Stu Thomsen - Post BMX Career

Post BMX Career

• Beginning in 1988 Stu Thomsen competed in mountain bike racing on the National Off Road Bicycle Association (NORBA) circuit as other BMX racers had done and would later do including Tinker Juarez, Cheri Elliott, Pete Loncarevich and Toby Henderson. His biggest accomplishment in organized sponsored mountain Bike racing was his third-place finish in the downhill division at the 1988 World Mountain Bike Championships at Mammoth, California.

• He ran his bicycle shop, Stu Thomsen's Bicycle Center, with his wife Tanya for eight years. He decided to quit since it was in a highly competitive area with six or seven bike shops within a 10 mile radius of his. Despite being a good bike shop mechanic and was willing to dispense advice to other bike shop owners he didn't like being his own boss and sold his shop in 1992. He tried various sales jobs and was a counselor at a Family Fitness Center as a counselor but neither was successful and he went back to being a bicycle shop manager and bike mechanic (possibly Southridge Cycles in Riverside, California, one of his last sponsors at the time he briefly raced in Veteran pro class.) He naturally worked the BMX section of the store. That local shop with Thomsen as its mechanic would help maintain at least some of the bikes the Riverside Police Department had for their Bicycle Patrol program. That was the possible catalyst for his interest in law enforcement.

• He is now a Sheriff's Deputy in Orange County, California, making him literally "The Man" (a prison slang term that could be a pejorative that was created around 1950 for the prison warden. It came into mass usage in the 1960s referring to the powers that be that runs society or their servants such as those in law enforcement). When he was a bike shop manager/mechanic at a local shop in Riverside, California he would help maintain bicycles for the local police department. Later he would move to a new house. His new next-door neighbor happened to be a Fullerton Police Department officer with whom he became friends. Then in 1994, after another sales job didn't work out, another friend of his went to take the Orange County Sheriff's Department test since they were hiring new deputies at the time. Thomsen decided to "tag along". As they waited in line while his friend took the test, Thomsen himself decided to take it. Thomsen passed while his friend failed and his career in law enforcement started in the Orange County Sheriff's Department.

Thomsen would manage to merge his love of racing with law enforcement, competing in the California Police Olympics (in the year 2000 the name was changed to the California Police and Fire Games after Firemen were invited to compete). From 1995 to 2000 he was undefeated in the Mountain Bike racing division, accumulating 15 gold medals during that time. He also participated in the 1997 World Police and Fire Games, in Canada winning four Gold Medals In addition to competitions he is part of the Project 999-Memorial Ride, the yearly 630-mile trek of around 45 Orange County Peace Officers who ride their road bicycles from the California Peace Officers' Memorial in Sacramento, California to the Orange County Peace Officers' Memorial in Santa Ana, California in tribute of the officers who fell in the line of duty serving the people of California in general and Orange County in particular. The ride, usually held in the last week of May each year, also in support of the Project 999 Fund which raises money for the families of the fallen and seriously injured. In 2009 Stu Thomsen and his 44 colleagues raised $40,000. "It is the least I can do to pay homage to those who paid the ultimate price". he said.

Thomsen, in addition to being on the Bicycle Patrol Team, is on the Critical Incident Response Team (CIRT) and in 2005 was in training to be on the K-9 and as of that date was a K-9 agitator, i.e. play-acts the role of a fleeing, attacking or non compliant felon for the dogs to attack and hold in training of dogs and their handlers. During his 15-year tenure as an Orange County Deputy he has never used physical force directly against anyone but he has been under fire and earned the Medal of Courage as he relates in an 2009 article in Garage Magazine:

• Thomsen still races for fun occasionally. For example, he raced the amateur 41-45 cruiser at the November 2001 ABA Grand Nationals in Tulsa, Oklahoma and won. He also raced in the 36 & Over Expert 20" class as well as the 45-50 Cruiser class at the ABA Winternationals in February 2007. He made the mains but didn't place in the top three of either class in the mains, but his competitive spirits remained undimmed:

"Stu said he’ll be training more and plans on racing again this year. 'I still hate losing,' he said. 'I guess I’ll always be that way.'"

As proof of that he won the 50-54 Cruiser main at the 2008 NBL Grand National, amazing on lookers by his jumping ability.