I had one of the first Centurion Diamond Backs in 1978. WSI co sponsored the bike shop team Flying Dutchman Bike Shop in Newbury Park Ca. Right after that Jag came in and we went with them. That was right before Wheels and Things took it to the next level of marketing. And they had great talent with Eddy King and the Hudson Bros.
This video was excellent. All of those clips of old races with downhill sections, off cambers, puddles, and elbowing really made this video light up. I like the gnar! SUBSCRIBED!
I had a mid 80's Hot Streak on Skyway's that again... Probably gave away for next to nothing way back when. Lol! My parents bought me a Viper in like 94 or 95 after we got rear ended and my race titted Redline got hosed. But I kept that Viper around and it got beat sauced! Hard! It held up nearly as well as that Hot Streak! I can dig DB! Not my favorite, but not to be slept on either! Sweet Action Mossie! Thanks for takin us along!
This is awesome. I’ve been loving all this info. I was a kid in the 80’s and it’s bringing back so many memories. I hope you keep going on all the companies especially in the 90’s where it was mainly rider owned and up into the 200O’s. Lots of great info on those companies.
Thanks for the history of this brand and WSI as a company. I worked in a shop during the 80's that sold WSI bicycles, and I used to hear that acronym spoken regularly. I owned several Centurion road bikes and one diamondback mountain bike. I can't say I was a fan. The frames on all, but one of my WSI bicycles broke, and I heard that was common with their BMX frames, if you actually used them to race or for freestyle. Despite my dim view of the company's products, I enjoyed hearing the company's history. It brought back memories of a mostly good time in my life.
Around 1983 my brother got a Diamond Back Silver Streak. I think it lasted a week before it was stolen. Around 1996 I bought a Diamond Back Harry Leary Turbo. I held on to it till about 4 years ago and sold it.
I grew up in the 70's-90's, raced BMX at Cardiff and Argenton BMX tracks in NSW Australia. It was the golden time for BMX- there's not many bikes I haven't owned. My race bike was an O.G. 81 P.K. Ripper Looptail. I still have 2 sheds full of BMXs and MTBs. A heap of Restos and daily rides and I just branched into Ebike conversions. EXCELLENT MATERIAL AND RESEARCH IN ALL YOUR VIDEOS. You're so lucky growing up around some of the Greatest BMX riders ever. Keep up the great work mate. Cheers From Australia. 🍻🤙
Daimond back was pretty popular here in Australia but also haro redline mongoose and gt, probably a few i cant remember were also, the bmx glory days lasted a bit longer. We had a lot of bike shops here with all current imports from the USA and every kid at least had 1 bike in their childhood in the 80s 90s. Bmx was huge in Australia along side skateboarding and surfing.
Ough probably the bike I have most ridden was a 90's "freebike" Diamondback, it survived the city for years, I turned it into a "gravel" fat tire bike before gravel even existed, at the end ransack the parts (all new at that point) and left the hammered frame in the street like a gnawed bone.
I'm a 60 year old American, but am firmly in the BMX Bandits camp... sorry Rad folks. And another great video. I came into BMX hard in the late '70s and watched a lot of these brands come up. Cripes... I remember when Harry Leary was on JMC.
I grew up in Bay Area Cali with BMX for me from mid 70s to mid 80s and these vids bring back great memories!(from getting old stingrays welded up to strengthen them for the punishment to later on owning SE/Redline/GJS/Cook Bros etc..) You mentioned doing a GJS vid in one of your other vids. Please do! 👍
I'm always super excited ever freaking time you come up with another bike history video. I feel like I'm learning about how my heros were created. Bikes were everything....thanks so much. How about Huffy bikes and Murray bikes? ...I've these videos....Awesome stories.
I had a couple of Diamondbacks in the 90's and they were great bikes. To me, they were the upscale of readily available bikes, you had Huffy at the bottom, then GT, then Diamondback. You wanted a better bike than a Diamondback you had to go to a specialized bike store or order it through the mail.
