Saturday, January 17, 2009

ABOUT OUR SHOP

Not only did we have a factory team, we also sponsored a national team through our retail store and mail order house. In our store we carried many different brands of BMX, ATB, Road and track bicycles. We did excellent professional repairs and and custom build. We build many custom Bonzai's© specifically fit to the rider's pocket book, accomplishments in racing, size, weight and strength. We were one of the first to build custom racing wheels with different hub and rim configurations. Many of our bikes and wheels were set up with sealed hubs, headsets, bottom brackets and the lightest, strongest, components available.

We carried such famous brands as Bonzai©, MCS, Red Line, Gary Fisher, Cannondale BMX, Alpine, Jamis, GT, Dyno, Diamond Back, Answer, Serotta, Joannou Cycles, Trailmate, and numerous others. Many specialty items were what we did best, finding the specific custom parts that our customers wanted such as Shimano Dura Ace and other high components and grouppos, Campagnolo, Suntour, Tuff Wheels, Anodized Araya and Weineman rims, Phil Wood Hubs, Cook Bros hubs, Many custom ultralight BMX cranks, Aheadsets, Bonzai© B/B, Tange components and numerous others.

Our mail order division offered quick service, efficient shipping and any custom combinations you desired. Bonzai© offered 14 frame sizes and numerous specialty bike kits, custom Bonzai© tubular forks and UL welded forks, Custom Bonzai© B/B's, uniforms, BMX Clothing, and was competitive with the biggest mail order houses in the industry (such as Dan's Competition, West Coast Cycles, and more)

At our store we did everything imaginable to bicycles from frame alignment, to custom wheel building, to re welding repairs, to custom one off paint jobs. We used Dupont Imron paint on all our paint jobs and numerous custom polishing and buffed and anodized finishes.

Those who frequented our shops enjoyed watching their bikes worked on professionally in our modern clean facilities open to public view. We thank our past customers for their loyalty and faithful regular visits for service, sales, and just checking out what was new in the industry and at Bonzai©. We had clients locally, nationwide, and internationally. We are very grateful for our Bonzai© family.

OUR FACTORY

Our factory was located in Loxahatchee, Palm Beach County, Fl. Who said everything worthwhile has to come from California? Not true!
Bert Calderon, owner and President of Bonzai© would not accept this. He and other Fl. based manufacturers have proven this as untrue. Florida has had many innovative BMX distributors and frame manufacturers such as MCS, Unique, Trailmate BMX, Gold Coast Cycles, Bonzai©, East Coast Cycles, and many others.

Our factory was headed up by Roger Smith "Smitty", an innovative welder, machinist, and inventor, credited with many race car innovations such as quick release on auto race car wheels, and steering wheel QR, as well as numerous other inventions. Here is where we had our deliveries of 6061 T 6 Aluminum both in standard sizes and our specially extruded ultra thin ovalized tubing used on our UK frame designs, UL forks, etc. All tubing was cut and machined for a perfect fit to specification for our different frame sizes, then placed in its appropriate jig, tig welded to perfection, checked for perfect alignment and tracking, then prepared for shipment to Lindberg Heat treating for annealing, heat treatment, and sealing. Brought then back to our factory for final preparation of polishing and/ or painting.

Then when ordered frames would be stickered and packed with love and attitude ( the winning attitude), then shipped to our future Bonzai© winning racers.

That's our story and we're sticking to it!!

Monday, January 12, 2009

Bonzai Cycles© - Not just a company !


Bonzai Cycles, Inc.© was not only a manufacturer of BMX frames and bikes. We lived, breathed, slept and ate BMX racing. We had both a factory and a national team that went to nearly every NBL National Race during our era. We also appeared at numerous ABA race tracks around the country. With our energy and rider oriented designs we took local riders that were average in skills and performance and turned many into Number 1 thru 5 Experts Nationally in their respective divisions. Many of our rider's pictures appeared in the NBL Newspaper, Cycles Today, in BMX Plus, BMX Action Mag, and many others.

