BMX Society community forums: RyanPartridge - Viewing Profile

Researching the Austin Cruzer shop has become a hobby of mine. I've acquired tons of info, stories, old photos, & I'm still collecting more. When I get everything together I'll share it properly, but for now, here's a quick summary for the sake of introducing my latest cruiser build.

In the early 80's, a small bike shop in Austin Texas known as Austin Cruzer was the headquarters to a hardcore 26" cruiser scene. The shop strictly sold 26" BMX cruisers & parts. At that time, THE cruiser to have was a Cook Bros Cruiser. According to the shop owner Lynn Carter, "If you rode a KOS or Laguna, you were saving your dough to get a Cook frame and transfer your parts over."

The guys back there rode hard and jumped hard. The bike frames were cracking and being repaired so often that they decided to add gussets to the seat stay/seat tube junction. Even though many frames were gusseted by a couple local welders, Cook Bros built around a dozen or so factory gusseted frames for the Austin Cruzer shop. 9 of those factory gusseted frames are accounted for and 4 of those still retain their original finish.

My bike was originally purchased by Justin B, ex-employee of Austin Cruzer and later passed on to me. According to Lynn Carter, chrome frames weren't stocked in the shop, they were special order only and only 1 or 2 are believed to have been done. This is a very special bike to me. The original owner was very particular about the home this cruzer went to and I feel honored to give it a new life. It's also taken me on a journey through the Austin Cruzer scene and I've met a lot of good people who are still stoked on Cruzin'. After I received the frame I built it like you see it.

All finish & decals are original. Enjoy!

CBR Austin Special frame
CBR fork, early non-patent pending Uni-Clamp stem & headset
CBR Longhorn cruiser bars
Takagi Cr-Mo 180 cranks
KKT LMX Magnesium pedals
Suntour 42 chainring
Sedis 4L Special chain
Araya 7x hoops
Phil 1st gen front hub
Sachs Automatic 2 speed coaster hub
Brooks B72 saddle date stamped 1976
CBR seat clamp from Billy McIntyre
Cruiser Knobby tires

I recently got to spend a few hours BS'n with Billy Mack about BMX, Cook Bros, cruisers...and more specifically, his cruiser. His bike is the definition of survivor. It's been rode hard, jumped, thrashed, stolen, found, and rode some more. Truth is, he's probably cruisin' it to the store as I type this.

According to Billy, it's the first cruiser made. It was tweaked and adjusted to fine tune the geometry before the fixture was made off it for the production frames. In its early stages, the front end from the seat tube forward had been cut off and replaced with better sized tubing. Only this frame and 1 other were made without serial numbers before "number 1" was made.

The whole bike is tricked out with custom touches that Billy made himself, all of which are unique to his bike. Other than the tires, grips, cranks, sprocket, pedals, seat clamp and upholstery on the seat...everything else is the same stuff since the late 70's. He doesn't remember what happened to his original Dura Ace cranks and KKT pedals, and when he found a Cook seat clamp in his tool box he swapped out his old steel clamp. The front rim's outer edge is ground down from years back when he was riding home from the beach and got a flat tire...he pulled off the tire and rode home on the rim.

Here's some Fun Facts...

Billy arrived at Cook Bros in July of 1977 and was hired on as a welder. At this point, the Cook brothers had no clue that Billy raced BMX, won titles, and been sponsored by Gary Littlejohn. After a while, the Cook brothers noticed other racers and industry guys walking in the back door and talking to Billy about racing. When the brothers asked Billy why he never told em he was a known racer he replied, "You didn't ask."

According to Billy, one of the first things he did immediately after he got there was change the double clamp stem. In his opinion it sat to high up and needed to be lowered and that was the birth of the 45* Cook Slantline stem. The first Slantline stems manufactured for a handful of months were only stamped "Cook Bros. Racing". After that, all the rest would include "Patent Pending" below for the rest of their production life. When he first showed up at a track with the new stem, it was all covered up with tape and a pad. When it finally made its first appearance, folks thought his regular Cook double clamp stem was bent from hard landings.

The slotted "crush proof" brake bridge came about when Billy had trouble adjusting his brakes. He liked to run his back wheel forward most the time, but when racing downhills preferred a longer wheel base. So he came up with the idea for a slotted style bridge that allowed the adjustment freedom he needed.

The bars on his cruiser are his original junior sized McIntyre Replica bars. He said that back in those days you had to bend your own brake levers. He never could get em to work right since they ended up getting clamped on the bend, so he took some 5/8" chromoly tubing from the rear stays and gave it a 3" radius bend on one side. This gave him 1" of straight area under the grip area bend to clamp his lever to and position it right.

Billy also noted that he had nothing to do with the Cook laid-back seat post. In fact, he always hated it. For him it sat too far back and looked ugly. He wanted to continue making high quality, good looking stuff for Cook Bros and that seat post didn't fit in.

It really is a special bike and Billy is a super nice guy and very cool to talk to. He remembered the tubing thicknesses throughout the frame and showed me where he thought the weak points are. Also pointed out where mistakes were made in locations of the bends. It was rad he was so willing to share stories and geek out with me on this cruiser stuff. He's a top quality dude.

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The fork is fitted with custom "cooling fins" and dropouts made from solid one piece stock.

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The bolt-thru axle threads into the left dropout.

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The idea behind the tensioners was to keep the rear wheel from slipping forward, not to adjust the chain.

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The base of the seat is made from the same "cigarette box" square tubing that was welded between the 20" chainstays and bottom bracket. The triangle braces were taken and modified from the base of the Cook Bros 1st gen double clamp stem. Eventually the seat itself was torn to shreds from years of use, so he recently had it re-upholstered.

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"FW" welded on the bottom bracket.

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This is the earliest photo I've found of Billy riding his cruiser. On the day of this jump, Gary Cook made him remove his custom parts for the photo shoot. Billy says that photos of his custom forks later showed up in a magazine and Cook was pissed. I can only imagine all the letters they got from kids wanting those forks.

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Here's my 1982 Laguna cruiser build, hope ya'll can dig it.

I found it looking like a crusty the clown/cotton candy nightmare. Changes had to be made...

As found.

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After...

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Parts:

82 Laguna 4130 Chromoly frame
Tange fork
Tuf-Neck Pro Model
VDC chrome steel non crossbar cruiser bars
Takagi MX cranks
3 Arrows Sprocket
Tange 28tpi BB
KKT rat traps
Sun Metal Products rims laced to Sturmey Archer drum hubs

I woke up yesterday around 5AM to get the coffee percolatin' and check emails. I find a PM waiting for me on bmxmuseum from a fella named Jay in Australia that basically says, "Hey Ryan, since you're into cruisers check out this link...". It's an ad posted the night before for a Laguna cruiser and a phone number.

Next thing I know I'm driving 6 hours to Modesto, CA to pick up this heap. What can I say...the price was right...

4130 Laguna frame
Rear hub dated 12/79.....front dated 12/80
B.S. stamped Dirt Skirt
Persons seat

Seat post is stuck. I hit some of the surface rust on the Cook Bros fork with some 0000 steel wool and it shined up like new. Stoked!


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