@MossieRidesBikes great video, it would be great to see you do a video on the BMX company Thruster, they were from New Jersey, made frame and forks like the Tri-Power, Vanishing Point and had a Timmy Judge model.
Frankly, One would have had to lived the scene during the era. And, the same happened to nearly every brand over the years. They were sold to conglomerate investment firms and lost their luster.
Leary Turbo looked great and was full cromo unlike the Silver Streak, although I only found this out recently. Most kids thought it was full cromo. Both were amazing looking bikes.
These are all pretty much perfect in length and content, just do your thing, man, we'll watch like it's Penelope Pitstop on a Saturday morning and I enjoyed that cartoon in '70 or so, my cartoon-watching heyday, good times. And if you do bike media campaigns and such, you have to show everyone a bunch of the Schwinn ads in Boys' Life magazine. It had large pages like Life and Look magazines and the kid on a Schwinn Krate lining up against a dragster on a dragstrip, c'mon now, that's what we were all doing on our bikes. 🤣
The 80s were the best would BMX at least for me. I was born in 73 and in the early 80s I always wanted a good bike but could not afford it then come 1987. I was 14 years old. My parents bought me a Haro FST. Unfortunately, some dirtbags threw me off the bike and installed it, and my parents felt bad so they took me back to the bike shop. All they had at the time was a Haro master (better than the FST) and that was my new favorite bike till today. I actually use a 2017 master that looks just like a 1987 but we had all the cool brands, CW, red line, GT, and even a few less popular ones, but they were all great man I miss that time.
Hey anyone who grew up in the southeast of Melbourne, around the area of Chelsea to Frankston around 1983 to 84+, remember a kid called Damian Verkade AKA Dunny Man🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣.He was supposed to jump off Olivers Hill into Port Phillip Bay on his Diamondback I heard he was supposed to be sponsored by DB, I remembered hearing the jump didn't work out well. ,The jump messed him up bad, the rumors i heard back in the 80s
Gonna have to disagree with you on the whole silver streak thing. Earlier DB frames were called medium, large, and senior and were available as just F/F and were full chromoly. The “silver streak” was their first attempt at a budget “Complete” bike and the silver streaks were different as the frame was a combination of mild steel and chromoly.
My first MTB was a Diamond Back Traverse rigid bike back in 1992. Within a year I was living out in Colorado up at a ski resort and actually riding a mountain bike in mountains
First time I ever ran across a Mt. bike at a shop was in 86 I think? Bought a DB Trail Streak.. lot of fun..ancient technology ! I got a lot of stares riding into the woods back then.
During the glory years, 79-83, the DB bikes were made in Japan. I had a Large Pro new in 1980 - my first BMX bike! Frames, forks and bars were made by Koizumi, with custom DB branded components from the best Japanese parts makers - Sugino, Kashimax, OGK, IRC, MKS, etc. Complete bicycles were produced in Japan and shipped to the US. Many of the components were made available as aftermarket items, with the specific DB custom features meaning that Centurion could distribute them when there were existing distributors for the non-DB branded versions of these parts. This was a clever move by Centurion! Taiwanse production came after an economic deal between the Japanese and US govts (the Plaza Accord) which devalued the dollar against the yen. From then on Japanese production was too expensive and the entire US bicycle industry went to Taiwan for production. Taiwanese production began in '83 with the lower priced models. By late '84 all DB production had moved to Taiwan.
I had a Murray X24 that lasted about ten years I can remember when the seatpost bent and my dad took a solid steel bar and pounded it in to the right height. I didn't care about weight
DiamondBack held it down, at least for the PacNW. Took me most a decade to get my hands on one- but I just started riding this Darrin Reed sig Seahawks frame and its super rad! Was the best and last high end frame they made before dergy or whatever sold them or something
So much of the bike biz is just nameless mass importation and name brand slapping. The owners of the Diamond Back name also marketed road bikes and sponsored a US domestic pro team (Rally Health, I think) in the 2010s. They were pretty good frames. Not sure if produced in China or Taiwan.