Bonzai© was more than a company. It was our lifestyle. If we weren't at a track, on our way to a race, filling orders, or in our store, we were testing, designing, riding, maintaining bikes and/or tracks. Our Bonzai© team was a family of BMXer's that loved the racing scene, loved BMX, loved Bonzai Cycles©, and was totally involved in our evolution and growth.

The Owner and Founder of Bonzai©, Bert Calderon used to say that "we pack more than a bike in each Bonzai© frame placed in a box. We pack love and a winning attitude". That is what brought our riders blessings, attitudes and winners trophies a plenty.

Our factory team was guided by the owner Bert Calderon and run by our team captain, renowned racer, Chris Fredericks, assisted by his co captain Donny Fredericks. They led our team to many winners circles at many races as well as national acclaim for excellence in products and team organization. Some of our other key riders were Raymond Amari, Jay Briggs, Elizabeth Calderon, Kristy Calderon, Pete Bruno, Bo Kussler, Mikey Fredericks, Jonathan Card, Daryl Daniels, Percy Forbing(our #1 Expert Cruiser class rider), Andrew Presland and Dad, Mr. Peter Presland (older than dirt), Ryan and our two Pro riders, John Purse and Terry Tenette,(who rode a custom Bonzai© for approximately two years while sponsored by Vans.) There were a number of other riders who deserve credit for being there in support of our team as well as having raced for us. We honor all our Bonzai© riders for their determination, helpful attitude, honor in abiding by sanction body rules and regulations, their competitiveness, and their willingness to be team players.

We all had some very exciting moments cheering each other on at the tracks, partying as a group, traveling from state to state on weekends, and all working towards a common goal. That is how we build a company without having a great deal of capital. All the money in the world can't buy you that respect you earn by doing it on your own successfully, nor can it buy you the allegiance, gumption and willpower to believe in something so bad that you will give it all you got to bring it to success.

I feel that as a team and a company we accomplished that goal without trying to buy it. Our profits went right back into improving our products, helping kids, sponsoring tracks, and sponsoring riders.

We thank all of you for taking the time to read this information and feel where we are coming from. B O N Z A I © !!

Friday, January 9, 2009

BONZAI© OFFERED INNOVATIVE DESIGNS BEFORE MANY LARGER MFG.'ERS EVEN THOUGHT ABOUT IT

You may ask yourself like what?

1. Sealed bearing B/B with press fit bearings right into frame - as early as 1991

2. Sealed bearing headsets with press fit bearings and Aheadset style setup as on ATB Bikes - people said it wouldn't hold up. now nearly 20 years later and it is being used on most racing frames

3. Oversized alloy seatposts with built in clamps as used on mtn. bikes and road racing bikes. As early as 1989

4. Built onto frame welded seat post clamp with alloy QR skewer or special road racing seat post clamp bolt

4. Alloy wheel tensioners to lock wheel in place in case of loose lug nut

5. Alloy fork legs that could withstand more abuse than standard CM forks and saved weight. Also had replaceable legs.


6. Ultralight welded forks with a unique trick design, as light as titanium and stronger

7. Ultra lite aluminum bars in three sizes for pros and two sizes for minis and jrs.

8. Welded Cantilever brake studs on rear stays

These are just a few things to bring out to those of you that enjoyed your Bonzai© and saw our factory team in action at many NBL and some ABA tracks around the country

BONZAI© WAS THE FIRST TO MANUFACTURE 14 DIFFERENT RACING FRAMES

Bonzai Cycles© as early as 1989 was manufacturing 14 different frame sizes to accomodate any size or weight rider and fit their body dimensions perfectly.

Cat. 1
Bonzai© Ultra Mini, Bonzai© Mini, Bonzai© Jr., Bonzai© Jr. Pro, Bonzai© Ultralite Pro
All the above were made of a special ovalized, thin gauge 6061 T6 heat treated Aluminum
Weighed between 2lbs and 2 lbs 12 oz. - No one could touch it

Cat. 2
Bonzai© Expert, Bonzai© Pro, Bonzai© Pro XL, Bonzai© Pro XXL
All the above were made of 6061 T6 Heat treated Aluminum - still very light and exceptionally strong
Weighed between 2 lbs. 10 oz. and and 3 lbs. 15 oz.

