RAD!!!!!

[FSHUM]

http://www.billallenrad.com/RAD.html

[RaidenHayden]

That movie wasn’t the best marketing tool BMX had!! And that is being kind

[dunrite9]

There was as BMX in Rad? 😆

[FSHUM]

Hey,
is that picture taken from one of the scenes in the movie? 😆

[CrazyCraig]

Makes you wish Hal Needham would have kept it real, he might have actually made more money on the movie!

About the only thing worse he could have done was put his friend Burt Reynolds in the lead role, and don’t think the thought didn’t cross his mind!

[theanimalsalzmann]

I kinda cringe when I say this but “BMX Bandits” was a better movie. Then again, I like just about any movie with Nicole Kidman in it.

[Caveman]

BMX Bandits was a better movie?!?!?!? I just bought that on DVD this year at my supermarket. That was pretty bad. The retarded sound affects they added when kids were jumping. The kid that looked like Dale Holmes making corny remarks throughout the whole movie.

Rad on the other hand was the shizz and very realistic. I always eat cereal with my gloves on. You have to admit those slow motion shots of the guys riding the quarterpipe in the opening credits are gorgeous.

Send me an angel

[FSHUM]

The fact is, is that those movies got the idea of BMX out to the mainstream as an actual sport. Of course There is gonna be some corny stuff that is not reality to a true bmxer, but ya gotta make the movie so all different people can relate to it. People who make movies still want to make as much money as possible. If they wanted to stick to exact roots of bmx, they would make a documentary. Both those movies rule, and I think that they are great classic memories for the bmx racing community. It’s the corny, unbelievable parts that makes us be able to look back and laugh at them even more today. I live for making fun of that stuff, mostly because I love kicking back to the times that surrounded when I would watch those movies. (five, six, seven years old).
I guess it could give me a different feeling because I got to watch it so young. Maybe, for sure, you guys who were teenagers when it came out might be coming from a different point of view (like, maybe, you thought they were really corny or something), but I’m giving you my perspective from my age range, and what role those two movies played in my life.
I know that my grandfather taped the bmx bandits for me when I was five, 1987, the year I started racing. (I watched it on a kodak tape, I think I still have it). He died when I was seven from lung cancer, and I know for sure that I did not get to see him for the last year of his life. Because I was so young I have a vague rememberence of those time, but they were special to me, and they are part of me. Rad rocks, and so does bmx bandits. deep down inside those two movies played a role in many of the old school bmxers lives in one way or another. They give us something to kick back to. (I know that I saw supercross the movie, in 2005, and that is not nearly as influential as RAD was. http://www.billallenrad.com/RAD.html

[s4lnj]

i’ll bring this post back to life– i watched rad like twice a day back when i was a kid– i’d watch rad, then ride to the dust bowl and hang out with lenny, and pogi. and fshum is right– it was “supercross” or “grind”– just twenty years earlier—

[bmiddaugh]

Wow, Frank, that was pretty inspiring.
Back in my young days there was a special on tv that had a very young eric rupe in it about a kid who’s father made him a bike and learned the value of sprotsmanship. Man that was like 1979.
Those who gre up on this have a different perspective than those who didn’t, I think that is all I can really say.

[ErickWeinstetter]

On my site Catalog of BMX im have a movie section, I think Ive seen every movie or TV show with BMX racing. Let me know if Im missing any.
Brett that movie you are talking about is “Loser takes All”

http://www.catalogofbmx.com/movies.html

[CrazyCraig]

Eric –

I don’t if it counts, but back in the 80’s, I think it was 1984, one of the 3 networks did a Kids on Kids special featuring BMX as one of its three stories for the show. It was filmed at Braddock. I think it was ABC or NBC. I gotta believe that wasn’t the first time something like that was done. I keep telling myself I gotta track it down. I was fortunate enough to be featured in two of the race clips used on the show. Very cool hearing “Crazy Craig in the lead” on national TV.

[ErickWeinstetter]

Yeah Craig thats aweesome. Who knew BMX would be about the memories as well as the good times or we all woulda made sure to save all that stuff.
Ive seen BMX countless times on shows like that or Americas Funniest Videos showing crashes or stunts gone wild.
Once the vid was of the gate not going down and all the riders flipping.

Funny I guess but I see that and just go ouch. Ive only been called once for jumping the gate. It was at Cedar BMX and my tire actually touched the ground on the other side of the gate before it dropped and I still didnt crash. But I got DQd.

I actually got started in BMX by watching a TV commercial in 1978 for the NBA Schwinn tour. I was sitting in my Basement watching cartoons and go Mom OMG mom you gotta take me. They are having a BMX Race in Vineland. Had no Idea what real racing was but me and my freinds rode trails and had built a drop off in the woods and a berm in the cornfield that was like 1 foot tall and more of a rut that tracked your tire but my freind who had a Mincycle magazine that had a CYC Stormer advertisement (circa 1976) told me that was called a berm. This was probably in 76 or 77.

It was that freinds bike I bought late in 77 or early 78, from Paul “dont call me Skippy” Varadi that I raced. I had just gotten one issue of “Bicycle Motocross Action” and had already bought from that issue a BMX Products Gold Stem and Blue alloy bars trying to build a Team Mongoose piece by pice lol. I put that on the Schwinn Stingray Paul had fixed up with paint and carlise knobbys and ten speed pedals and seat. Cranks- what were they 160 1 pc cranks lol? Gearing- lol what ever came on the stingray including the coaster brakes. I had the best BMX bike I had ever seen till I got to that race.

The funny thing is in 1979 in the very spot (an abandonded Cornfield) my freind showed me how to make a berm (LOL he was so far off). I ended up building a 1,000 foot practice track complete with a 2 man gate.

I have pictures of me riding it in 1980 on my Torker in my Langley’s (Vineland, NJ) Bike shop team jersey. Need to get a scanner. I also have a pic at Lawville of two freinds from Martys Bike shop team, 1 had on the Torker jersey I had given him when I got picked up by Langleys.

[CrazyCraig]

Post the pics!

[Author]

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