Roots

The most amazing thing happened to me recently. In the mid-to-late '80s, I rocked a Mike Dominguez signature Diamond Back Strike Zone. I rode flatland on that thing for 4 or 5 years, and I seriously lived on that bike. Here's a pic of me rolling an elbowglide circa '88 I believe...



Eventually I decided to upgrade and sold this bike, and to this day I feel like it is one of the stupidest things I ever did. I kept almost everything else I had collected from that era, including a Diamond Back team shirt and the Life's a Beach "Bones" cap in the above pic...



...but like a complete idiot, I hadn't saved the most important thing, which was of course the bike. Well, recently I happened to come across a pic of the exact same rig on Flickr, and someone had mentioned in the comments that it was owned by Large Ray of Plywood Hoods fame and that he had been looking to sell it a few months ago. I managed to find his email address through vintagebmx.com and asked if he still had it, and he replied saying he did and that he would send it to me for pretty much peanuts.

Yesterday I came home from work and found this on my doorstep...



It needs to be cleaned up and dialed in a bit, but on the whole it's in amazing condition. No rust on it anywhere. I went out and rode it for about an hour this morning, and I swear to God I still can't wipe the stupid grin off my face...