Profile Racing’s Legacy: Week 24, 1992.
Part One:
In mid 1990, Richard Long (the business partner in GT Bikes) was planning a trip to South Florida. While on the trip, he asked Jim Alley if he’d be willing to meet up to discuss a possible business venture.
At the time, GT had their 3-piece cranks manufactured in Taiwan and several issues were coming to the surface.
Long proposed an idea to Jim: Could Profile Racing make a high number of American Made cranks for GT? Due to the bmx recession, costs of getting dye’s made, hitting minimums for post-production chrome, and the logistics of shipping cranks across the US resulted in a decision process based solely on numbers high enough to make it work.
With multiple facets to consider, Jim left the meeting undecided.
The next month, Jim flew to California to visit a forging company as Profile Racing’s steering gears were transitioning from a casting process. His final meeting on the West Coast was at GT’s headquarters with Richard Long, Gary Turner, and GT’s main sales rep. to discuss quantities. Although the final number was left nebulous at the meeting, when Jim arrived back at the factory the next day, a PO had been faxed in…
Part Two:
By early 1992, Profile Racing had committed both tooling and materials to manufacture an American Made version of the GT Crank. This was also the aesthetic turning point of the classic, Profile Racing, 19mm crank. It transitioned from the Gen 2 version to the current, Gen 3 version (as seen in the GT crank posted here).
The overall production agreement was to last over a three (3) year period: in the end, producing thousands of sets of GT cranks.
In the meantime, Profile had to keep up with it’s own in-house production. Although the BMX times were trying, this boost in production kept Profile from having to downsize. In essence, it was one of the most crucial points in the businesses’ well-being.
Between both Profile and GT production, a truck would drive 4 hours north from Miami, weekly, to both pick up and deliver cranks for the chroming process. That process would change over the years, causing finish issues (we will get into that later)…but at this point, chrome finish was at its finest.
What other Iconic Cranks did Profile Racing produce? You might be surprised…stay tuned for 1994/1995.