Decent video. But 2 things. Since “BMX Bandits” and “Rad” are mentioned, it’s always been a complete mystery why Diamond Back was not represented at Helltrack? There has to be a money story there. Diamond Back was a major force right up until filming that. Never made sense. I mean Powerlite makes it but not Diamond Back? The other thing is that it’s not really explained what happened from a BMX perspective. They were dominant from probably 1980-1985 and then rapidly fell off. I never quite understood what happened there. The new graphics also didn’t work. The 1988 Reactor was a dud. Who was running that team and designs at that time? Just some thoughts. Also, fun fact. Allegedly the 1983 Formula One was the absolute lightest production bike made. We are talking like almost 3 pounds lighter than the average bike. They get no credit there.
My first legit BMX was a Turbo Lite. Got it for Christmas. Thought I was so cool,and try showing off. I rode my Diamondback 12 miles to the movie theater (think Iwas 12yrs old) watched a crappy movie came out and she was gone lock cut laying there.😢😪😲😱😫😡💣💥🤜🤜🏃➡️🚍🕒🕥🌙
Mongoose and Diamondback were once highly reputable BMX manufacturers, producing some of the most iconic bikes of the 1980s. Unfortunately, both brands have since devolved into budget-level names, with Mongoose seemingly unwilling to acknowledge the decline in its reputation.
Yup, in the 2000's a diamondback was another walmart or home hardware special. Wanted to be baller, you got an s&m, fit or an eastern. Even haro was kinda in that budget catagory since they weighed a billion pounds
Thank you all for the recommendation! Who here owned a diamond back? My first "nice" BMX was a Joker and I loved that thing
viper was my first. All chrome good stuff
Diamondback is cool
I had one of the first Centurion Diamond Backs in 1978. WSI co sponsored the bike shop team Flying Dutchman Bike Shop in Newbury Park Ca. Right after that Jag came in and we went with them. That was right before Wheels and Things took it to the next level of marketing. And they had great talent with Eddy King and the Hudson Bros.
Still have ( now mine ) my brothers 79 VM serial number Pro …and a
83 Formula One 😎
@@MossieRidesBikes yes
Never owned one but, the Diamond Back Silver Streak was the bicycle that started it all for me in the early 80’s. So dang cool.
Got a Diamondback “Assault” for Christmas when I was 10. A core memory that I will never forget. Love learning the history of some of these brands.
Thanks for doing this! DB was my first “serious” bike and even decades later I am still enthralled by them. Long live Diamond Back!🤘🐍
This video was excellent. All of those clips of old races with downhill sections, off cambers, puddles, and elbowing really made this video light up. I like the gnar! SUBSCRIBED!
I worked at WSI for about 15 years....from the Weiner / Bobrick days...to late 90's. This was a good trip down memory lane.
I had a mid 80's Hot Streak on Skyway's that again... Probably gave away for next to nothing way back when. Lol! My parents bought me a Viper in like 94 or 95 after we got rear ended and my race titted Redline got hosed. But I kept that Viper around and it got beat sauced! Hard! It held up nearly as well as that Hot Streak! I can dig DB! Not my favorite, but not to be slept on either! Sweet Action Mossie! Thanks for takin us along!
This is awesome. I’ve been loving all this info. I was a kid in the 80’s and it’s bringing back so many memories.
I hope you keep going on all the companies especially in the 90’s where it was mainly rider owned and up into the 200O’s. Lots of great info on those companies.
RIP Harry Leary.
RIP, Harry.
Cheers from Westminster CA 🇺🇸..
RIP Harry
West Covina Spartans
Diamond Back is just department store brand now in Australia.
Rest In Peace Harry Leary. He just passed away recently.
