Vintage Bicycles (1 Viewer)

My first bicycle was a 1965 Original Schwinn Stingray with coaster brakes, slick back tire, flamboyant lime, and I think it had a black seat.   Seems like it might have also had handle bar breaks but I can't remember.  Maybe it didn't.  We lived in the projects at the time and I remember it being the first xmas present I ever got.  I later found out that my mom's boyfriend bought that bike.  I was 6 1/2 years old.

The value of this bike in near mint condition has to be in the 4 to 5 figure range.

What was your first bike?  Does it carry value today?

I think it was a Kent that my dad got at Service Merchandise and got the assemble yourself one to save a few bucks.  IRRC after he returned it the second time for missing parts he bit the bullet and got the assembled one 

first time after taking training wheels off I ran into the neighbors tree and fell off the seat and smashed my balls on the crossbar

Dan Lambskin said:

I think it was a Kent that my dad got at Service Merchandise and got the assemble yourself one to save a few bucks.  IRRC after he returned it the second time for missing parts he bit the bullet and got the assembled one 

first time after taking training wheels off I ran into the neighbors tree and fell off the seat and smashed my balls on the crossbar

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LOL, I never did that, but I did try to go down a huge hill on the sidewalk sitting on my skateboard and crushed my balls into something, which I obviously have blocked out of my mind.

ETA:  Never had training wheels, nor anyone to help me ride the first time.  A lot of trial and error for a 6 year old.  I just took that Christmas present outside and rode it come hell or high water

I rode hand me downs until the age of 11 when I got a Schwinn Varsity Sport in lemon yellow.  It was a ten speed with drop bars that weighed in at about 38 pounds.  I broke the frame where the top bar meets the headset in a collision with a fall.  My dad was a school teacher and got the metal shop teacher to weld it back together.  Fortunately I outgrew the frame pretty quickly and in a rare turn, I ended up handing it down to my older, shorter sister.

There's a group of vintage Krate and Stingray owners who turn up at a lot of the cyclist events in SF.  Some keep their rides as close to original while others do incredible custom jobs with handmade frames.

Late 70’s Schwinn Scrambler. Banana seat. Something like this

Used to ride this thing everywhere would wax it every couple months when my dad waxed his car.

Great times.

Huffy Bandit

The General said:

Late 70’s Schwinn Scrambler. Banana seat. Something like this

Used to ride this thing everywhere would wax it every couple months when my dad waxed his car.

Great times.

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That exact bike was my first one too...in red. Somebody stole it and ditched it, destroyed, down the street. 

My grandpa had a literal junkyard of old bicycles and appliances in the canyon behind his house. "Why should I pay someone else to take it away when I can just throw it off this cliff?" he would say.

My brother and I would spend hours climbing down the hill to retrieve old bike parts (vintage Schwinns), which we would use to build our own custom bikes. Then we would throw the leftover parts back down into the canyon. I'm sure all that stuff is still there, too. The land has never been developed.

Anyway, I wanted a "real" BMX racing bike, and I knew that the old Schwins wouldn't cut it. But the local stores only sold Huffys, and Huffys were for poseurs.

I wanted a Mongoose. Everyone knew that all the cool kids rode Mongooses. But, alas, my parents could not afford a Mongoose. However, my dad went down to the local bike shop and they were able to negotiate a good deal on an AMF -- basically a wannabe Mongoose. But at least it wasn't a Huffy or a Schwinn.

Anyway, from that point I was hooked. I rode that thing EVERYWHERE. My friends and I built a BMX track through the local park, which was totally against the law but for one glorious summer we were down there every day terrorizing all the old people who were trying to have their daily walks. I got a job delivering papers and saved up all my money to buy a GT Performer. But when it arrived, the paint was so scratched up that I just started crying hysterically. I called their customer service department and they tried to buy me off with touch-up paint. My rageaholic reply: "TOUCH-UP PAINT?!?!? I (sniff) WANT (sniff) A (sniff) BRAND (sniff) NEW (sniff) BIKE (sniff) WITH (sniff) NOOOOOOO SCRATCHES!!!!!" I think they thought I was possessed by the devil, but darned if a new bike didn't show up a week later.

Anyway, I quickly decided that the GT wasn't for me. My BMX heroes were all Haro guys, so that's what I had to get. So I sold the GT, worked another part-time job, and eventually got the pinnacle of BMX bikes -- the Haro Master. At that point I was a budding vert rider. We had a quarterpipe in the backyard and I was riding every day after school. I started entering competitions but could never get past the intermediate level. Then I turned 16 and I don't think I ever rode my bike again.

Anyway, the Haro is still in my parents' attic. At one point the frame was autographed by the entire Haro team when I met them on a promotional tour, but their autographs have long since faded away by now.

My first bike was a blue one of that same style - actually I didn't know what a stingray was until I did a google search trying to find one that looked like mine. But that is what I had, only it was some knockoff/off brand bike. 

I got it for Christmas when I was 5 years old but it was too big for me when I first got it. The first couple of rides my dad basically had to help me get on it and away I went. Stopping was quite the adventure because I basically had to leap off it as I stopped because I couldn't touch the ground without potentially smacking the boys on the bar in the middle - basically a controlled crash everytime I stopped riding. My dad built a little wooden step that I could stand on and use to take off without assistance. Kind of funny to think of now. 

Eventually I kind of hated that bike - all my friends eventually had "cool" dirt bikes and here I was riding around on a stupid banana seat  bike. But I do have fond memories of that thing taking me all over the place.

I had a 70's version of the Schwinn Stingray...I think it was, not sure if Schwinn had something else similar in style that it might have been, but it was definitely a Schwinn.   Banana yellow bike with banana seat.  None of the cool extras like the shifter or handle brakes.  I beat that thing to hell.  

First one I remember was a BMX Mongoose.  Must have been around 1982.  I had a Big Wheels when I was little, then I think I had one or two "sissy" bikes before the Mongoose.