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Riding a desk for most of the past 20 years has not been good for me, so it was time to try to get a little healthier.
I've been looking into getting back into bike riding for the past couple of months, mostly to try to get the range of motion back into my 56 year old hips, knees, and ankles.
I've always been into BMX and Freestyle bikes since I was a teenager, and I've never felt 100% comfortable on a larger bike, even though a mountain bike makes much more sense for me.
First, a little back-story. I grew up (sort-of) on one of these:
![Bicycle Tire Wheel Bicycles--Equipment and supplies Bicycle wheel]()
A Huffy Pro Thunder 3 that I got for my 15th birthday. This one's not mine--I found this picture online, but this is the one! My Dad took me to the Ames Department Store and said "pick one out for your birthday". We didn't have much growing-up, so this was a pretty big deal, and a pretty major expense for my family.
White steel frame and fork, red alloy rims, and red trim, and heavy as hell. This was my pride and joy all through high school, and I swear, I must have put 10,000 miles on this thing.
This bike is where I started, as far as modding goes. As I got a little extra cash, it went towards modding the Huffy. I eventually swapped out the crank set for a red chromoly set, some alloy platform pedals, converted the coaster brake to freewheel, added a better brake setup, a set of aluminum handle bars, which took a ton of weight off of the front of the bike, and an ACS alloy stem. At one point, I also sanded the frame and fork down and sprayed them gloss black with fresh set of decals that I ordered directly from Huffy. Remember, this was the early to mid-eighties, long before Al Gore "invented" the Internet; to get the sticker set, I had to write a letter and mail it to Huffy and ask them to mail them to me.
So anyway, I was doing some browsing of the bike companies that I admired back in the day, but could never afford: GT Bikes, SE Bikes, Redline, and especially Haro. Haro was always the one, mostly because of their freestyle offerings--they practically invented the dedicated freestyle bike. I knew that I wanted something fairly light, which drew me to their "race" bikes, and the Annex Pro in particular. Annex Pro - Haro Bikes
Great style, decent components, and with an all-aluminum frame and chromoly fork and bars, it only weighs just over 23 pounds. I'm pretty sure that the Huffy was close to 35 pounds, and that was fairly light for what it was.
I did some back and forth over the course of about 2 months, and then one day I got a notification that Planet BMX www.planetbmx.com was having a closeout sale on their remaining Annex Pros for $120 off of their regular price, with free shipping. I talked it over with my girlfriend, and since I was pretty much done with modding the ST, she said to go for it, if it was something that I was passionate about.
Welcome to Project: Questionable Judgement
To be honest, I would have probably preferred the black one, but the Matte Green is pretty awesome. Yeah, it's a bit ridiculous that a grown-ass man is riding a 20" BMX bike!
Unboxing:
![Shipping box Wood Rectangle Plant Asphalt]()
![Outdoor furniture Grass Rectangle Wood Bicycle handlebar]()
Initial assembly:
![Bicycle Wheel Tire Bicycle wheel Bicycle frame]()
Assembled and fitted with an old school Flite Urban Camo pad set and EVH-inspired grip donuts
![Bicycle Tire Wheel Bicycles--Equipment and supplies Crankset]()
![Bicycle Bicycle tire Bicycle frame Bicycle handlebar Wheel]()
Next installment: Let the mods begin!!!
I've been looking into getting back into bike riding for the past couple of months, mostly to try to get the range of motion back into my 56 year old hips, knees, and ankles.
I've always been into BMX and Freestyle bikes since I was a teenager, and I've never felt 100% comfortable on a larger bike, even though a mountain bike makes much more sense for me.
First, a little back-story. I grew up (sort-of) on one of these:
A Huffy Pro Thunder 3 that I got for my 15th birthday. This one's not mine--I found this picture online, but this is the one! My Dad took me to the Ames Department Store and said "pick one out for your birthday". We didn't have much growing-up, so this was a pretty big deal, and a pretty major expense for my family.
White steel frame and fork, red alloy rims, and red trim, and heavy as hell. This was my pride and joy all through high school, and I swear, I must have put 10,000 miles on this thing.
This bike is where I started, as far as modding goes. As I got a little extra cash, it went towards modding the Huffy. I eventually swapped out the crank set for a red chromoly set, some alloy platform pedals, converted the coaster brake to freewheel, added a better brake setup, a set of aluminum handle bars, which took a ton of weight off of the front of the bike, and an ACS alloy stem. At one point, I also sanded the frame and fork down and sprayed them gloss black with fresh set of decals that I ordered directly from Huffy. Remember, this was the early to mid-eighties, long before Al Gore "invented" the Internet; to get the sticker set, I had to write a letter and mail it to Huffy and ask them to mail them to me.
So anyway, I was doing some browsing of the bike companies that I admired back in the day, but could never afford: GT Bikes, SE Bikes, Redline, and especially Haro. Haro was always the one, mostly because of their freestyle offerings--they practically invented the dedicated freestyle bike. I knew that I wanted something fairly light, which drew me to their "race" bikes, and the Annex Pro in particular. Annex Pro - Haro Bikes
Great style, decent components, and with an all-aluminum frame and chromoly fork and bars, it only weighs just over 23 pounds. I'm pretty sure that the Huffy was close to 35 pounds, and that was fairly light for what it was.
I did some back and forth over the course of about 2 months, and then one day I got a notification that Planet BMX www.planetbmx.com was having a closeout sale on their remaining Annex Pros for $120 off of their regular price, with free shipping. I talked it over with my girlfriend, and since I was pretty much done with modding the ST, she said to go for it, if it was something that I was passionate about.
Welcome to Project: Questionable Judgement
To be honest, I would have probably preferred the black one, but the Matte Green is pretty awesome. Yeah, it's a bit ridiculous that a grown-ass man is riding a 20" BMX bike!
Unboxing:
Initial assembly:
Assembled and fitted with an old school Flite Urban Camo pad set and EVH-inspired grip donuts
Next installment: Let the mods begin!!!
