Trash to treasure – 2000 Black Diamond Freestyle BMX custom rebuild

A Black Diamond Freestyle BMX is not a bike you’d have found in the bike shop back in 2000. They were low end, cheap Chinese made BMX bikes sold through stores like Big W or K-Mart. If I hadn’t have paid $20 for this bike it would have been destined for the trash.

Sure it did have a set of handlebars on it that I wanted, and that’s why I bought it. But I was left with a bike that needed a major overhaul to be able to re-sell. This bikes only plus – it was a freestyle frame. However it was black, the stem was bent, the decals were ugly and many other parts were simply unusable.

And there’s the challenge, how do I make a BMX bike this ugly and virtually worthless, new and desirable again? The frame and forks were stripped and washed. The welded on chain guard tabs were cut off and filed back. To replace the handlebars I wanted, I found a set of unbranded bars.I had a complete NOS set of freestyle brakes that I bought a few weeks before. They were Hawaiian blue – the perfect starting point for this rebuild. The frame, forks and bars were resprayed crisp white so the blue would stand out.

The biggest job was to re-design the decals. I wanted to keep the bikes original name but had to get rid of the stupid playing card references. I settled on a simple blue overlapping square logo and typeface that I knew would look great against the white frame, the blue was matched to the brakes. I ended up taking a few liberties with the name, ditching the ‘Limited Edition’ tag and adding ‘FStyler’. As you can see from the photo of the decals above, the bike was being restored at the same time as the 1996 Haro Group 1 Zi restoration.

Many other parts came from donor bikes purchased for parts only. The head clamp, chainwheel, seat clamp and seat post were refurbished in black and added to the other remaining original parts – the chrome layback seat post and chrome wheels which were cleaned up, relaced and installed.

Once it was completely rebuilt I set it up for a quick BMX photoshoot as I do with all my bike rebuilds. I shot it outside in the full sun to let the white and blue glow in the light.

The 2000 Black Diamond FS Styler BMX was reborn. I am really pleased with how the bike finished up. The following week, I put the bike up onto my EBay Australia store and 7 days later, after a flurry of bids the bike sold. I am happy to say the bike is very much enjoyed by a new young rider.

For a list of blog posts that include other reproduction decals go to BMX Decals Design. For more information on all BMX decals go to re-rides.com.

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