Scot Breithaupt - Notable Accolades

Notable Accolades

• Co-founded BMX Plus! magazine and was contributing editor to both Bicycle Motocross Action and Minicycle/BMX Action (not to be confused with Bicycle Motocross Action which would later condense its name to BMX Action) which would subsequently become Super BMX. He therefore had a large hand in all three of the major founding BMX magazine periodicals.

• The first to put on what could be called a pro class race anywhere in 1975 at Saddleback Park in Orange, California (US$200 purse).

• He was a founding member and President of the Professional Racing Organization (PRO) the first attempt to form a BMX professional racers guild.

• He both invented the modern BMX racing Cruiser and the Cruiser class to race them with. In September 1978 Scot showed up at the famous Corona Raceway, in Corona, California, on a converted Emory beach cruiser. It had 26-inch-diameter (660 mm) wheels and low rise handlebars from a motorcycle. That same year he convinced the National Bicycle Association (NBA) to start the Cruiser class.

• He also invented the inverted BMX racing bicycle stem (also known as a "gooseneck"). Unlike the standard "quill gooseneck" stem, BMX bicycles in need of a stem with a much tighter clamping force on the bars to eliminate movement forward or back. That could be caused by the more violent physical abuse racers put upon it like pulling with maximum force during racing and jumping their bicycles, these stems were four point block clamps secured with Allen bolts, unlike the single point quill gooseneck that had a single "pinchbolt" configuration to clamp the bars. Most other stems of this type, like the standard gooseneck, raised the bottom level of the handlebars up, the inverted stem dropped them down. Breithaupt was heading to an NBA National in Las Vegas, Nevada in 1979 to race cruiser class a new division in BMX that at the time was made up of BMX bicycles (during this time most were converted Beach Cruisers with 26" diameter wheels, built for the larger rider as opposed the standard 20" vehicle). As he was fitting his handle bars onto the stem of the bicycle he noticed that it was to high for his liking and presumably it couldn't be lowered far enough down to get the feel and leverage he desired. he then removed the clamp the part that actually held fast to the handlebars, from the stem, that was inserted into the head tube and into the fork's neck. He flipped it over and reattached it. He was able then to drop the bottom of the bars another few millimeters to his liking. He later won his Cruiser class at this national using that configuration. He would then persuade "Tuff Neck", a leading manufacturer of BMX bicycle parts at the time, to mass produce the new component.

• Held the long distance jump record for bicycles in 1979 at an average 76 feet.* He accomplished it on a SE OM Flyer 26" Cruiser. The record held for 10 years.

• He won the very first Pro Cruiser Main of the first Pro Cruiser class in BMX history at the ABA Northwest National in Seattle, Washington on January 18, 1981 defeating Tim Lillethorupt and Jess Goymon who came in second and third respectively.

• Scot is a 1990 Inductee of the ABA BMX Hall of Fame.

*The third and last jump for the average was only 58 feet, so the average was brought down and therefore the previous two jumps were significantly longer than 76 feet.