Jeffery Bottema (April 14, 1960 – September 19, 2025) was an American professional "Old School" Bicycle Motocross (BMX) racer whose prime competitive years were from 1976 to 1981. He had the nickname of "Battling".Bicycle Motocross News March 1975 Vol.2 No.2 pg.15 Bottema died on September 19, 2025, at the age of 65.Jeff "Battling" Bottema
Racing career milestones
Note: In the early days of professional racing, 1977 and prior, many tracks offered small purse prize money to the older racers of an event, even before the official sanctioning bodies offered prize money in formal divisions themselves. Hence some early "professionals" like Stu Thomsen turning "pro" in 1975 at 16 years old where racing for small amounts of money at track eventsBicycle Motocross News January/February 1978 Vol.4 No.1 pg.22 when offered even before the NBA, regarded as the first true national BMX sanctioning body, had a professional division. For the sake of consistency and standardization noted professional first are for the first pro races for prize money offered by official BMX sanctioning bodies and not independent track events. Professional firsts are also on the national level unless otherwise indicated.
Started racing: Mid 1974 at 14 years old. His father brought him a monoshock BMX bicycle and he tried out racing.BMX Weekly October 1, 1976 Vol.2 No.4 pg.13
Sanctioning body:
First race result:
First win (local):
Sanctioning body district(s): National Bicycle Association (NBA) District "X" (Southern California/Los Angeles) 1973–1981.
First sponsor: Two Wheeler's BMX 1974.
First national win: In 14-17 Novice Class at the National Pedal Sport Association (NPSA) Eastern Nationals in Atlanta on September 7, 1975.Bicycle Motocross News October 1975 Vol.2 No.9 pg.24 (results)
Turned Professional:
First Professional race* result:
First Professional* win:
Retired: At the end of the 1983 season. During the last two years of his career he mostly raced 24" Cruiser Class.
Height & weight at height of his career: (1983) Ht:5'11 Wt:165 lbs.Murray Dunruss BMX Trading card No.23
*At the time there was no separate pro class for pros due to the relatively small number of pros. They raced with the 16 Experts, making it a Pro/Am class essentially. This is why during the early years of the pro division the national number one racer of a sanctioning body could be either an amateur or professional. This practice continued until the NBA's 1979 season in which the pros earned separate pro points and a separate pro plate from the amateurs. The ABA and the NBL followed suit a year later.
Career factory and major bike shop sponsors
Note: This listing only denotes the racer's primary sponsors. At any given time a racer could have numerous ever-changing co-sponsors. Primary sponsorships can be verified by BMX press coverage and sponsor company advertisements at the time in question. When possible exact dates are given.
Amateur Two Wheeler's BMX: 1974 – May 1975 Webco Inc.: May 1975 – March 1976. Webco disbanded its team in March 1976.Bicycle Motocross News May 1976 Vol.3 No.5 pg.9 D.G. Performance Specialist (The initials stood for Dan Hangsleben, Gary Harlow):BMX Plus! July 1988 Vol.11 No.7 pg.26 Late April 1976-July 1979. In April 1977 Bottema supposedly briefly "retired" to race motorcycle motocross (MX) for D.G.,Bicycle Motocross News May 1977 Vol.4 No.5 pg.4 much like how David Clinton briefly "retired" from BMX to race MX in early 1976 for his then sponsor Kawasaki Motors.Bicycle Motocross Action January/February 1979 Vol.4 No.1 pg.40 However, Bottema totally retiring from BMX was an incorrect announcement.Bicycle Motocross News June 1977 Vol.4 No.6 pg.4 He concentrated on MX while racing some BMX. Bottema started racing BMX full-time again in early 1978.Bicycle Motocross Action September/October 1978 Vol.3 No.5 pg.45
Professional D.G. Performance Specialist: Late April 1976 – July 1979. Raleigh Cycle Company of America: July 1979 – Mid January 1981. Raleigh dropped its racing team in January 1981.Bicycle Motocross Action February 1982 Vol.7 No.2 pg.80 According to teammate Toby Henderson Raleigh allegedly strung himself and Jeff Bottema along with false promises of a new contract for the 1982 season only to abruptly dropped by Raleigh:
Toby Henderson: "...I was getting a couple of good contracts coming up, and I turned them all down, because I kept calling Raleigh, and saying, "Well, are we going to do something next year?" "Oh yeah, oh yeah, we're really going to be full force next year." [Raleigh's alleged response-ed.] So I turned some good contracts down, and I let it all slide, until the middle of January, when I called them up and said, "Well, where's the contracts? Let's get some contracts going", and they said, Well, we decided we're going to go TV advertisement", and that's all they said, like "Click." [imitating a phone hang up-ed.] And we [Henderson and Bottema-ed.] said, "Huh?" Here we turned down like three or four good contracts in October, when all the other teams were setting their budgets up and looking for their riders for the next year."BMX Plus! October 1982 Vol.5 No.10 pg.54 ---BMX Plus! October 1982 Ironically, Raleigh would restart its BMX sponsoring program a year later.
