Perry Kramer

Racing career milestones

Career factory and major bike shop sponsors

Amateur

• Dan Gurney: 1974
• Dirt-master: 1974-1975
• National Bicycle Association: January 1976 to Late 1976. He was directly sponsored by the sanctioning body.
• Mongoose : Late 1976-Early February 1978 Kramer would turn pro with this sponsor

  Professional

• Mongoose: Late 1976-Early February 1978
• SE Racing: Mid-February 1978 - February 1983. Kramer was dropped by SE after the 1983 American Bicycle Association Winter Nationals held in Chandler, Arizona.
• Race Inc: March 1983-Mid 1984
• SE Racing: Mid 1984-1985. After Race Inc. went out of business in mid 1984, Kramer rejoined his old sponsor.

  Career bicycle motocross titles

Amateur

• 1975 Arizona State Champion

• 1976 Winternationals Open and Overall Champion
• 1976 6 & Over Expert and Overall Western States Champion
• 1976 National No.2

• None

• None

• None

  Professional

• 1976 National No.2
• 1979 Jag Pro World Champion.

• None

• None

• None

• None

• 1980 Tokyo Grand Prix Champion.
• 1980 Avro Invitational Fietscross Champion held in Eindhoven, Netherlands.
• 2001 Kobe Bryant Biggest Fan In the World Award

  Notable accolades

• He and friends of his when they were children were responsible for getting Ernie Alexander, a Motorcycle Motocross track operator to hold Bicycle Motocross races. This led Ernie Alexander to eventually create the National Bicycle Association.
• He helped Scot Breithaupt in the establishment of SE Racing in 1977.
• Named number five of the top five riders in Southern California of 1977 by Bicycle Motocross News.
• One of the most respected and pioneering BMX bicycle models is named after him: The P.K. Ripper manufactured by Scot Enterprises Racing. It was one of the first production BMX bicycles to be made from aluminum. It is a metal that was difficult to work with bicycle frame construction and fragile if not manufactured correctly. As a result it was also more expensive than typical steel bicycles. The P.K. Ripper was one of the first aluminum framed BMX bicycles that was reliable and durable for racing and competitively priced. It was in many ways ahead of its time. The fact that it resembles a modern BMX bicycle is no accident; most modern BMX race bicycles are usually made from aluminum. Like the P.K., modern aluminum bicycle frames have oversized flattened downtubes and toptubes which was called on the Ripper "Floval" by the founder of S.E. Racing Scot Breithaupt. Also, there is a pro cruiser by S.E. called the "floval flyer," a very unusual-looking bicycle at the time, as was the "exotic" material it was fabricated from. When introduced, most BMX bicycles were made from either hi-tensile steel or more expensive but stronger chromium-molybdenum steel. Chromium-molybdenum steel, commonly known as "Chromoly", while more expensive than high-tensile steel, it was cheaper than aluminum, in part it was much easier to fabricate and more reliable in terms of durability than most other aluminum framed race bicycles on the market at the time. Aluminum, while significantly lighter and much less subject to corrosion than chromoly steel, is more brittle and less resilient than chromoly. The frame must be absolutely stiff or it is subject to failing abruptly, i.e. snapping in two suddenly. It will succumb from metal fatigue at a much faster rate, especially if it is subjected to flexing. This is why the tubes of an aluminum frame are both of a larger diameter and are thicker walled than chromoly tubes, to maintain stiffness. Further, aluminum is harder to weld. The welds have to be extra strong and "double butted" and thorough which gives the aluminum frame with its very obvious beaded welds an "unfinished" look, as if someone forgot to sand them down at the factory to give it the clean, almost one-piece look of a chromoly frame. As a result, the weight advantage of aluminum is reduced significantly, in addition to it higher fabrication cost. For these reasons, the Chromoly steel frame and fork was the standard of BMX racing and freestyle for twenty years. Only in the mid-1990s, as manufacturing advances - many pioneered in the construction of a mountain bike frame - made aluminum cheaper and easier to work with, did aluminum-framed race and freestyle bicycles begin to supplant chromoly. Today the aluminum BMX bicycle frame is the standard, and the modern iteration of the P. K. Ripper is still manufactured by SE Racing.
• He was one of the founding members of the Professional Racing Organization racers guild in 1977.
• Following in the footsteps of Bobby Encinas he established Perry Kramer's Pro School of BMX traveling BMX clinic in 1978 teaching hundreds of kids what BMX had to offer.
• He is a 1991 Inductee into the ABA BMX Hall of Fame
• He is a 2004 Inductee into the United States Bicycling Hall of Fame.

  Significant injuries

Racing traits and habits

Post BMX career

• He stayed within the industry and worked for various bicycle companies including Giant.

  BMX press magazine interviews and articles

• "Perry Kramer's Pro BMX Winners Seminar!" BMX Plus! May 1982 Vol. No.5 pg.10
• "Perry Kramer on sponsorships" BMX Torque March/April 1983 Vol.1 No.7 pg.34 Australian publication. It was the last BMX Torque ever published.
• "Flashback: Perry Kramer" Snap BMX Magazine Vol.7 Iss.4 No.42 pg.69 Retrospective article.

  BMX magazine covers

• May 1976 Vol.3 No.5 with Tinker Juarez and an unidentified racer.
• January 1977 Vol.4 No.1 with numerous unidentified.

• January 1981 Vol.8 No.1 leading unidentified racer
• March 1981 Vol.8 No.3 in top insert head shot Scott Clark in main image.

• June 1981 Vol.6 No.6 with Scot Breithaupt and R.L. Osborn.

• October 1979 Issue No.8