Actor Bill Allen, stuntman Eddie Fiola remember ‘Rad’

Published by UPI on Mar 21, 2026 5:30 AM

March 21, 2026 / 5:30 AM
By Fred Topel

LOS ANGELES, March 21 (UPI) — The 1986 BMX movie Rad, returning to theaters Sunday and Tuesday via Fathom Entertainment, stars Bill Allen as teen bicyclist Cru Jones. On screen, Cru is actually a hybrid between Allen and Eddie Fiola.

In a recent Zoom interview with UPI, Allen and Fiola explained their collaboration. Fiola was a professional freestyle BMX rider hired to double Allen in the bicycling scene.

“There was little bike riding that I had to do,” Allen, 63, said. “If you look at the scenes where I’m on a bike, it’s a little embarrassing.”

Cru wears a helmet, which Fiola could don to substitute for Allen. Even so, there was even more movie magic to make Rad look a lot more dangerous than it was for the performers.

Cru evades a policeman by riding atop piles of logs in a lumber yard. Fiola revealed how the filmmakers, led by director Hal Needham, made riding over logs more feasible.

“The hard part was making it look hard,” Fiola, 61, said. “If you looked really close, you could actually see plywood laying down on top of the lumber.”

Cru competes in the Helltrack race to win $100,000, a Corvette, and inevitably a place on a professional team. Fiola was not a racer, so other riders slowed down to make him appear more competitive.