Redline Bicycles

You coudl say that Redline's sponsorship with Denzel Stein was a long time coming. We were first introduced to a young Denzel by our resident Pro Girl Kim Hayashi, at the Phoenix Winternationals. He was sporting a Nag No.1 plate on his handlebars and was a ripe, virtually unknonwn 13 year old at the time. And his dream was to ride for Redline. Since we didn't have any openings, we gave him the usual "We'll watch you" comment and gave him a knuckle-bump "God job on the Nag No.1."

The following year - same race, same scenario. Again, Denzel and his Nag No.1 plate come up and introduce themselves and let it be known that he'd love to ride for Redline. And we're thinking  to ourselves, "This kid doesn't give up! He really wants to ride for Redline."

Throughout that year, we kept a closer eye on Denzel and were soon impressed with this Texan's speed and skills. As he was experiencing sponsorship woes with his current deal, Redline began helping him out with product - especially after his bike was totaled in a car crash, coming back from Rockford. Luckily, Denzel wasn't driving with them - only his bike. Eventually, Redline was able to step things up mid-year and put Denzel in a familiar red, white and black jersey. Now with full Redline support, Denzel went on to capture more Nag No.1 plates and was continually in the hunt for the ABA's No.1 Amateur title - yet kept coming up 1 or 2 rider-points short of getting the Silver Cup.

In January 2008, about one week before the season-opener was to kick off in Reno, Denzel made a plea to turn pro. He'd chased the Amateur title enough and getting that No.1 was likely still going to be out of reach and he was ready for the next step. And since Redline's star pro - Bubba Harris, would be concentrating on Olympic qualification, we gave him the "OK" to go Pro.
It didn't take Denzel long to go double-A, and it took even less time to score his first AA victory. While many of the star players were looking at Beijing, competition for the ABA title in '08 was still a hard fought battle - and Stein wound up ranked No.5 in his rookie season. He was also well recognized for his efforts that year by being voted "Rookie Pro of the Year."

BMX announcers like to call him "The People's Champ." Denzel is a very down to earth kid from DeSoto, Texas who is humble yet hungry for the win.