Anyone ride BMX back in the day? Ever have your bike stolen?

[Cuda Cody]

What BMX bike did you ride back in the day?  I ask because something pretty amazing just happened....  but to get the full idea of the odds of this I have to tell you how it all started.

It's late 1983, I'm 10 years old and really wanted a BMX race bike.  It had to be GT, Mongoose, Hutch or Redline.  The following year I was turning 11 years old and hatched a plan to get a BMX bike.  A few months before my birthday I had made a deal with my dad that if I could come up with half the money for a racing BMX bike he would pay the other half.  Had really high hopes of getting a great bike.  Spent a lot of Saturdays mowing neighbors lawns and cutting firewood to save up money for the bike.  When March 1984 came around I had saved $125 and was ready to go to the bike store.  My dad was working 6 days a week so even though my birthday was on a Thursday, I had to wait until Sunday to get my new bike.  And the only bike store open was about 1 hour away in Seattle.  I remember walking in to the bike shop and being nervously excited.  But that quickly changed to disappointment when I started looking at the prices of the nice BMX bikes I wanted.  I couldn't afford to pay half of the top line BMX bikes.  The salesman came over and asked us some questions and after telling him about my dreams to race BMX and my budget he showed us a bike I had not heard of.  This bike was almost the exact same weight and specs as the high end BMX bikes, but priced a little less.  It looked amazing, had the best logo and the price was in the realm of possible (if I could get my dad to cover a little bit more than half).  My dad liked the bike too since it came with a lifetime warranty.  The salesman could see me getting excited.  He suggested that if I would be racing the bike that I should opt for the upgraded 3 piece crank model ($15 more than the single crank model).  My dad was not excited when the price jumped $15 for the "race cranks", but the salesman left us along to talk it out.  It took a little bit, but we left the store with a brand new Diamond Back Silver Streak with the factory 3 piece cranks and even the pads set!

Back home in the neighborhood I felt like I was king of the block with my new bike.  Kids were in awe of it and I knew the girls thought I was cool.  Building jumps and riding all the trails around the neighborhood I was sure I was going to win every race I entered.  After a good bit of practice around my house it was time to enter a real BMX race and put my race bike up against the other brands.  The once a year big Maple Valley Days was about 30 minutes from our house and had a custom bike track set up for the BMX race.  I entered and showed up with my motorcycle helmet ready to start my racing career.  Totally forgot that I needed a number on my bike, but that didn't to seem uncommon since they had a pile of paper plates at the check in table.  Don't recall what number they issued me probably because I was so nervous about seeing all the bigger kids taking practice laps on the track.  Started to get pretty scared as race time got closer, but without ever being in a real BMX starting gate I managed to muster the courage to line up with the more experienced kids my age.  My age group class was so large they had to divided it up in to several smaller heats to get us all in the race.  After racing a few heats I was able to make it to the main event.  Didn't get a great start when the gate dropped but ended up making up ground and finishing 3rd.  Got a huge trophy for the effort (back then they only gave out trophies for 1st, 2nd and 3rd) so I was super stoked (you can see the blue trophy on my headboard of my waterbed when I was a kid). 

Later that year I added Bunny Pegs to the back of my bike (not sure what they were really called) but that made it so I could give rides to someone standing on the back wheel bolts and holding on to your shoulders.  They were easy to take off when I needed to go racing.  There was a pretty girl that would come up for the summer from California and I loved it when she would ride on my bunny pegs while holding on to me.  I was 13 and she was 11 years old.  If I rode fast she would have to hold me a little tighter   That summer was one of the best.

When not in use my bike would spend most of it's time stranded on it's side right where I jumped off of it laying on the ground.  Mostly in the garage where my mom's cats lived but sometimes in the grass or driveway.  We had one of those garages that the door would tilt up and over as one flat large door.  So we had to leave it cracked open about 6" so the cats could get in and out.  Then it happened.  I came out to get my bike one day and it was gone.  It didn't dawn on me right away because I thought I must have left on the side of the house or at a friends house.  So I started to look for it.  It wasn't anywhere to be found.  Theft wasn't an issue since we lived in a small neighborhood that everyone knew each other.  But it was an issue this time and my bike was stolen. That's when I had to tell my dad.  I was crushed.  The police officer that took the report told us it was most likely a friend or someone that knew me and the bike.  I could not believe that.  There's no way that someone who knew me would take my bike and no way it was a friend.

A couple more years went by and that's when someone told me what happened.  The cop was right, it was a friend (well, someone I was a friend) that took it.  He came over to my house to hang out and when I didn't answer the door he was leaving and saw his opportunity.  He grabbed my bike and road back to his house with it.  He quickly took it all apart and started selling parts off it.  By the time I found out it was long gone.