Cat. 3
Bonzai© ultra lite 24" Cruiser, Bonzai© Expert 24" Cruiser
Made of same UL tubing as specified in cat. 1

Cat. 4
Bonzai© Pro Cruiser, Bonzai© Pro XL Cruiser, Bonzai© Pro XXL Cruiser
Made of same tubing as Cat. 2

All frames were tig welded and machined at the Bonzai© factory in Loxahatchee, Fl., then brought to our shop for inspection, then sent to Lindberg Heat treating in Orlando, Fl., and then finally brought back to our main facility to either, paint, polish, or do a one off paint job for custom orders, then boxed and stickered to prepare for shipping. Many bikes were sent with custom component packages.

Our different frames were spec'd completely and geared and designed to bring the ultimate performance to the rider no matter what size, height, or weight. Top tube lengths and other dimensions were custom designed to bring the BMX racer the ultimate light and safe BMX race frame. We offered numerous color choices including a high polished natural aluminum finish.

BMX PLUS JANUARY 1992 - Bonzai© Suspension Fork Test

BMX PLUS - DECEMBER 1991 - BONZAI© ON COVER

CHECK OUT THE THREADS




GREAT UNIFORM
Pants by AERO - Designed by Bonzai Bert
Jerseys by Coolmax designed by Bonzai Bert

Rider looks s s o o Cool !

91 Pro Bonzai© - BBB BAD!




Bonzai© Pro Cruiser Tuff Wheel - Yo, Yo !!

1991 Bonzai © - The Bomb - Factory Set Up





1991 Bonzai©

These frames were big in the NBL in the early 90's ... Great bikes , based here locally in Palm Beach, FL ..

Ok this is a 90-93 Aluminum Bonzai© frame ....Pro A little bit about Bonzai© , they started making frames in late 89-thru 93/94ish...They were all 6061 heat treated aluminum .... The story is in 93 sometime someone broke into Bonzai© Bicycles and stole all there inventory... Causing Burt the owner of Bonzai© to supposibly cut cost's on some frames by not putting them thru the expensive heat treating process ( so the story goes ?? ) ... Which led to frames cracking and eventually the downfall of Bonzai©.. I was lucky enough to get this frame thru a member who ran into a Old Friend ... Thanks JetRock My plans for it are to build it just like my signature bike (pearl white) I was only 13 in the pic shown with the Bonzai© Gear on ... This is a Pro Size Frame , with round tubing ...mine had Floval tubing like a PK ripper ... JR size ..

Submitted by oneluv1979 (14 bikes in museum)
1118 views 6 comments2 Faves Discuss this bike


OKAY, HERE WE GO. THIS IS A RESPONSE TO THE ABOVE WRITTEN POST SUBMITTED BY oneluv1979 IN BMX MUSEUM WEB SITE. THIS WILL HOPEFULLY SET THE STORY STRAIGHT.

1. THIS IS A 91 BONZAI© BECAUSE THE NEWER ONES HAD THE CANTILEVER BRAKE STUDS ON THE BACK STAYS AND THE SEALED BEARING HEADSET.

2. The heat treating story is exactly that, a story! Don't believe everything you hear. We had a very short bout with one batch of frames that had been heat treated incorrectly at one of the Lindberg Heat treating plants which was about 40 frames of which we caught up with 20 of them before sold and offered replacements to our customers that had gotten one of these frames. Our closing down had nothing to do with that problem.

