1988 Ozone Method Air - BMXmuseum.com

The Ozone was my holy grail for over 14 years!! (i wrote this in 2006) I wanted something unique for this build to celebrate the long search, so there's a set of actual gold plated Peregrine Q-Bars and a matching seatpost which enhances the yellow elements in the graphics. The frame & fork set was bought used but well preserved condition in 2004 from AJK Bikes and it came with original (and very rare) Ozone FS handlebars along with ODI Mushrooms and an Odyssey Pitbull rear brake. The project was first time completed back in june 2004 but has since been updated little by little to achieve the kind of looks i had envisioned. 

Of the Ozone Method Airs listed here in the museum, mine used to be the one that was submitted earlier by unknown "guest" titled as "1988 Ozone Freestyler" see the link: http://www.bmxmuseum.com/bikes/ozone/14 Apparently, the bike was then aquired by AJK, parted out and sold as frame and fork set with bars. This set then ended up to me.

From the above link you can see how it used to look before i did a full cleanup and re-build. I was fortunate to get the frame, fork & bars with 100% all-original factory stock decals. Despite the few nicks here and there they are very well preserved and definitely worth keeping. Ofcourse you can always reproduce decals but you can only have the originals once. You might want to consider this the next time you're about to replace those old ones with reproductions.

Ozone as a standalone brand was introduced back in 1988 and they produced total three models which all shared the same frame geometry. The difference between the three was in tube material, small details such as cable guides and paint colours.

Method One

Full 100% Chro-Moly construction, "the flagship" model. Has U-brake mounts under the chainstays. It was available in chrome/black & chrome/white. In some old magazine mailorder listings they have mentioned chrome/orange and chrome/aqua which refers to the Air-Uni (introduced year before, in 1987) which also had three models under pretty much same geometry. Those were called "Air-UNI U2", "Air-UNI Ozone" and "Air-UNI U-Bi". As for the 1988 Ozones the Method One is only known to exist in black/chrome and white/chrome. 
Method One had dual (parallel) cable stops on the bottom bracket shell and another pair of dual cable guides a bit further on so that you could run bare dual lower cables directly from your Gyro to the u-brake. It also had a cable stop plate on the underside of the downtube, just like O3, and this was meant for the two cable adjusters (unlike the O3 that only uses single cable thru the same type of plate). The idea is that you can run two separate lower cables without the housing and have their middle part exposed for less cable friction.

Method Air

The "expert" model. Tri-Moly construction, (or more likely "Quad-Moly" if you will, when adding the dual toptubes to the overall tubes count) which consist of Chro-Moly headtube, downtube and toptubes. Chainstay tubes were Hi-Tensile Steel. Method Air was designed to work with centerpull type rear brakes that mount with single bolt into the frame's seatstays or chainstays (i.e. Dia Compe, Weinmann, Altenburger, Odyssey Pitbull etc etc). Note: "centerpull" is NOT same as "u-brake". Centerpulls are mounted with a bolt on to either chainstays os seatstays while u-brakes require special welded-on u-brake studs for mounting them. There is two cable guides on the underside of the down tube, both located near the bottom bracket. The Method Air came with atleast two different downtube decal designs with fading on the front end of the decal and the other is completely chrome foil without the fade.

Method O3

High Tensile steel frame, the "entry level" model (spelled "Oh' Three" not "zero-three"). Designed to work with centerpull type rear brakes just like Method Air. The only Ozone model that came fully painted (as black) but used the same chrome foil/black fade  decals as Method Air & Method One except ofcourse the tiny stickers on the top tubes saying "Method:O3". Has the same two cable guides on the underside of down tube, near the bottom bracket and a welded-on plate at the middle part of down tube for cable adjuster or, more likely to anchor the lower cable firmly to its place.

During the late 80's to early 90's you could see people like Craig Grasso, Pete Augustin, Eric Emerson, Pete Brandt, Danny Meng etc. ride Ozones. I can't emphasize enough how cool the whole Ozone concept is in my opinion. Afterall, it was my "holy grail" for so long. According to Alan Brown, the sole creator of the Ozone, the frames were made by a small company in southern Taiwan called Yu-Jin.

