The Legend of Charlie Gnarly: How BMX began...
The Godfather of BMX, Scot Breithaupt, haulin' ass and flying fast in the 1970's.
In late 2020, I compiled, wrote, and published a 263 ebook about how I got into BMX freestyle. While living in a motel room, in 10 weeks I could afford the room thanks to pandemic unemployment, I also built an online store, and used the ebook to launch it. I immediately ran into banking issues, couldn't get a "real" bank account, and had to shut the store down. That's a bummer. But here's the first chapter of that book. I was listening to Indian creation stories on YouTube, and wondered, what a BMX "creation story" would be like. So I wrote one, The seed was a story that The O.M., Scot Breithaupt himself, told me on the trip back from a race where I worked for him as a cameraman. That was in 1989. Here's my "creation story" for BMX.
A long time ago (the late 1960's), in a land far, far away from most of you (Long Beach, California), a young man was racing his Schwinn Stingray on the bumpy Jeep trails in an area of oil fields. The young guy also rode motorcycles, but it was really expensive to keep a dirt bike running, so he spent a lot of time on his bicycle, racing around on the bumpy trails. A few homeless guys lived in the bushes in that area, and no one cared much about him tearing down the trails on his bicycle.
One day at those trails, young Scot saw a scruffy looking guy with a full beard, on a dirt bike, watching him ride from a distance. One of the homeless guys, sitting up against an old shack said, "Hey kid, I'll give you a brand new bike if you can catch that guy." Young Scot didn't think the bum could buy him a bike, but maybe he could steal him one. Scot was competitive as could be, and liked a challenge, so he took off down the Jeep trail, heading straight for the bearded guy on the motorcycle. The motorcycle rider, not wearing a helmet, just shook his head, laughed, and let the kid get within about 50 feet, then hit the throttle.
Scot, pedaling for all he was worth on his Stingray, hauled ass after the motorcycle. He got close in the first turn, as the motocrosser stuck a leg out and carved the turn, sending up a big roost, showering Scot in dirt and rocks. The mysterious bearded motocrosser played with the bicyclist, slowing down a bit, letting the kid close in, then carving a turn and hauling down one of the other trails, and accelerating. In a few minutes, the bicyclist was completely winded. He coasted to a stop, huffing and puffing, next to the homeless guy by the shack who had bet him. The motorcyclist stopped 50 yards away, looking back at the kid. The bearded motocrosser shook his head, hit the throttle, and hauled ass the other direction, riding out of sight down the trails.
Young Scot fought to catch his breath. He was pissed off, he hated losing a bet. But chasing the guy on the motorcycle, hauling ass on the bumpy oil field trails was the most fun he'd ever had on his bike. The old homeless guy sitting by the shed laughed. "Kid, you'll never catch him. You know who that was? That cat on the dirt bike was Charlie Gnarly. He's the best motocross rider there ever was. He won every race there was to win. A few years ago, he up and quit, nobody knows why."
Young Scot was beginning to catch his breath. "Charlie Gnarly?" he asked.
"Yep," the old bum said, "Kid, I'll get you the best bike you ever saw if you ever get Gnarly. He's fast as the wind on a motorbike."
Scot shook his head in frustration. "I'll catch that motherfucker. I'll get Gnarly someday."
Scot kept going down to the oil field trails to ride his bike, and some of the younger local kids would show up, and race Scot, and jump off the bumps on the Jeep trails. Every now and then, maybe once or twice a month, they'd all hear a motorcycle, and Charlie Gnarly would ride up, and sit and watch them, from 50 yards away or so. The old bum, usually sitting by his shack with a bottle of wine, would yell at them, "Go get him! Catch Charlie Gnarly! C'mon kids, get Gnarly!" Scot and the whole little pack would take off, hauling ass towards the old motocross rider. Charlie Gnarly would let them get close, and then take off, winding back and forth, stopping and starting, carving turns, bouncing over bumps, and keeping the the kids pedaling until they were all out of breath. It was as if Charlie Gnarly had been born on his dirt bike, his skill amazed them, as the tried to catch him. Then he'd send up a big roost as he turned and headed off the other direction and disappeared.
No one knew where Charlie Gnarly lived, or when he would show up. Scot started riding at the trails every day, and the local kids did, too. They got faster and faster, pretending to be motocross riders, racing each other every day on their banana seat bikes. As the Spring of 1970 rolled around, Scot decided they needed to start having official races, just like the real motocrossers did. He organized races at the old oilfield trails, and called it the B.U.M.S. track. About the same time, up in Malibu, an hour's drive away, some other bike riders parents' started holding races as well. Weekly races of what they called Bicycle Motocross began to happen, and draw more and more riders on the weekends.
Still, once and a while, during the week, Charlie Gnarly would show up at the trails, and all the bicycle riders would take off after him. By that time, there were broken Schwinn Stingray frames and forks, and a few broken pedals and handlebars, littering the trails. The crazier the kids got trying to get Gnarly, the more they broke their bikes. The kids kept looking for better parts, and some of the motorcycle companies, Yamaha and Kawasaki, made bicycles that looked like motocross cycles, but they were heavy and slow, with their plastic fenders and fake gas tanks. The kids begged, borrowed, and stole bike parts wherever they could. The just wanted to ride, they wanted to get Gnarly.
