well, its been a voyage of discovery, and its reminded me why I got hooked on collecting again. The chase for information, and playing “miss marple” as sawzall puts it can verge on the point of obsession sometimes, but its so moreish……
Anyway, I bought this frame.
Its very well made, but I had no idea what it was, other than that it was a mini. I pmed a few heads on here, but they could only guess, and they admitted that they were guessing, so I put up a thread, which brought more guesses, albeit educated ones.
The nearest guess, was a Curtis mini, due to the machined headtube. The thread then went a bit dead, so I set about asking some guys on bmx museum, not expecting much, as a few of us thought it was a uk made frame.
Ive got to say the chaps on museum were really helpful, and very well informed. I was put onto a guy called dubplatestyle, as he supposedly had a lot of expertise on exotic mini’s.
He knew what it was straight away, well, to 3 options, and that was only because I didn’t send a clear dropout pic. He put it down to:
Blazer mini. 79-81
Navaho little chief 81 ish
Rebel Racing Li’l reb 82-83.
App arently they were all made using the same jig, and the last two were all welded by the same guy, in Lufkin texas.
All are very rare, and only a handfull are displayed in the bmx museum.
as a point, the texas rebel racing was nothing to do with the rebel uk bikes that we know.
There were no chrome blazers, so that left it to the Navajo, a spin off, who later went on to form Harbour bmx.
Hers a bit of the trail I went down.
Blazer mini:
Navajo little chief:
Navajo mini:
Navajo chief 20"
![](http://Blazer 20 " frames.)
Bruce brock:
Blazer racing was also a related team in which the bikes were made by the same machine shop as Rebel and Rebel was a spin off from them 1981.
blazer bmx bikes were made in Lufkin Texas in the early 80's. I believe they were only made in 80-83'. I do know a good contact for All of the Blazer info. He was one of the factory riders. He also has some vintage Blazer stuff as well as stickers. I will look him up.
from a recent email:
Yes Blazers were made in Lufkin but they were transferred there from Chandler Arizona.
Dave Gerston hooked up with Mike Maberry (from Lufkin) and they were the two that made Blazer go. Dave did all the frame building and Mike was supposed to market the product. Dave had his thing going and then Mike found him and convinced Dave to move the operations to Lufkin.
They had a great run for a while but Mike had financial issues and the whole thing went Kaput.
Dave has lost his mind and is back in Chandler. He spends his days as a street preacher shouting at passer bys. Dave had a younger brother named Josh that was my age.(43ish) Josh is also back in Chandler. I think I found all this out from BR Anderson of the ABA.
Mike Maberry is working for A Chevrolet Car dealership in Lufkin (there is only one Chevy dealership in that small town) Mike has something very interesting, He has the 1980 ABA Texas tour professionally filmed on 8 mm stashed away in his house. Movie grade film of the early days.
Blazer or Dave not only made frames but He was the genius that gave us the Electronic staring gates that had Lights and corresponding noises. The ABA would order a new gate for every National that was held in an arena. I welded them all together after school and football practice. Dave also invented the two man practice gate. Dave also made Bleacher risers.
There are also issues with some of the dates these guys are pinning on Blazers. There is a wrap around head gusset for the down tube. This is because a few of the early frames cracked at that juncture. We added the gusset on everything but the minis.
recent email in 2012.
first gen blazer mini
First gen blazer mini
(non-machined head tube, hole in rear drop, decals w/o border.)
2nd gen with machined headtube and solid drops
However Rebel became much bigger due to the amount marketing and involvement from ABA Founder Merle Mennenga in Rebel Racing and Bernie Anderson & Roland Chankin, who originally both started Rebel Racing. Charles Bruce, my father, ended up with ownership of both companies due to reasons I am not completely clear on, but I do know he was responsible for all marketing of Rebel and took it to Europe and Australia, where it was much bigger down under than here. However Rebel was a viable bike manufacturer until around 1988.
Blazer racing was also a related team in which the bikes were made by the same machine shop as Rebel and Rebel was a spin off from them 1981.
