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[Phil Kaye]

Feeling nostalgic. Add your Ryden Eastwood memories.

Me


Damon Bevan

[COASTY]

I always wondered who that kid was in the top pic. Cool!

[Dirtboy]

[Phil Kaye]

I always wondered who that kid was in the top pic. Cool!

Funny thing Coasty, it was my first and only visit to Ryde Eastwood. If you look in the background you can see Brett Masterfield watching me jump. It was cool to be on the last page 

[DUNNO]

Hey fella's this photo was taken at the last berm on the first Ryde track.This corner seen a lot of
action and a few kamakazi moves and riders taken out and caused the odd fisty cuff at the
end of a race.

                       DUNNO


                                 

[Jarvi]

Anyone else notice how big Damon's feet look in that photo?  He could have won Olympic gold as a swimmer.

[Phil Kaye]

I think he was fully grown at 12!!! 

[mandel]

My name is Ken Mandelberg and I was 2IC of Competition Development the manufacturere of Quicksilver BMX bikes. I remember the Ryde-Eastwood track well. This is were as a company we staged Australias first ever national competition the Quicksilcer Grand National. Our warehouse and 'factory' was only up the road near Macquarie University. We later moved to Kenthurst and ultimately at the peak of our manufacturing to Riverstone. I have lots of great memories of the Ryde-Eastwood track and if you are looking for photos of that track a book called BMX Down Under released by Golden Press in around 1980/1 contains lots of photos of the track and racing action from that era. I spent nearly 5 years working for 'Quicksilver' and as team manager transported our team of riders all over the East Coast of Australia. I am the author of the Australian and New Zealand BMX Handbook which was released in 1981 and was hugely popular.

[COASTY]

Hi Ken, It's a privelige to have you here. We have a few Quicksilver fanatics here too. A lot of us also raced at Ryde Eastwood track.
I was friends with Mark Bradley (Bear) as well. He ended up workin with me at Champion Cycles in Baulkham Hills. I have one of his Mongoose frames. He mentioned to me that it was the frame he used to race.
Where about in Riverstone was the factory? I have family in Riverstone and surrounding areas.
Please feel free to post as many pics or info that you'd like to share.
Thanks for joining up too.
Glenn

[COASTY]

Oh and I have that book. I love it.
 

[mandel]

I'll have to check back in some of my 'stuff' for the exact address but it was on the eastern side of the railway line in the 'industrial' area not far from the meatworks. I still remember the awful smell that used to come from there. I'll look for some photos and my copies of books such as BMX Down Under. After Competition Development I later worked for a publisher who put out a paper called Australian Bmx News which I sold the advertising for and was the consultant to the editor re BMX as she new absolutely nothing about it! It was a broadsheet style newspaper. For a short while I sent stories to the Us publication BMX Plus but they wern't to interested in the Australian Scene. I later tested  motorcyles and wrote for Revs Motorcycle News, Two Wheels and was the motoring editor in WA for the Sunday Times and The Sunday Independent. A lot of fun but not much money!

[Adrian H]

Hi Ken, welcome to our site, we would loe to see some of your old articles, stories etc because the history is as imporant to us as well as the bikes.

I dont have a copy of your book but I would love a copy to add to my other one called BMX - The Aussie Way by Trent Williams. He used Quickies in his book.

Cheers Adrian.

[mandel]

I found some stuff today but not all, will keep looking. Ken
I'm not sure how to upload some images I've got for the site...maybe someone can help me. I've got a bunch ready

[COASTY]

Ken If you like you can email them to me and I can upload them onto Photobucket. It's a great site and easy to use.
If you do this is my email sara.casey@bigpond.com

[mandel]

My Daughter showed me how to do Photobucket! so here are a few images, thank you for offering to help anyway!
Will need to dig deeper to find articles I wrote.
Ken.

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