Mike Kowal Reynolds 531 BMX - anybody heard of them?

[dinglem]

Anybody ever heard of a  bike builder called Mike Kowal? Spen for ‘Kowalski’, or so I have read.

Quite a long story but as a lad during the early 80’s me and my mates all used to hang around together and mess about on our BMX, as I am sure you all did. One lad in our group was lucky in that his dad used to own the local bike shop in our town – Perks Cycles. This was the place we all used to go to drool over the expensive and exotic parts our parents could never afford.

Anyway – whilst daydreaming a few days ago I started thinking back, and suddenly had a vivid memory of Jon Perks riding around with us on a very lightweight looking shiny chrome frame dripping with what were presumably high-end parts from his the ‘Perks Cycles’ shop. I’d somehow completely forgotten about it until that point.

I took it upon myself to message him with a cheeky question and see whether his dad had any stock left over from back then (no joy there), but I also mentioned his old bike in the hope that he still had it.

We got chatting and he said it had been a custom-built light-weight race frame that his dad had commissioned from a renowned road-racing frame builder by the name of Mike Kowal, who specialized in making light-weight frames using Reynolds 531 tubing (he used to work at the Reynolds factory it turns out). He used to ride and race it at WHEELS(!)

***I was getting excited by this point***

Then he drops a bombshell; he sold the bike when he got in to Mountain Biking. Sadness. I started researching Mike Kowal (spoke to Sawzall and animal about him also), and eventually tracked him down and gave him a call.

He mainly built road racers (still does but mostly imports frames and distributes them these days as he’s a billion years old), but he said he DID used to make BMX Freestyle frames for Halfords bitd, and his biggest contract of all was building BMX race frames for Peugeot. He also got several ‘bespoke’ BMX frame orders from one-off customers, including Mr.Perks, so there must be some out there. He told me they were either chrome or white. No other colours. I can’t find an thing about his BMX frames online at all though. Just road racing bikes. He seemed to know all of the usual British BMX frame builders of the time as he was name-dropping all over the shop.

Couple of hours later Jon Perks got back in touch with me, having spoken to his dad. He couldn’t remember the name of the kid his dad sold the bike frame to, but he gave me an address in our little town (and even a StreetMap shot of the actual house), so I’ll be off door-knocking when I return to the UK in the hope that his folks still live there and there’s a rusty old chrome BMX sat somewhere awaiting my arrival 

So….. anybody know anything more about Mike Kowal or have any of you come across a 'Kowal BMX' in the past?

[insectbones]

Cool story Ding 

Never heard of him or his frames, fingers crossed you track that one down though 

[monkian]

Great story Mart. Good luck with the hunt. I guess he must have made these In the ad? No mention of the Raleigh Reynolds frames?

[monkian]

I might have some of his work, if he made the Peugeot bars as well😊

[dinglem]

Some great pics there guys - thanks.

I'll forward them on to Mike Kowal and see what he has to say. Never knew about the Pug/Reynolds link until now.

Quite like those bars too 

[dinglem]

Just noticed your Reynolds decal has '500' tubing.... It states in the ad that they were 531.

I have a few sets of Reynolds bars and I have been wondering about the numbering. Mine have either 500 or 530 tubing, but look identical apart from that.

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[monkian]

I spoke to Phil about the bars and he mentioned that Reynolds products have been found made using different tubing spec. Probably down to stock availability.

[Andy1970]

I think the Peugeot in the ad above was made by Rebel. Ive seen these before and they are 99% the same as the Rebel pro race.They are too alike to be made by different companies. I think there were a few Peugeot frames made with Reynolds tubing though.

[dinglem]

I sent the ad and bar pics to Mike and asked if he had made them. He also confirmed there was a link with Rebel. His reply below:-

'Yes we made the frames, bars, and seat posts for Peugeot. We also sold the 531 bars to Gratton the mail order catalogue.
 
90% of our production went to Halfords. The frame we supplied was a freestyle frame and was badged up Steve Wilson. Steve Wilson ran the Halfords BMX team.
 
If I remember ....................................our racing BMX frame was modeled on the 'Firebird' frame. All our original frames were chrome plated. We then went to White powder coating as this was latter the fashion.
 
At one stage we were going to tie up with Rebel BMX which was an off shoot from the old Comrade bicycle company in Darlaston.'

[monkian]

Great bit of insight. Thanks for sharing it Mart😉

[dinglem]

His workshop is less than 2 miles from my door.... amazing to discover what was being made just around the corner without me even realizing it.

[Mikku]

This is a great story!! Really hope that bike (or any of the others) still exist but in any event, it's RAD!!

[griff]

Thanks for sharing Martin  great post

[animal]

This adds up now I have had time to think on it Martin . I had two freinds who had Perks frames . I asume now they were Peugeot/Rebels . One was white the other Chrome  It would also comfirm why there were so many pairs of those CW copy bars in 531 and 530 floating about in our area . I also think they made the Vector copy bars that I bought from Steve Goodes bitd .

I bet my bottom dollar they made the TRM race frames aswell as thats another Rebel connection .

I'll add more as I recall . But this is certainly curtailing some mystery's from bitd .

Always knew about all the bits made bitd but couldn't knit it together 

Top man Mart   

[Mikku]

The plot thickens!

[bmxmatt1974]

I sent the ad and bar pics to Mike and asked if he had made them. He also confirmed there was a link with Rebel. His reply below:-

'Yes we made the frames, bars, and seat posts for Peugeot. We also sold the 531 bars to Gratton the mail order catalogue.
 
90% of our production went to Halfords. The frame we supplied was a freestyle frame and was badged up Steve Wilson. Steve Wilson ran the Halfords BMX team.
 
If I remember ....................................our racing BMX frame was modeled on the 'Firebird' frame. All our original frames were chrome plated. We then went to White powder coating as this was latter the fashion.
 
At one stage we were going to tie up with Rebel BMX which was an off shoot from the old Comrade bicycle company in Darlaston.'

k


didn't know that about the Wilson freestyle frames.

[58 delray]

great story, love this sort of history of our sport/hobby

[animal]

I can also remember a pal bitd who had a copy Haro Freestyler . He told me his dad got it from over cannock . May be that solves the mystery of where they came from . Also the Vector copy bars would tie in with that aswell.