2008 Redline Raid

As parents, we all want our kids to have it better than we did, and I've succeeded in at least one respect: My son has never had to ride a squirrely yard sale special or department store bike.  No sir, my son started on a Redline, a fact I can appreciate even if he cannot.

This is the boy's first 20", and it's the bike that reignited my own interest in BMX.  Our usual routine is that he rides it to school with me jogging along, and I ride it back to the casa.  It's way too small for me, but I used to start at the crosswalk in front of his school and try to outsprint traffic until the next crosswalk about 200 yards away, much to the amusement of bystanders.  The crossing guards were not so amused, however, and put a stop to the racing.  But I still ride it home, as well as on neighborhood errands.  I'm pretty light, but even so, I'm impressed by how little flex I feel during rapid accelerations or hill-climbing on this bike.

* * * Update: November 2012 * * *

Son of Thunder has been tearing up the local BMX tracks with this bad boy since this past summer, so we added a few upgrades to the stock parts mix.  Once his hands got big and strong enough to work the hand brake, we ditched the wheelset (which had a coaster brake) for a pair of Weinmann rims laced to GT Mohawk loose ball hubs (thanks to member mitchtram for that hook-up).  I also added some Redline tensioners to handle the boy's increasing torque values.  More recently, I scored some sweek MKS Foot Jaws for gripping power from member fanofbmx.  The white seat and grips, cool though they may have been, eventually got so dirty we replaced them with black Ame Tri Grips and a Uni seat/post combo.

For a starter bike, this thing is the bomb.  It may not have the heirloom-grade frame of higher-end models, but it's served my boy well through his early racing career. And I admit it, I still take it out once in a while when the weather is too gnarly for the big $ race bikes.