AMF presents Evel Knievel bikes

[RSS]

Evel Knievel Bikes: the leading of skinned knees in 1976!

For more Fashion Mockery and 70's toy love visit us at Plaid Stallions.com


More...

[J.B.]

I think that's the bike he chose for the Cow Palace jump. Bad choice.

[Mikey]

What's in the field ?

Looks like little girls

[HardyGirl]

There's a couple of cool commercials on YouTube advertising these bikes. Here's one:

[HardyGirl]

And here's the other:

[Earth 2 Chris]

See that three-wheeled one in the middle? I had that.

Our neighbor was a nice old fella who repaired and sold bikes in his spare time. Sometime around summer 1983 or so, he came over to our house, talked to my parents, and then they all asked me to come over next door. He had a surprise for me.

It was this bike. Now, this was way past Evel's heyday, but I knew Evel. I still had my beat-up stunt cycle and generator thingee, even if Evel was long gone. I was beyond ecstatic.

I rode that thing and rode that thing over and over. My friends did too. We fought over who got to ride it and when. That was around the time we had our last great Big Wheel push, riding the bigger ones down the graded sidewalk of our street, and peeling out in our driveway.

One day, my mom called me in for supper. Two of my other friends went to their grandmother's next door to eat. The one remaining kid, a "frenemy" at best, really wanted to ride my Evel bike. I told him no until I got back. He just lived up the street, so I told him to go home, and we'd come get him when we were done.

I came back out to find my Evel bike missing. My friends next door came out to help search, and it didn't take long to find it. Behind my house, over to the right was a large, mostly unmowed hill that was connected to a nursing home on the adjoining street. At the bottom of that hill was a flat field that nice neighbor used for a garden... and my crashed Evel bike. It's giant back wheels both cracked and crushed.

The little $#@% decided to ride it down that rough hill, full of sticks, stalks and all kinds of brush. We'd talked about it before, but I refused to let anyone do it. I knew this would happen.

Needless to say, my rift with my frenemy got deeper that day. One of several times my parents banned him from the house for a bit. I don't know why they never took it up with his parents. I would have nowadays with my kids, for sure.

But with it long out of production, there was no fixing Evel's old bike. I sadly gave it's remains back to my neighbor for parts. Kind of like Ralphie's Old Man in A Christmas Story, my shattered major award was gone.

But not forgotten. For some reason, I've never been able to find it before this. Thank you Brian. You are truly doing the Lord's Work. Or at least Evel's.

Chris

[HardyGirl]

^Wow...what a sad story, Chris. But it's great that you had that bike for a while. And what a cool neighbor you had!

[jwyblejr]

For "kids" from 1 1/2 to 70. Who is going to let a 1 1/2 year old try to be like Evel?