Fast forward to Oct 2015 and my father passes away.  Going through all his paperwork he kept over the years I find the original receipt for the Diamond Back Silver Streak!  I had no idea he kept it all those years, but it does not surprise me since it was a huge purchase for our family at the time.  Armed with a serial number I started to look for my old bike.  Around 2016 I posted a copy of the receipt on a Diamond Back Facebook group and shared my story in an effort to find my old bike, but the bike was nowhere to be found.  Over the next several years I search Cragislist and eBay daily for my bike.  I reached out to the guy that stole it to see if I could get a lead on it, but he ghosted me.  The years started piling up and I had given up on finding it.  Then a couple weeks ago I get a facebook message from a guy in the UK.  He tells me that he runs a website (https://oldschoolbmx.uk/) that has a decoder for Diamond Back serial numbers so people can look up what diamond back frame they have.  He checked my Diamond Back serial number found on the receipt I posted on facebook and discovered that someone decoded my old bike's serial number about a year ago and their IP address came from Colorado in the US.  He tells me the guy that decoded the bike put his personal email in when he decoded it.  He can't give me the guys info, but offers to reach out to him for me!  Next thing I know I'm getting a call from a guy in Colorado.  The guy from Colorado tells he thought it was a scam when he got a message from a guy in the UK asking about his bike but when he saw the receipt with the same serial number of a Diamond Back Silver Streak he just bought out of Washington State last year (where I live) he took a chance and called me.  It didn't take long for us to hit it off since he was a car guy too.  He's telling me about how he thinks things work out the way they do because things find a way to get where they belong.  He shares a wonderful story about how he had found his old Super Bee he owed way back in the day and the guy that had it worked with him to make sure he could buy it back.  He goes on to confirm he has my original bike.  He knows he could get a pretty large amount of money from me since I have to have the bike frame back, but all he asked for was a fair trade for a similar condition bike frame in exchange.  Within a couple weeks I had shipped him a nice replacement bike frame and he sent me my original Diamond Back Silver Streak.  What's the odds of getting my original bike back!!!!  Since getting it back it's now sleeping in my bedroom and it will never sleep in the garage again.

Do I ever wonder what happened to the pretty girl that would come up from California for the summers and rode around on my bunny pegs?  I don't have to wonder.  She sleeps in my bedroom too.    I never let her get stolen!   What's longer odds?  Meeting the love of your life when you're 13 years old and being together ever since or finding the BMX bike that was stolen 36 years ago that I used to give her rides on?  I'm not letting either of them go for the rest of my life.

[Jay Bee]

Well if that isn't a "feel good story" I don't know what is; not to mention all the stars that aligned. Finishing off with "the girl" was the icing on the cake. Thanks for sharing.

[anlauto]

Wow Cody.....what a fantastic story....at first it was bringing back all sorts of memories about my BMX days too...but the closest thing I came to a Diamondback was a poster in my "bike shed" .....never did I meet a girl with my bikes....
I raced several times as well, but never really got into it, didn't really have the support I needed to get to the races...I remember being in the lead of one race and letting it coast for the last ten feet or so, and getting past then having to settle for second place...talk about a life lesson there...

Only had one bike stolen and that was outside a convenience store while I was inside looking at magazines....turns out it was stolen by a "friend" as well...my older brother ended up finding it...

[cuda hunter]

Congratulations!!  That's pretty cool!

[blown motor]

Awesome story Cody! Thanks for sharing.

[Deezel]

What an awesome story!
Congrats for not only finding your old bike but having it returned as well! 

[Cuda_mark]

That's an awesome story! I was into bmx bikes as well (freestyle). All of my friends had Redlines, GTs or Hutches. I couldn't afford that and my parents certainly weren't going to buy me one so I scored a very unique Reach Direct Link. Pretty uncommon bike and it was mainly for bmx racing and not freestyle, but I made it work. It was stolen 2 times, the first time I got it back but the 2nd time it was gone for good. I have some old pictures somewhere of me pulling off a sick decade. I'll have to find them.


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[Moparmade]

Great story cody I got a story like that but never got the girl and never raced my bike but lots of good memories racing it threw the woods on paths or dirt roads with friends but still have it needs restored tho.haha

[floorit426]

"If I rode fast she would have to hold me a little tighter"...Cody, you sly devil!

[Cuda_mark]

Great story cody I got a story like that but never got the girl and never raced my bike but lots of good memories racing it threw the woods on paths or dirt roads with friends but still have it needs restored tho.haha

That's a sweet ride and actually looks like it is a pretty solid survivor. 1984?

[70_440-6Cuda]

@Cuda Cody great story and well written - I thoroughly enjoyed this one!  I didn't race, but also had a similar desire to only have one of those cool brand name bikes my friends had - finally got my Diamond Back in Jr High around '84 as well.  And yes, mine was sadly stolen a few short months later - a friend and I rode to the local hang out spot, locked up out bikes and when we came out mine was gone.... always suspected that was a set up

thanks for posting!

[tparker]

Cool Story. We could never afford great bikes. I remeber some of the cool ones one you mentioned but the Dimond Back was always the bike of choice unless you could spend the big bigs and get Mongoose or Ridline. Or atleast that is how I remember it. We had lots of bike riders in town in the early 80's. In 6th grade we made a movie with our teacher and a couple of the kids were crazy BMXers and did a bunch of stunts for it. Your story takes me back a little. They say you get what you give. Apparently you have some good Karma.