Thanks for the history of this brand and WSI as a company. I worked in a shop during the 80's that sold WSI bicycles, and I used to hear that acronym spoken regularly. I owned several Centurion road bikes and one diamondback mountain bike. I can't say I was a fan. The frames on all, but one of my WSI bicycles broke, and I heard that was common with their BMX frames, if you actually used them to race or for freestyle. Despite my dim view of the company's products, I enjoyed hearing the company's history. It brought back memories of a mostly good time in my life.
Around 1983 my brother got a Diamond Back Silver Streak. I think it lasted a week before it was stolen. Around 1996 I bought a Diamond Back Harry Leary Turbo. I held on to it till about 4 years ago and sold it.
Still have my MD signature Hot Streak. Thanks for the excellent video!
I grew up in the 70's-90's, raced BMX at Cardiff and Argenton BMX tracks in NSW Australia. It was the golden time for BMX- there's not many bikes I haven't owned. My race bike was an O.G. 81 P.K. Ripper Looptail. I still have 2 sheds full of BMXs and MTBs.
A heap of Restos and daily rides and I just branched into Ebike conversions.
EXCELLENT MATERIAL AND RESEARCH IN ALL YOUR VIDEOS. You're so lucky growing up around some of the Greatest BMX riders ever.
Keep up the great work mate.
Cheers From Australia. 🍻🤙
Very cool man, keep’em coming , love the bmx stuff
Daimond back was pretty popular here in Australia but also haro redline mongoose and gt, probably a few i cant remember were also, the bmx glory days lasted a bit longer. We had a lot of bike shops here with all current imports from the USA and every kid at least had 1 bike in their childhood in the 80s 90s. Bmx was huge in Australia along side skateboarding and surfing.
Saved money on my paper route for almost a year to buy my DB Viper…was $200 in the early 80’s. 😮
DB in mid to late 80s Australia had a very good reputation as a high quality brand.
Ough probably the bike I have most ridden was a 90's "freebike" Diamondback, it survived the city for years, I turned it into a "gravel" fat tire bike before gravel even existed, at the end ransack the parts (all new at that point) and left the hammered frame in the street like a gnawed bone.
I'm a 60 year old American, but am firmly in the BMX Bandits camp... sorry Rad folks.
And another great video. I came into BMX hard in the late '70s and watched a lot of these brands come up. Cripes... I remember when Harry Leary was on JMC.
I grew up in Bay Area Cali with BMX for me from mid 70s to mid 80s and these vids bring back great memories!(from getting old stingrays welded up to strengthen them for the punishment to later on owning SE/Redline/GJS/Cook Bros etc..) You mentioned doing a GJS vid in one of your other vids. Please do! 👍
I had a Diamondback Senior Pro. Loved it.
I'm always super excited ever freaking time you come up with another bike history video. I feel like I'm learning about how my heros were created. Bikes were everything....thanks so much.
How about Huffy bikes and Murray bikes? ...I've these videos....Awesome stories.
I owned a good half dozen diamondbacks back in the day. A joker, two Mr. Luckys, and a few vipers.
Worked there for 10 years through a bunch of the turmoil. Haven't watched this yet...will be interesting to hear what homeboy dug up.
I had a couple of Diamondbacks in the 90's and they were great bikes. To me, they were the upscale of readily available bikes, you had Huffy at the bottom, then GT, then Diamondback. You wanted a better bike than a Diamondback you had to go to a specialized bike store or order it through the mail.
@MossieRidesBikes great video, it would be great to see you do a video on the BMX company Thruster, they were from New Jersey, made frame and forks like the Tri-Power, Vanishing Point and had a Timmy Judge model.
I still kept the DB formula1 since 84, include the racing jersey , hope my grandson will keep it forever
Frankly, One would have had to lived the scene during the era.
And, the same happened to nearly every brand over the years. They were sold to conglomerate investment firms and lost their luster.
Leary Turbo looked great and was full cromo unlike the Silver Streak, although I only found this out recently. Most kids thought it was full cromo. Both were amazing looking bikes.
I'm looking at a Diamond Back mountain bike sitting out my window right now.