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Quote from Alan Brown:

"The bikes were made in 1988-89 and took forever to get right. Taiwan was going thru rapid economic changes and finding a factory that would take on a high-end production run with small quantities was next to impossible. Yu-Jin reluctantly took on the production and we had a lot of fun trying to get our bikes made to our specs. The woman who ran the factory took under-the-table-money to rush production of a Japanese customer's order, thus putting my project in jeopardy. When I raised this issue, the woman threatened to have me deported from Taiwan."

"The Ozone name was chosen because of the balance and the various meanings that could be derived from the word itself. I came up with the logo when I was with my kids. I was just messing around and we have always loved the Wizard of Oz movie and I started with OZ. I wanted the logo to be M.C. Escher-like so I fooled around with the various lines. While I listened to Axis Bold As Love by Jimi Hendrix I wanted that to be a part of the design so I added 'If a six turned out to be nine' on the leading edge of the logo."

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Parts & specs:

• Frame: 1988 Ozone Method:Air (Tri-Moly) w/original paint & decals
• Serial#: SC80601706
• Fork: 1" Ozone made by Akisu, stamped '88, has drop outs with adjustable wheelbase
• Handlebars: Peregrine Q-Bar 1 mkII - gold plated
• Stem: ACS 55 slanted "Rotor stem"
• Grips: A'me Round (original 80's production bubble font logo)
• Seatpost: Lowrider Collection 10" tall, 22.2mm - "gold-chromed"
• Seat: labeled as "Diamond Back" manufactured by Viscount
• Seatpost clamp: black DK "noncon" from the 80's
• Brake levers: 80's production Dia-Compe Tech-77 w/locking buttons
• Front brake/pads: ACS Tangent 860F w/Skyway Freestyle Tuff Pads
• Rear brake/pads: Altenburger Concorde centerpull from the 70's w/Skyway Freestyle Tuff Pads
• Gyro: original Odyssey 1" Gyro
• Gyro cable upper: SST Oryg cut on the lower part using Odyssey knarps
• Gyro cable lower: SST Oryg/Odyssey Slick housing
• Headset: Tioga Beartrap-2
• Cranks: GT Power Series 1pc. cro-mo 175mm
• Pedals: KKT ½" alloy body, beartrap type
• Front sprocket: Tioga CDC-1 Compact Disc 43T
• Bottom bracket: YST waterproof 24T USA-BB
• Chain: KMC Z ½ x 1/8" black/gold two-tone
• Rear sprocket: NK 16T cog
• Rims: Peregrine Super Pro HP-48s stock hard baked black powdercoat w/ original production silver print Peregrine HP 48 decals
• Front hub: Peregrine/Suzue sealed 48H w/aluminum GT micro adjusters from a GT Superlace hub
• Rear hub: Suntour Freecoaster 48H 3/8" marketed as "Static" in the early-mid 90's, sold as pre-modified freecoaster. The only difference to a OG Suntour hub is the welded hub flanges.
• Spokes: 183mm black spokes with black brass nipples
• Pegs: Diamond Back dual thread 26T/24T same shape & style as Ozone pegs, just different print.
• Tires: original ACS RL Edge skinwall 20 x 1.75
• Tubes: Kenda
• Original retail price: $329.00 (Source: Freestylin' march 1989)
• Approximate value: long time holy grail - beyond priceless.
  

Previous updates:

• On january 25th 2008 this bike won the Freestyle Bike Of The Year 2008 competition hosted at vintagebmx.com with grand prize of $500 and a trophy provided by Juan Mattos at bmx-addicts.com. Many thanks to everybody who gave their vote and left all those nice comments! I greatly appreciate it. Thank You.
• September 2007 came around with a small yet very significant update because i finally took the time to apply the silver Peregrine HP 48 decals on to the black HP rims i had had lying around for a while. So i guess now it's safe to say the bike is fully completed and looks exactly the way i like it. 
• Replaced a generic seatpost clamp with Genuine DK "Noncon" (for "non-concentric") seatpost clamp from the 80's, aug 2007.
• KKT Pedals on aug 2007, very similiar to those in the old Ozone ads.
• Black/gold KMC two-tone chain, dec 2006. 
• Diamond Back dual thread pegs, sept 2006.
• Victor "DX-style" pedals, summer 2006 (now replaced with KKT's)
• Viscount seat with Diamond Back print, summer 2006.