to find a lot of the parts on eBay, it's surprising how much retro stuff you can find. Some bits were more expensive than others it's fair to say.

The seatpost was stuck fast and thanks to the chaps at The Fell in Whalley, after much cajoling they got it out and the frame went off to the paint shop (involved heating up the frame with a blow torch and some muscle).

This was then my first problem, sourcing new decals. Googling the bike, you find very little information/images, just a few reference points. It's a rare bike, very little info exists on the web about it.

Thankfully, one of those was a link to a website in Spain where a guy had a new old stock downtube sticker (see image above). Jumping on this and make a long story short, after about 10 weeks of backwards and forwards, I got this single new old stock sticker. Cost €30 plus postage. From there, I found a guy that could recreate decals (place called Delcals) and he did a full set for me for around £28.00.

Having then had a stack of parts delivered, I was missing some key bits and hit a bit of a brick wall on a part that sits at the bottom of the bars. Then I had a stroke of luck. I bumped into former professional cyclist - Rob Hayles - at The Fell Bike and Tri superstore.

Rob has some cool old BMX bikes in his collection including a Kuwuhara ET edition and a cool Skyway (he's too cool for school). He mentioned a store in Wigan called Alans BMX who were the go to place for all old school BMX parts. Off I went to find them.

A couple of weeks later and all the bits were dropped off to the shop for the re-build and they had everything I needed. Whilst I was there they also found me some original Haro pedals, Dia Compe brakes and a Kashimax saddle, which was cool. They had stuff going back decades, what an emporium.

So, after about twelve weeks from initial pick up at my mums, the project was complete and I travelled to Wigan for the money moment - the BH brought back to life after 25 years rusting. It was catching a lot of glances in the shop and is likely that it's one of only a few now in existence in this condition.

The bike looks stunning and is back to showroom condition with every part on it being brand new. Plan is to keep the bike and roll it out for a few special occasions and let it appreciate in value. It's been great fun to do and my mum is delighted that the bike gets to live another day. Anyhow, pics of the finished bike and spec are below: -

Final Specification