One day, Charlie Gnarly showed up in the distance. Like so many times before, Scot and the other bicycle motocross kids took off after him, chasing him through the trails. Charlie took a quick left, showering most of the the pack with his roost. But this time, young Scot Breithaupt was ready for him, Scot anticipated the Charlie's turn, stuck his leg out, and turned off the trail, and cut cross country to the trail Charlie headed down next. As Charlie Gnarly looked over his shoulder at the pack of kids eating dust, Scot popped out of the brush and onto the trail right next to him. Scot wasted no time, and kicked the side of Charlie's motorcycle. Charlie fishtailed, his back tire hit a little mound, and he high-sided, and was thrown off the motorcycle. Scot skidded to a stop, not really believing he had finally caught Charlie Gnarly.
Charlie rolled and bounced along the ground, and the motorcycle careened off into the bushes. Charlie Gnarly smiled. "You finally got me kid... I had a feeling you'd do it someday. You got fire in you, like I used to." Scot watched as Charlie Gnarly got up, brushed some of the dust off of himself, and then went into the bushes, and picked up his motorcycle. He looked it over, and got back on it. Scot, very unlike himself, was kind of in shock, blown away he'd caught the champion motocrosser on his Stingray. He had finally got Gnarly. "Follow me, kid," Charlie said. Charlie rode slowly down the trails, to the edge of the oil fields. Charlie stopped, and got off his bike near an old maintenance building.
"What're you doing?" Scot asked.
"Just hang on a minute," Charlie Gnarly told Scot Breithaupt. Charlie pulled his keys out of his pocket, and unlocked a rusty padlock on the old building. He disappeared inside, and reappeared a minute later holding two bicycle frames, frames like Scot had never seen before. One was bright chrome, the other painted black, the tubes were all straight, not curved like Scot's Schwinn. Charlie held the chrome one up, "This one is made of Chrome-moly steel, it's lighter, and a lot stronger than your bike." He held the second bike up, it's down tube looked wider and flat. "This one is 6061 aluminum, it's not quite as strong, but it's lighter, and it's still a lot stronger than your bike. I call this design the double diamond hard tail. If you're going to race bicycles in the dirt, this is how they should be made. I knew you'd catch me some day, so I figured I'd design and build a couple bike frames actually made for racing. You'll be able to ride a lot harder, and a lot faster, on one of these."
Charlie Gnarly handed both frames to Scot Breitaupt. "Which one do you want?" Scot checked them both out, then replied, "I want the light one, the aluminum." Charlie Gnarly held his hand out, and Scot handed him back the chrome frame, and kept the black one.
Charlie went back into the building, and came out with a pair of chrome forks, with straight fat tubes, the legs weren't curved, they were much beefier than the forks Scot kept breaking. "These are tubular chrome-moly steel, they'll last you a lot longer than the ones you have. Take these home and build yourself a bicycle MX... a BMX bike."
"Really?" Scot asked.
"Yeah, really," Charlie Gnarly said, as he locked up the building, and got back on his motorcycle.
"Thanks." Scot said, one of the last times he was ever at a loss for words. Charlie Gnarly started up his motorcycle, nodded to Scot, and rode off. That was the last time Scot ever saw Charlie Gnarly.
Scot went on to become one of the top BMX racers, and soon started Scot Enterprises to promote BMX racing, and his riders. That soon turned into SE Racing, which invented the PK Ripper, the Quadangle, the Floval Flyer racing cruiser, and the OM Flyer for Scot himself. Scot grew a full beard, just like Charlie Gnarly, and came to be known as the Old Man of BMX, which is what the OM stood for. The fire that Charlie Gnarly saw in young Scot led to a lot of progression in BMX racing. Scot rode hard, promoted hard, and would get gnarly every time he did. That fire also led Scot to a lot of self-destruction at times, he liked to party hard as well. Scot made huge leaps forward, and sometimes reverted to self-destruction. But few people, if any, made as much of an impact on creating BMX racing and BMX bikes as Scot Breithupt. That growth of BMX racing in the 1970's set the stage for BMX freestyle to evolve from skatepark carving in the 1970's to a full fledged sport in the mid-1980's. SE racing sponsored Todd Anderson, Craig Grasso, Fred Blood, and Justin Bickel, and a few other freestylers along the way.
OK, maybe that's not exactly how it happened. That's not quite how BMX began. But it did begin in 1970, and Scot Breithaupt was a big part of it in the early years.
In January of 1989, Scot Breithaupt hired me to be a cameraman at the Reno Silver Dollar Nationals, for a TV show he was producing. Scot headed up early in the week, and paid for a rental car for me to head up to Reno that Friday, taking off a little early from my job at Unreel Productions. I wound up driving through the Sierra Nevada mountains in a blizzard, so the weekend got off to a sketchy start. I shot video of Scot, and other racers, all weekend. We made the long drive back down to Orange County Sunday night. On the trip, Scot told me the legend of Charlie Gnarly, a mythical guy who young BMX riders would chase when out riding. Every time they tried to "get Gnarly," they got a little better, a little crazier, and pushed themselves as bike riders. After a while, the guy disappeared, but every time the BMXers got crazy on their bikes, they called it "gettin' gnarly." I took a few liberties with the story Scot told me on that drive, but that's the nature of legends. Welcome to my story in the world of BMX...
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