These are all pretty much perfect in length and content, just do your thing, man, we'll watch like it's Penelope Pitstop on a Saturday morning and I enjoyed that cartoon in '70 or so, my cartoon-watching heyday, good times. And if you do bike media campaigns and such, you have to show everyone a bunch of the Schwinn ads in Boys' Life magazine. It had large pages like Life and Look magazines and the kid on a Schwinn Krate lining up against a dragster on a dragstrip, c'mon now, that's what we were all doing on our bikes. 🤣
Diamond back Joker was my first bike aswell. A snot green one 😂
The 80s were the best would BMX at least for me. I was born in 73 and in the early 80s I always wanted a good bike but could not afford it then come 1987. I was 14 years old. My parents bought me a Haro FST. Unfortunately, some dirtbags threw me off the bike and installed it, and my parents felt bad so they took me back to the bike shop. All they had at the time was a Haro master (better than the FST) and that was my new favorite bike till today. I actually use a 2017 master that looks just like a 1987 but we had all the cool brands, CW, red line, GT, and even a few less popular ones, but they were all great man I miss that time.
Good vid man!👏🏻👏🏻
Harry Leary. Diamond Back legend. 👊🏻
Hey anyone who grew up in the southeast of Melbourne, around the area of Chelsea to Frankston around 1983 to 84+, remember a kid called Damian Verkade AKA Dunny Man🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣.He was supposed to jump off Olivers Hill into Port Phillip Bay on his Diamondback I heard he was supposed to be sponsored by DB, I remembered hearing the jump didn't work out well. ,The jump messed him up bad, the rumors i heard back in the 80s
Urban myth mate he hit a shopping trolley that was under the water and broke his back. That's the story.
Thanks for all the BMX videos, I had suggested before, anything on Race Inc?
Gonna have to disagree with you on the whole silver streak thing. Earlier DB frames were called medium, large, and senior and were available as just F/F and were full chromoly. The “silver streak” was their first attempt at a budget “Complete” bike and the silver streaks were different as the frame was a combination of mild steel and chromoly.
Pk Ripper, Kuwahara, Redline, Norco and Diamond Back were the most common on the track.
I think that bmx bikes got taken over by mountain bikes. I rarely see anyone riding a BMX anymore. I remember when we had BMX tracks everywhere.
Would love to hear your take of the story of hell track from Rad. I've read and heard stories but would like to see a solid piece about it.
Mossie, you forgot to mention the now Hollywood star actress, Nicole Kidman got her start in BMX Bandits!
Yeeeees RAD / Bandt...And thanks for all your work :)
My first MTB was a Diamond Back Traverse rigid bike back in 1992. Within a year I was living out in Colorado up at a ski resort and actually riding a mountain bike in mountains
First time I ever ran across a Mt. bike at a shop was in 86 I think? Bought a DB Trail Streak.. lot of fun..ancient technology ! I got a lot of stares riding into the woods back then.
@foodstick I grew up in a small town. As soon as everyone got a driver's license they stopped riding bikes
Do a video on ELF ! ELF has been around since 81 and still around
Had a DB assault ex BMX complete as first real bike. Chrome with anodized red parts.
During the glory years, 79-83, the DB bikes were made in Japan. I had a Large Pro new in 1980 - my first BMX bike! Frames, forks and bars were made by Koizumi, with custom DB branded components from the best Japanese parts makers - Sugino, Kashimax, OGK, IRC, MKS, etc. Complete bicycles were produced in Japan and shipped to the US. Many of the components were made available as aftermarket items, with the specific DB custom features meaning that Centurion could distribute them when there were existing distributors for the non-DB branded versions of these parts. This was a clever move by Centurion! Taiwanse production came after an economic deal between the Japanese and US govts (the Plaza Accord) which devalued the dollar against the yen. From then on Japanese production was too expensive and the entire US bicycle industry went to Taiwan for production. Taiwanese production began in '83 with the lower priced models. By late '84 all DB production had moved to Taiwan.