The only actual mini's back then were Blazer's out of the same machine shop, until the Titanium Rebel mini was made. I have the only one that I know of still in existence and it is not painted because you could not chrome or paint titanium.
It was not until my dad fully took over Rebel and Blazer did they make their own Mini's and Cruiser's.
The team used GT's Mini's and Cruisers with Rebel stickers until about '83. The only actual rebels were the Rebel Johnny Reb (Mid-size) and the General Lee (Full Size) 20" frame.
Bernie Anderson started Rebel Racing with Roland Chankin in '81, but then sold it and Blazer Racing to Charles Bruce in '82. Charles Bruce was the marketing arm of Rebel Racing, until Roland Chankin and Bernie Anderson parted ways due to personal issues between each other after the ABA Texas Tour in '82 (Really have no details why.). Manufacturing was actually in Phoenix through a Gene Roden (ABA) contact. Charles Bruce was the one who took over the management of the race team in late '82 and moved manufacturing of Rebel to Tennessee in late '83/early '84 to a manufacturer who also made Vector, because the quality of the Rebel/Blazer frames coming out of Arizona had quality issues and many were braking at the head tube. This is when the Rebel stick tails (Gen 2) frames started.
Charles Bruce closed up shop in '87, after the economy and BMX took a down turn.
That is an original loop tail Rebel mini. They were never marketed. The minis were only available to factory riders and/or factory support. This generation was never marketed to the public because of their tendency to break at the neck. It was only a select few that broke, but Rebel "minis" had a bad reputation because of this. It was due to a small batch (20 or so) that was made with some bad chromoly tubing in a shop in Phoenix. I own a Titanium mini that is probably one of the only still in existence.
Here is the original Rebel Titanium Mini.
One of only a few made in Titanium and the Ti models were only owned by factory riders. This mini design was marketed under Blazer Racing and the Rebel Racing name as a Chromoly frame only. Several of the younger factory riders rode GT's re-stickered with Rebel, because they did not like the geometric design of the Blazer mini, that the Rebel was based from, but once this design was made, all younger riders sponsored by Rebel rode these titanium models. To name a couple of those riders, Mike Wheelock & Trevor Tully rode for Rebel for a number of years on those frames. Little bit of history...Blazer Racing was the original company and in 1981 Bernie Anderson and Roland Chankin spun off to start Rebel Racing Products Corp with a ABA sanctioned endorsement, but was marketed and later owned later owned by Charles Bruce from Houston. Rebel was originally started in San Antonio, Texas in 1981, but moved to Houston, Texas in late 1982.
I still own this bike who was ridden by Factory Rider Trevor Tully from 1983 - 1985. As you can see this bike was never painted because they did not know how to finish titanium back then and since it was resistant to rust, the titanium bikes were just set up as is. Hope you enjoy seeing this bit of Rebel history.
Taken from the October '81 Bicycles Today.
Brock Bruce
Factory Rebel Rider from 81-87.
From Dubplate style:
From my understanding Mike Mayberry was to handle the marketing & management of the team while Dave Gersten was in charge of all fabrication for Blazer. (An interesting side note, Dave also manufactured the electronic starting gates for the ABA as well.)
After reading a lot of other forums regarding Blazer, Mike makes a lot claims that don't necessarily add up, here's a few factual and questionable statements he was quoted saying: Blazer made frames only, none where available in chrome, all where painted except 10 copper-plated frames, never used the single "B" as a head tube decal or logo, no pad sets or any other product bearing the Blazer name and besides being friendly with Bernie Anderson, Blazer in no way was ever connected with Rebel Racing.
From what I can gather Dave & Mike eventually had a falling out and went their separate ways, now considering Dave owned all the tooling and jigs for the frames, i believe it was at that point he either sold the company or partnered up with Bernie Anderson to keep Blazer going.
i found this pic on a "neighboring" site and swore it was a Blazer stickered as a Rebel.however,considering there is so much discussion on whether or not Blazer ever made any frames in chrome this pic became a curiosity.
So thats where the story stands at the moment. Its so interesting tracing a bikes history especially when youve got no idea what it is. God knows how such frame ended up in the uk, that part will remain a mystery.
