Technical & Reference Section > Tech and Restoration

1984 Redline 500a Build

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Mikku:
Back in the early 80s, my second bmx and first decent bike was a white Redline. When I say bike, it was a third or fourth-hand frameset onto which I swapped over the mish-mash of parts from my Cycle Pro. I'm not sure of the exact model but I loved that frame, and it definitely helped to take my riding to the next level. I stripped the factory paintwork and did a poor, rattle-can spray job on it, replacing the decals with the red/orange/yellow ones which had by then come out for the series 3 bikes. I finally ended up selling the frameset after cracks started to appear in the fork dropouts! Suffice to say that I’ve since had a soft spot for Redlines, particularly those wearing the series 3 decals that I painstakingly applied to mine.

With that background in mind, I always keep an eye out for Redlines coming up for sale and after several near-misses, ended up pulling the trigger on a 1984 500a frameset. I had originally been looking for a Japanese-made frame but several things swung this one in my direction. Not only the good condition of the chromework and those nostalgic decals, but also the quality of the welding. I’d previously looked down on Taiwanese-made bikes as being of poorer quality than their US and Japanese counterparts but the welding on this Giant-made one looks excellent. However, the icing on the cake was the og shop decal on the seat tube. Whilst these are always nice to see, I noticed that this one came from none other than Stu Thomsen’s Family Bicycle Center in Riverside, California. So although it may not be a Stu Thomsen Redline, at least I can say that this came from his shop! :D

With the frameset shipped over to Japan last year, I started to collect parts for it but as some of you know, I then decided to go racing, so the build went on the backburner. However, I now want to crack on with my old school builds again, so with race practice rained off this weekend I dug out the box from the closet! I’ve decided to go for a bit of a blue and yellow theme with this one, and have snapped a few starter pics to give you an idea where I'm going. As always with my builds, I'll be using survivor parts wherever possible, and am not too worried about keeping it catalogue-spec. Am planning to get this done before Christmas, so will update this thread as and when things start happening!  Watch this space! :daumenhoch:

Mikku:
The above frame and fork pics were taken last year, and the ones below this afternoon. Haven't decided on bars, seat post, pedals or brake lever yet, though a Takagi opc will be going on it.

MartyC:
I'm liking the look of this, I love Redline bikes as so many of my friends had them bitd and I loved borrowing Tony Brennan's Proline over Hayden Hall and at the Capital Radio day at Battersea Park! I'm thinking a PK Ripper or a Redline as the last bike to add to my little collection, so this is going to be some positive inspiration for me!

deeman:
Going to be nice this.....gotta be STR bars given the history!!  :daumenhoch:

CustardLips:
Very nice Mick... shame Redline's don't seem to get the credit they deserve. Looking forward to seeing this progress.  :daumenhoch:

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