Lowrider Bicycle History

Lowrider bikes have been around for years, although nobody has ever really pinpointed when the actual first lowrider bike hit the boulevard. Maybe the closest thing that has ever been documented was the Eddie Munster bike from the '60s TV show The Munsters, a George Barris-customized Schwinn Sting-Ray. The Sting-Ray has been the bike of choice for most lowrider bike builders ever since its introduction in the '60s. The popularity of the Schwinn and similar bikes remained strong throughout the '70s. In the mid '80s, however, Sting-Rays seemed to go into hibernation as BMX and freestyle bikes seem to be the direction that all bike manufacturers and enthusiasts took.

Even though Schwinn and other manufacturers had discontinued their cantilever frames and started specializing in BMX bikes, there was still a market for the old classics. When Lowrider Magazine busted back out in 1988, people started to build cars as well as bikes. There were a few bikes still out there during this hibernation period, but they were cruisers and not show bikes. Slowly but surely, classic Sting-Rays started to become more and more popular. By the beginning of the '90s, the competition started to become intense. As a result, the old Schwinns became far more scarce as well as more expensive.

The results of this revamped style left the doors open for then Lowrider Magazine Publisher Alberto Lopez, who invested time and money to rejuvenate the classic bikes. After several months of investigation, Alberto was not able to buy the Schwinn rights, so he was left to built something similar. This was the birth of the "Aztlan Cruiser" and also the start of Lowrider Bicycle, Inc., which would cater to all lowrider bike needs.

Thus began the tale of Lowrider Bicycle Magazine. Back in 1993 , Saul Vargas, brother Rene, and cousins Hector and "Yoyo" were on their way to a car show when they stopped at a local 7-Eleven to buy sodas and food for the high school show. At the newsstand, Saul was looking for Lowrider and other related magazines. The result from his scavenger hunt was a new magazine that stood out from the rest of the pack. Saul's eyes opened up and his mouth dropped as he picked up the first issue of Lowrider Bicycle Magazine. Hey, guys, check this out, and they all said, "It's about @$%#&*^% time. Hey, is this for real? Are we going to have our own magazine to read? A magazine dedicated to lowrider bicycles and model cars?" The answer was yes. At that time, Saul set a new goal, not just to be in Lowrider, but to have one of his pedal-scrapers featured in this new magazine.

As the years progressed, Saul kept going to shows where Nathan Trujillo and the LRM staff finally started noticing his work and soon we started seeing little pictures in the magazine. Little did he know that he was on his way to getting a full feature in the magazine as well as getting a job with the magazine. While competing on the show circuit, Saul got to meet many people and got to become friends with many in the lowriding community. This made it easier to see who was contributing to the lowrider cause and who would be the new trendsetters.

One of the first trendsetters was the infamous "Claim Jumper," owned by Danny Galvez, Jr. of Los Angeles, California. As the first cover bike for LRB, it made history as it was on the debut Winter '93 issue. This original creation elevated the standards of quality for lowrider bikes across the nation. Danny's custom flavor was also emulated as everyone started slamming their bikes by bending their forks as radically as possible to give the bikes that old school flavor. The Claim Jumper's show turntable design is still in use to this day, as people keep them as compact as possible. The now almost standard chrome and gold seat pans were introduced by the Danny's two-wheel scraper.

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