Yes. To all you suggested, YES!! 😃
I had a Murray X24 that lasted about ten years
I can remember when the seatpost bent and my dad took a solid steel bar and pounded it in to the right height. I didn't care about weight
DiamondBack held it down, at least for the PacNW. Took me most a decade to get my hands on one- but I just started riding this Darrin Reed sig Seahawks frame and its super rad! Was the best and last high end frame they made before dergy or whatever sold them or something
I worked for DB and don’t remember a Darrin Reed Seahawks signature bike and I’m from the far inland NW.
Surprised you didn’t mention that BMX Bandits starred Nicole Kidman.
The only diamondback I remember trying was a "DBR" hardtail from 98 or 99, back then I was like "uh diamondback makes mountain bikes?!"
😂
So much of the bike biz is just nameless mass importation and name brand slapping. The owners of the Diamond Back name also marketed road bikes and sponsored a US domestic pro team (Rally Health, I think) in the 2010s. They were pretty good frames. Not sure if produced in China or Taiwan.
I went from a Mongoose Expert to a Haro Master then finally Kink.
I remember Mike Dominguez being the face for Diamondback in the 80s
I have one 0f those Ridge Runners hanging in my shop.
As far as BMX games go, it’s Dave Mirra or nothing. And all the heartbreak he brings with it 😢
I just picked up Dave mirras BMX 2 for the OG Xbox 😎
Diamond back sold tonnes of bmx bikes all through the 90s into the 00s. More toy shop/kids bike market.
Decent video. But 2 things. Since “BMX Bandits” and “Rad” are mentioned, it’s always been a complete mystery why Diamond Back was not represented at Helltrack? There has to be a money story there. Diamond Back was a major force right up until filming that. Never made sense. I mean Powerlite makes it but not Diamond Back? The other thing is that it’s not really explained what happened from a BMX perspective. They were dominant from probably 1980-1985 and then rapidly fell off. I never quite understood what happened there. The new graphics also didn’t work. The 1988 Reactor was a dud. Who was running that team and designs at that time? Just some thoughts.
Also, fun fact. Allegedly the 1983 Formula One was the absolute lightest production bike made. We are talking like almost 3 pounds lighter than the average bike. They get no credit there.
My first legit BMX was a Turbo Lite. Got it for Christmas. Thought I was so cool,and try showing off. I rode my Diamondback 12 miles to the movie theater (think Iwas 12yrs old) watched a crappy movie came out and she was gone lock cut laying there.😢😪😲😱😫😡💣💥🤜🤜🏃➡️🚍🕒🕥🌙
Mongoose and Diamondback were once highly reputable BMX manufacturers, producing some of the most iconic bikes of the 1980s. Unfortunately, both brands have since devolved into budget-level names, with Mongoose seemingly unwilling to acknowledge the decline in its reputation.
Yup, in the 2000's a diamondback was another walmart or home hardware special. Wanted to be baller, you got an s&m, fit or an eastern. Even haro was kinda in that budget catagory since they weighed a billion pounds
Mike D ruled!
I raced 85-89, Diamond back seemed to be on superthins, a year before redline
In australia*
How does one message you bike photos?
I get them through Instagram. My link is at the bottom of the video description!
@@MossieRidesBikes any alternatives? I dont have social media
If Diamond Back is a funny name for a BMX what about their nemesis Mongoose? More BMX videos please.
last cool thing DB did was win the X games with bruce crisman. even then i think bruce has come out and said it was just DiamondBack stickers on a S&M
My friend had one and I had a GT
Diamondbacks were cool
No internet in the 60's to help people figure out the source of their products.
first bike was a fkt up Diamondback venom, think the frames still at my parents' place!
First like. Must be my lucky day.
What happened to Elf BMX biked
BMX Bandits is better despite Nicole Kidman hating it.
Knew a few kids with them in the early 2000's. They were neat but dogshit compared to what else was around and coming out.