1978 Wayne King Bicycles Monoshock
Wayne King Bicycles Thom Lund model
This is a fantastic old school Monoshock BMX model from Wayne King Bicycles Unlimited.
Our friend Rick showed this one to us one day as he was passing through on his way back to Port Angeles. This 54 pound beast is pretty famous in the BMX world as the bike that Thom Lund raced. Why famous? Well, racing, winning, and getting your picture in an issue of BMX Action was enough to achieve a certain level of fame in the BMX world.
Rick has a pretty extensive collection of old school BMX bikes, and a lot of connections from his days racing in Southern California. Rick merely called this one the Thom Lund model, and while Rick was pretty cagey about it, I think Rick probably bought this one from Thom. That’s right. I’m saying it. I think this was Thom Lund’s bike.
In fact, check out this thread from BMXSociety.com and see what you think: http://www.bmxsociety.com/topic/25704-the-wayne-king-monoshock/
Yamaha shocks
Original Motomags
The replaced saddle?
Double clamp stem
Strut suspension
I think Thom replaced the saddle that he didn’t like (and talked about on the BMX Society forum), kept it around for a while, and eventually sold it to Rick.
Now, like a lot of old BMX bikes, this one may not have been “The Bike”. No, that one broke. This, more likely, is one of a couple of bikes that always got moved from apartment to house to garage as the years went by. Maybe this was a version of the bike that Thom rode as a kid that he happened to pick up twenty years after the fact.
Whatever.
Thom Lund catching air
Why should you care if this is Thom Lund’s actual bike? Well, as I said: if you managed to race, win races, and get your photo in a 1970’s issue of Dirt Bike, you could achieve a certain amount of fame.
If you happened to have insane jumping skills and do a lot of those jumps on a drilled out, 50 pound mono-shock you really stood out.
Thom Lund was one of BMX’s first legendary racers. He rode for the Infamous Rick`s Bike Shop team from 1973 to 1975 (as did the owner of this bike, Rick Gaytan). Thom raced on the Dirt Masters team in 1976. Lund was no slouch when racing a sidehack, and our friend Rick was often a “monkey” in sidehack races. Back in the early days, before there were No. 1 titles, Thom Lund ruled the BMX scene. Lund was the original winner of the USGP (a Scot Breithaupt production) at the Saddleback track. Finally, if the Dirt Bike magazine photo you end up being in happens to be this one:
Well, then you achieve some BMX immortality.
We’ll have to really nail Rick down about the story of this bike the next time he rolls through the shop.