Mountain Dew: Late 1980 – Mid 1981. During the early spring and summer of 1981 he was part of the Mountain Dew exhibition team that toured the US demonstrating BMX racing, freestyle and BMX safety. His teammates included Perry Kramer, Harry Leary, Stu Thomsen, Brent Patterson, Bob Haro and R. L. Osborn (this was concurrent and in addition to their primary sponsor at the time). Murray of Ohio Corporation: August 1981-December 1983* Jeff Bottema became road team manager as well as a racer in May 1982.BMX Action August 1982 Vol.7 No.8 pg.76 Scott Clark succeeded him in that position after Bottema retired from racing.BMX Action May 1984 Vol.12 No.5 pg.20
*As an active racer. After his retirement at the end of the 1983 season he took an office position with Murray.BMX Plus! May 1984 Vol.7 No.5 pg.14 He later became the Murray Road Racing Team Manager.
Career bicycle motocross titles
Note: Listed are District, State/Provincial/Department, Regional, National, and International titles in italics. "Defunct" refers to the fact of that sanctioning body in question no longer existing at the start of the racer's career or at that stage of his/her career. Depending on point totals of individual racers, winners of Grand Nationals do not necessarily win National titles. Series and one off Championships are also listed in block.
Amateur National Bicycle Association (NBA) 1975 14 & Over Intermediate Grandnational Champion #1 (Tinker Juarez was the winner of the second MainBicycle Motocross News January 1976 Vol.3 No.1 pg.16). 1977 16 Expert NBA/Mongoose Exhibition winner (First race; David Clinton won the second group of 16 Experts). In 1977 the NBA held an exhibition race during the halftime period between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Los Angeles Rams NFL football game at the Los Angeles Coliseum in Los Angeles in August 1977 (the Rams moved from Los Angeles, California to St. Louis, Missouri in 1994). The racers in the mains during halftime were invited after an NBA race at Rancho San Diego on September 19, 1976 in San Diego, CaliforniaBicycle Motocross News October 1976 Vol.3 No.10 pg.12
National Bicycle League (NBL)
1976 Class F (15 Expert) NML/Schwinn Gold Cup winner††
††In 1976 the National Motocross League (NML) (the motorcycle motocross racing parent organization of the NBL) with the sponsorship of the Schwinn Bicycle Company held the final Gold Cup mains races (after having two qualifying events several days before) as an exhibition during the halftime period in a pre-season NFL football game between the Miami Dolphins and the Minnesota Vikings in the Orange Bowl in Miami, Florida on July 31, 1976 in front of and estimated 50,000 spectators.Bicycle Motocross News September 1976 Vol.3 No.9 pg.10
American Bicycle Association (ABA) None Fédération Internationale Amateur de Cyclisme (FIAC) None International Bicycle Motocross Federation (IBMXF) None Independent race series and invitationals:
1975 Heavyweight* Intermediate Nevada State Champion
*Classifications of the racers were based largely on the physical size of the racers at the Independent i.e. non sanctioned track the Championship race was held at.Bicycle Motocross News August 1975 Vol.2 No.7 pg.23 (results page)
1976 16 Expert California Cup winner.
The California Cup was a non sanctioned series of three qualifying races held at three tracks (for a total of nine separate races) in three different regions of Northern California. Then the finals were held. The series was sponsored and promoted by BX-Weekly Magazine, a BMX newspaper and Rick Varner (R&R) Racing Products. The finals were held at the famous Corona Raceway on September 5, 1976.
Professional
National Bicycle Association (NBA) None National Bicycle League (NBL) None American Bicycle Association (ABA) None United States Bicycle Motocross Association (USBA) None International Bicycle Motocross Federation (IBMXF) None Pro Series Championships
Notable accolades He was one of the founding members of the Professional Racing Organization (PRO) racers guild in 1977.BMX Action December 1986 Vol.11 No.12 pg.30 In 1980 with then fellow Raleigh teammate Toby Henderson, Bottema became one of the first Americans to be invited to Europe to promote and demonstrate BMX racing. Created and manufactured one of BMX's most popular and famous bicycle components: the Bottema Bullet Fork. It was a tubular unicrown fork manufactured by his company that was the most popular and respected component of its type since Redline Engineering came out with the very first unicrown tube fork for BMX bicycles in 1974. The original M-1 Bullet Fork had extra thick chromoly tubing at .065" and extra long fork legs than other tubular forks of that period to reduce flex while the weight was still competitive with the lighter forks on the market. They are also of the "straight design, .i.e the fork legs are parallel with the head tube as opposed to the legs being angled forward slightly giving the bicycle a longer wheelbase. To compensate the Bottema M-1 fork had a one inch axle lead. These first models were particularly popular with BMX freestyle skatepark bowl riders like Jeff Watson and Eddie Fiola for their extra durability. Bottema had also came out in 1979 with C-1 cruiser models for 26" cruiser racing bicycles. In early 1981 he came out with the M-2 racing model with thinner tubing with the axle line further down the tube legs.