3. IN 1992 LABOR DAY, MY ORIGINAL PARTNER, RON SEITZ, OWNER OF OUR LOCAL DELI PASSED AWAY AND TO SETTLE THE ESTATE HIS WIFE BECAME VERY DIFFICULT AND WOULD NOT ACCEPT NUMEROUS OPTIONS I HAD OFFERED HER TO RESOLVE HER WANTING ALL HER AND HIS INVESTMENT BACK RIGHT AWAY. I ATTEMPTED A NUMBER OF SENSIBLE NEGOTIATIONS TO NO AVAIL, TOOK ALL THE FRAMES I OWNED PERSONALLY, MY DESIGNS And my team and tried to go on and sustain myself as an individually owned corporation. Did my best and the team did excellent as did the mail order. However our retail sales through our retail outlet helped greatly to sustain our team and expansion program. We had a good sales pattern and great response to our product and our factory team, but without fresh working capital, and the crunch going on in the bicycle industry at the time, I became forced financially to pay all my bills and walk away at that time in good standing, hoping one of my promised backers would come through to reopen and go gangbusters ahead. The ideas, the spirit and the winning attitude have not left me or our legend. Keep your eyes and ears open for the re emergence of one of the greatest BMX Bikes of all time, THE BONZAI© !!

By the way, I do appreciate your positive comments.

post written by Bert Calderon, Owner and Founder of Bonzai Cycles, Inc.©

A BMX POST FROM BMXER PETER - RODE A SPONSORED BONZAI© BIKE

Full Version: Bikes you rode?

VintageBMX.com > VintageBMX Talk > Vintage BMX Racing


Sep 2 2008, 07:34 PM bmxerpete

These are the bikes I actually raced, in order as best as I can remember-

Schwinn Stingray with heavy duty Femco rims and box bars
DG Racer kit bike w/ Tuffs
MCS Z-1 w/ MCS forks, stem, Redline V bars, Arayas w/ Sunshine hubs, Takagi 1 pc. cranks
MCS Magnum w/ all the parts from the Z-1
Thruster Tim Judge Replica w/ Thruster forks, Pro Neck, Thruster bars, Arayas w/ Bullseye hubs, Suntour Road Vx cranks (semi sponsorship)
National Pro w/ Nat. Pro forks, Pro Neck, wheels, cranks and bars from Thruster (semi sponsorship)
MCS Magnum w/ MCS forks, bars, stem, Arayas w/ Bullseye hubs, back to Takagi chromoly 1 pc. 180s
SE JU-6 w/ MCS forks and wheels, etc. from Magnum
GT Pro w/ GT forks and parts from JU-6
GJS w/ GJS forks and parts from GT (rode this for about a week- way too long for me)
MCS Magnum w/ all MCS parts, Arayas w/ Bullseyes (sponsorship)
Cycle Craft 20 & 24 w/ all CC parts, Arayas w/ Bullseyes- 20 & Campys- 24 (semi sponsorship)

SPONSORED RIDE

Bonzai© 20 & 24 w/ MCS forks, Cooks cranks, Arayas w/ Campys (sponsorship)


Iron Horse ARS 20 w/ Iron Horse parts (sponsorship)
Road Kill Rigor Mortis 20 w/ prototype Answer forks, Clayborn stem, Road Kill bars, GT Pro Series 3 pc. cranks, Sun BFRs
Fabweld 20 & 24 w/ all Fabweld parts, Cane Creek headsets, brakes, Alex rims w/ Shimano hubs (sponsorship)
Huffy Primus 24 w/ Slim Frameworks carbon forks, Fabweld parts
Standard 125R 20 w/ Standard forks, DK stem, Road Kill bars, Fabweld cranks, Odyssey Hazards w/ Profile hubs
FMF Pro Cruiser w/ Answer forks, CNC stem, S&M bars, Fabweld cranks, Sun Ringle wheels
Road Kill Pro 20 w/ Standard forks, DK stem, Road Kill bars, Fabweld cranks, Odyssey Hazard Lites w/ Profile hubs
SE Floval Flyer...haven't finished building it yet!



More Cruiser Shots



1982 Pro Bonzai© 24" Cruiser


1982 Pro Bonzai© 24"

Survivor

Found under a pile of junk bikes at a junk shop. Rusty, unloved but complete and straight. B/B is stamped TANGE JAPAN, With different stickers you would call it a Kuwahara

All I have done to this is re-grease the bearings, change the tires, adjust the brakes and spend about 6 hours cleaning and polishing it. (I gotta do some better pics - it looks really dull there)

Araya shiny sides with Suzue high flange
Sugino 44 chain ring
Sugino 175 1pc crank (stamped 81)
Suntour seat clamp
Dia-compe mx 1000 brakes with Weineman semi-automatic brake adjustors (I love those things...)
SR stem and pedals
Look like Kos bars

My daily rider, and it will stay as that cos it would want to be something pretty darn nice to take over from this.....

