This story is part of the Comox Valley Record’s fall edition of Trio Magazine, published quarterly and available throughout the Comox Valley.
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A replica of the Kuwahara BMX bike Elliot rides past the moon to help E.T. go home in the 1982 film, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, exists right here in the Comox Valley.
Canadian Tire manager Keith Pistell owns one of the replica bikes, along with an impressive collection of BMX bikes, all of which he restored himself almost from scratch - a hobby he only began two years ago.
“I like to buy them as rusty pieces of junk,” he said, which he then cleans up and makes brand new with a mix of original and new, updated parts. He said he’s travelled as far as Abbotsford for a bike but has purchased one all the way from Oslo, Norway.
This all started when he wanted to build an old BMX bike, which he said can’t just be bought at a local shop these days.
He posted ads online looking for one and found a 1991 GT Interceptor that he rebuilt.
“I paid $50 for that bike and $1,000 wouldn’t get it from me,” said Pistell. His collection isn’t about making money, but about memories.
“As a kid I spent every waking moment riding my dirty old rusted out, beat-up BMX bike,” he said. “I’m more into the nostalgia of it… for me it’s more of a throwback to my childhood.”
In the beginning, Pistell said he built a few other bikes for practice, eventually taking them out for a spin.
“I got enough of them together that I grabbed four or five friends and we went out riding one night, just like we did when we were kids,” he said. “We rode down to the corner store, got Slurpees and hung out at the park.”
When Pistell first started at Canadian Tire he built bikes on the side to earn some extra cash.
Fast forward 30 years and he now owns a collection of bikes worth more than $25,000 that he amassed over just a couple of years.
“I didn’t really intend to get to the place where I’ve got 18 or 20 BMX bikes,” he said. “None of these bikes I had as a kid. These are all the bikes I saw in the magazines that I wish I had.”
His own 1982 Redline BMX bike that he restored, hangs in the bike aisle at Canadian Tire here in the Valley.
Pistell said he rides his bikes with friends regularly whether it’s to the track out in Cumberland or on trips and cruise around.
“Other kids see them…just think it’s a bunch of old dudes riding bicycles,” said Pistell.
He added that parents and other people their age see his bikes and get their own bout of nostalgia, remembering their own bikes from childhood.
“It’s like a time capsule.”
Pistell shared a memory from when he was around 10 years old, the year E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial came out, of him and his cousin.
“He had an old Mongoose BMX bike and I had my Rally, and for Christmas, we got Kuwahara hats…neither one of us was getting a Kuwahara for Christmas,” he said.
“But to get a hat and a number plate for our bikes…we thought we were kings of the world.”
For Pistell, his collection is a work of love.
“I’m excited to be back at it,” Pistell said. “Not just to build them and fix them up and show them off sometimes, but I really like taking them out for a spin.”
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