Bad to the Bone

As I mentioned before, I am slowly clearing out The Archive. As time goes on, the bike parts in my collection have less and less meaning to me. They are just pieces of metal sitting in boxes.

That said, these parts may still have interesting stories to tell.

In 1986 a kid named John Tomac decided to switch from pro BMX racing to mountain bikes. By midseason he was placing in the races I was attending (3rd place pro at the Rumpstomper in August), and by late season he was winning major races. His ascent into our consciousness was meteoric.

I have a magazine from December of 1986 and Tomac is nowhere to be seen. Endorsements at that point were dominated by Ned Overend and Joe Murray. In an October 1987 magazine, not quite a year later, there are four ads featuring John Tomac.

Although he and I were the same age, it was easy to look up to him. He brought a style and swagger to our fledgling sport that was hard to ignore. And he was already at the peak of the mountain I was trying to scale. I was only 19 years old and dreaming of one day being a professional myself.

Our cycling clothing up to that point was pretty boring, so when I saw the AXO gear, I really liked it.

And before long I was wearing the jersey and gloves.

It didn't make me any faster, but hot damn I looked good.

When he signed the deal with Tioga, suddenly a part nobody really cared about became a thing: The stem.

It was just a stem, but I needed it. Had to have it. I wanted to be bad to the bone.

I bought one and used it. It didn't make me any faster, but hot damn my bike looked good.

For a long time it was one of the "untouchable" parts in my collection because of the connections to the racing days and the culture of the time, but things change. I sold it the other day on Craigslist for a paltry $15, and another piece of my history is gone. I could have auctioned it on eBay and made more, but that's too much hassle for me at this point.

I actually made the decal using letters from some other sticker. You can see the "T" is two pieces. So custom.

Anyway, that's the story.

Later.