Whoa... this thread brings back some memories. My friends and I were all heavily into BMX and vertical skating, we rode our bikes in the old school parks with heller vertical, and we rode 'em in empty backyard pools that were big enough. We even went on to trick out bigger bikes as vert-riding sleds... I had the finest Powerlite Cruiser ever seen on this planet, you can Google "Powerlite Cruiser" and see a few images, but none of 'em even comes close. Mine was black with white lettering, it had red Araya rims, stainless spokes, Bullseye hubs (also red), Specialized tires (back when that meant something), trick neck, bars, two-finger Haro levers, lightweight alloy cranks, and a bunch of other stuff I'm probably forgetting right now, after a couple o' stiff rum & cokes, LOL. Oh, yeah, it had a freewheel on it, can't possibly remember the ratio, it has been so long, but the bike was FAST. Every possible nut and bolt that could be upgraded to aircraft aluminum was swapped out, courtesy of some hands who raced MX and worked at North Island Naval Air Station. Sadly, the bike got stolen when some fine-looking girls came down from San Rafael, my friend and I had our minds on the gals instead of bike security, you understand. His bike got stolen too, but it wasn't anywhere near as trick, just a modified Schwinn Cruiser. Oh, well, ya just can't lock a bike like that Powerlite anywhere, it doesn't do any good, since locks are for honest people. I've had some cool bikes since, including some tricked-out tandems, but that Powerlite Cruiser was the ultimate poolriding and park-riding machine, as far as bigger bikes go. You could lift it with one finger, and this was in the early '80s... we had skated since the early '70s, but it took awhile to conceive and build that bike from the frame and forks up, using every bit of skating experience to select components. I still miss that bike sometimes, it was the cleanest pedal bike I ever had in my life. I hope the wanker who stole it got hit by a truck due to bad karma, LOL.