Submitted by frittyclose (3 bikes in museum)

Incorporation Stats

Bonzai Cycles, Inc.©
Additional Research powered by
Mailing Address:
5853 S Congress Ave
Atlantis, FL 33462
Palm Beach County
5 Companies at this address



State of Florida Incorporation Record for Bonzai Cycles, Inc.©
State: FL
State #: S08096
Filing Type: Domestic for Profit
Created: 9/24/1990
Status: Inactive

Amari, Janet
6823 19th Ave S
Lantana, FL 33462
• Vice President
Amari, Janet
6823 19th Ave S
Lantana, FL 33462

Calderon, Bert
6831 Westview Dr
Hypoluxo, FL 33462 • President
• Director
Calderon, Bert
6831 Westview Dr
Hypoluxo, FL 33462

Registered Agent

Calderon, Bert
5853 S Congress Ave
Atlantis, FL 33462

Corporation Documentation/ Basic History

BONZAI CYCLES, INC.©


Incorporated by Amari, Janet and Calderon, Bert, Bonzai Cycles, Inc.© is located at 5853 S Congress Ave Atlantis, FL 33462. Bonzai Cycles, Inc.© was incorporated on Monday, September 24, 1990 in the State of Florida and is currently not active. Calderon, Bert represents Bonzai Cycles, Inc.© as their registered agent.


This was how the new Bonzai Cycles, Inc.© began. Actually the original Bonzai© frames were made in 1975 and were made of chrome-moly tubing. They were very light, strong and were seen throughout the S. Florida Race Tracks during those early times of BMX beginnings. The company that created the original Bonzai© frames was called Gold Coast Sales, Inc. This company was owned and operated by Bert Calderon, the founder, designer and creator of Bonzai© Bmx bicycle frames and bicycles. Gold Coast Sales was a mfg. of Bmx frames, frame kits, and bicycle parts and accessories.


The owner, Bert Calderon sponsored numerous teams, helped hand build many tracks throughout S. Florida area including the following:

1. Bicycle Center of Florida track in N.Miami, Fl.

2. Lake Worth Ymca Track in W. Palm Beach, Fl.

3. North Palm Beach Ymca in N. Palm Beach, Fl.

4. Pompano Harness BMX Track in Pompano Bch., Fl.,

5. Okeheelee BMX Track in West Palm Beach, Fla.

6. Grand Prix Racerama BMX Track on St Rd 84 in Ft. Lauderdale, Fl.


Gold Coast was the largest distributor of BMX frames, Custom Bmx parts, and accessories in the State of Florida. They distributed the following Manufacturers items:

* Dan Gurney Eagle
* Competitor Cheetah
* Gold Coast Bonzai
* Moto Pro
* Matthews
* Ashtabula
* Moto Pro Mags Aluminum
* CYC
* Windsor Bicycles
* Campagnolo
* Shimano
* Tuff wheels
* Aero Clothing
* Modullo Clothing
* Cook Bros. Racing
* J and G Engineering
* St. Tropez Bicycles
* Dorsey Cycles
* Araya Alloy rims
* plus many more......

Also founder of Chainwheel Drive of Lantana©, West Palm Beach©, North Palm Beach©, Pompano Beach Bicycle Retail Stores and Mail Order Shop.

Also sponsor of 5 BMX Racing tracks, National and Store BMX racing teams as well as very competitive road racing and track teams and cosponsored teams all around the USA, Australia, and England.


This blog will give you the real story right from the source.

Close affiliations with the Essers, founders of NBL, MCS Bicycles and more.......


Keep up with the blog as the stories evolve. We invite pictures and input from avid BMX fans who are still out there from the day!!

Thursday, January 1, 2009

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