The stingray bikes came later in my young days. My first bicycle was much like this.
https://www.k-bid.com/auction/26235/item/31
https://www.k-bid.com/auction/26235/item/31
This how we rolled!!
- Thread starter GON
- Start date
Another boomer here. I had the best parents possible. I was told by my mum when I was very young that a cousin had been killed by a bull, so stay away from big aggressive animals...now go out and play in the woods!
My now 30 something daughter got a canister of bear spray after we had a cougar on the front porch... I expect that if she and her husband have kids they will hear the same kinds of advice. I suspect this is as much a rural / urban culture divide as anything.
My now 30 something daughter got a canister of bear spray after we had a cougar on the front porch... I expect that if she and her husband have kids they will hear the same kinds of advice. I suspect this is as much a rural / urban culture divide as anything.
Wow this brings back memories. My 1st "stingray" bike was a trash picked boys 20" bare frame in 1966. Saved my allowance and every week bought something. Bought the rims from local Western Auto, rear slick and white metallic banana seat, white metallic grips, coaster brake installed a HUGE front sprocket. I rattle canned sprayed it gloss black. paint fumes, we don't care bout no stinkin paint fumes.... Sold it a year and a half later to neighbor who just had to have it and I with savings (paper rout, lawn mowing jobs) bought a brand new just out Stingray Apple Krate bike.... the one with the gear shifter, small front wheel and drum brake. Had an awesome girder front fork and plunger springs on the seat rear posts. I bought the rare ram's horn or as we called them "butterfly" handlebars..... man I was the cat's azz, loved that bike. Wish I still had that bike.. Then high school was approaching and was a Schwinn Varsity 10 speed in the campus green...
Had a sky-blue bike a lot like that one in the picture, black banana seat with a small grab bar at the tail end....you know, for pulling roller skaters behind me. 
Tried to hang with the dirt-bike kids and took it over a jump. Broke the frame weld at the crank. Got a ten-speed the next Christmas. Not a fun bike for Wyoming's icy roads 8 months out of the year, but I wore that bike completely out. Crank bearings were GONE when I finally got my car.
Now I've got a mountain bike taking up room in my garage. It's a rack for hanging wet microfiber towels.
Tried to hang with the dirt-bike kids and took it over a jump. Broke the frame weld at the crank. Got a ten-speed the next Christmas. Not a fun bike for Wyoming's icy roads 8 months out of the year, but I wore that bike completely out. Crank bearings were GONE when I finally got my car.
Now I've got a mountain bike taking up room in my garage. It's a rack for hanging wet microfiber towels.
Baseball cards on the spokes to make sound like a motorcycle.... man, my rear rim was loaded with cards flapping off the spokes... many doubled and Mom was NOT happy I 'borrowed" her clothes pins.
gathermewool
Site Donor 2025
I don’t think I’ll let my kids do half of the crap I did. I can‘t believe I made it out of childhood without any major injuries!
We also rode our bikes behind the campground mosquito fogger. In the 70's that might have been DDT.
I mowed yards to pay for my Schwinn Varsity the summer of 1965 when I was 12. It cost $72 brand new and I had to mow a lot of yards to pay for it.
Had a kid (he looked about 12) knock on my front door last year and ask if he could mow my yard. I asked how much, he said $50 for the front yard. It takes me about 20 minutes to do the front yard. Told him thats over $100 an hour and laughed, i kind of felt bad but that kid needs a wake up call from someone and I'm hoping I gave it to him.
I was definitely born in the wrong generation.
Caddied at local country club in my early teens I just remembered.... (CRS setting in??).... carried what seemed like a 50LB bag over hell's half acre all day for $3 or $4 and the big spender golfer you would do this for would flip you a quarter tip or give you a cigar out of his trunk. And dambit we liked it.......
Those were the days! I got a genuine Schwinn Stingray in gold with the banana seat and sissy bar. The first one in the neighborhood. My friends followed up with Stingray style bikes, but theirs were Murray and Husky, so I always felt special. I rode that bike everywhere. Great times.
Schwinn was the top dog back in the day before all the 10 speed foreign makes came into vogue as we got older...... Stingray or graduated to a 10 speed Varsity.. or for the rich folks and big dog a Paramount. Gave my Varsity (in campus green of course) to my sister and bought a white Bottecchia Giro D'Italia.... man my chit didn't stink then and joined a bike club. Actually got pulled over by a cop doing 36MPH in a 25...... cop said I was a **** fool..... but I was FLYING and dambit I liked it.
Would be at the local school ballpark all day playing umteen innings with neighbor kids till dinner time. Or down the street at the woods playing army making forts in the trees, on the ground or underground (those were spooky). Woods had a large swamp and summer would have "frog wars". Group on each side... grab a frog, bend over a medium tree (about 2" diam), put frog on branches, let go. Like a 3 Stooges skit where we got it from. Flying frogs all over the place going across the swamp bombing the other guys....let me tell ya, it ain't fun getting nailed with a slimy frog but dambit we liked it!!
Lever shifters weren't all that unique. They were pretty common with hi-rise bikes, like this Schwinn Sting-Ray. Yours looked like a slightly different style.
Found something like it....
Those levers did seem like a lawsuit waiting to happen as soon as a kid falls off and gets impaled by the lever.
I guess since I had the only one like it in the neighborhood I thought the shifter was unique. I kinda still like the look of those bikes. I had replaced the red banana seat on mine with one of the very cushiony "BMX" bike seats of the era.Lever shifters weren't all that unique. They were pretty common with hi-rise bikes, like this Schwinn Sting-Ray. Yours looked like a slightly different style.
Found something like it....
Those levers did seem like a lawsuit waiting to happen as soon as a kid falls off and gets impaled by the lever.
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