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Tell me about your childhood ... bicycle

Schwinn

2 votes

Ross

3 votes

Huffy

6 votes

Murray

1 votes

AMF/Roadmaster

0 votes

Other (details)

5 votes

John Cougar Lunchbucket Sep 08 2011 12:04 PM

I don't know about you guys but Chris Schwinden has me thinking of classic bikes. Schwinn back in the day dominated the kid-bike industry but didn't anticipate the move toward specialty performance bikes and overseas components very well and ran itself into distress and bankruptcy. Today it exists as a division of a diversified Canadian company (Doral Industries) that also owns bike brands Cannondale, Murray and GT and baby-product stuff Cosco and Safety 1st. Just about everyone on my block had a Schwinn Stingray (I or II) or a Varsity, although I didn't. I had a dorky orange Ross Gran Tour. Like Schwinn, they were big in the 70s especially around here (they were built in Brooklyn & Queens, and Allentown) but they succumbed to the same problems as Schwinn. Today they are a subsidiary of Rand Cycles, which imports crappy department store bikes including Lunchpail's current ride (2ndhand freebee from grandparents). Other kids had Huffy bikes. I somehow always knew Huffy was a crappy department-store bike, with a good marketing budget but empty calories otherwise. Tell us about your ride.

Fman99 Sep 08 2011 12:09 PM Re: Tell me about your childhood ... bicycle

I had a bad ass Huffy, a western-themed nightmare with a banana seat, a beaut it was. Combination of shit-brown and mustard-yellow. Looking for a picture of that sweet ride I had.

Benjamin Grimm Sep 08 2011 12:10 PM Re: Tell me about your childhood ... bicycle

My last bike was a Ross; one of those ten-speeders with the curly rams-horn type handlebars. I don't remember much about my earlier three-speeders, not even the color, much less the brand! I do remember liking the banana seats of the three-speeders better than the monkey seats of the ten-speeders. Were the terms "banana seat" and "monkey seat" common, or was that a local thing to my neighborhood? I have no idea.

themetfairy Sep 08 2011 12:10 PM Re: Tell me about your childhood ... bicycle

Schwinn

Willets Point Sep 08 2011 12:11 PM Re: Tell me about your childhood ... bicycle

I went through several Ross bikes from the local toy store until I went to college and finally got a real bike.

metirish Sep 08 2011 12:15 PM Re: Tell me about your childhood ... bicycle

I and a lot of my friends had"High Nellies", very prevalent in rural Ireland and making a comeback now. made by an English company called Raleigh , the bikes were heavier than the typical child but once you got them going they were unreal.......at my grandfathers house he had a bunch of them, they'd break your arse good but they'd last forever. I remember a local family moved back from the Bronx with their kids and brought BMX bikes with them....WOW....had only even seen them in movies ....a lot lighter than the High Nellie that's for sure.

Edgy DC Sep 08 2011 12:37 PM Re: Tell me about your childhood ... bicycle

I can't recall. Schwinn, I guess. It was a light-blue banana seater, with an aluminum casing over the crossbar to maybe sort of look like a stylized motorcycle gasoline tank. I would climb my feet up on the banana seat, let go, stand up, spread my arms, and be Jesus of the Highways. I don't know how I survived. If I saw any kid of mine try that --- let alone try it without any more helmet than the seventies bowl cut I wore, I'd shriek bloody murder. It might have been a GT, though, and maybe I didn't graduate to Schwinn until I got a teenager 10-speed. I was hocked and shorrified to read how Cardboard Gods guy Josh Wilker got the same GT skateboard as I did, for the same reasons, from the same catalog (Sears Wishbook, natch), leading to the same failed skateboarding career. I might have picked out my bike from that same catalog as well.

TransMonk Sep 08 2011 12:49 PM Re: Tell me about your childhood ... bicycle

I had a souped up Huffy with pads and pegs and gadgets to perform tricks that I never learned how to do. In one neighborhood I lived in, the end of the block was a dead end street, so all of us kids built a ramp for bikes and skating. It's a wonder we survived. I graduated to a Sears 3 speed at about 12 years old and a Schwinn 10 speed at 15.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Sep 08 2011 12:52 PM Re: Tell me about your childhood ... bicycle

Yeah, giving it some thought I think I'm conflating my bikes as well. The Gran Tour was the 10-speed successor to the bike I had when I was 7. I'm pretty sure it was silver, and the predecessor (also a Ross I think) was orange. I later redid that first one with wider, mismatched wheels, big handlebars and a basket so as to do the paper route.

seawolf17 Sep 08 2011 01:05 PM Re: Tell me about your childhood ... bicycle

Definitely a blue Schwinn as a kid. When I got into high school, my dad and I fixed up and tricked out an old bike we got from a neighbor; kinda looked like the one Irish pictured. Mangled it when I ran my brand new car (with the bike on a rack on the back) into a ditch right after college. We really want to get new bikes, but it's just one more thing, you know.

Frayed Knot Sep 08 2011 01:48 PM Re: Tell me about your childhood ... bicycle

I have no memory of my younger childhood bike, but at some point that gave way to a three-speed (thumb lever shifter) which I believe was black and probably a Schwinn. Looked like a somewhat sleeker and less tank-like version of what Irish posted. Not sure whatever happened to that one but at some point (age 15?) it gave way to the racier ten-speed of some foreign or pseudo-foreign name (Vanquer?). Never liked the lower and smaller-wheeled banana-seat types as I used bikes more for traveling than tricks and such.

metirish Sep 08 2011 02:01 PM Re: Tell me about your childhood ... bicycle

I'm from a small village and we had that one guy, I'm sure there was one in your neighborhood too that had a Tour De France grade racing bike, Fast Eddy we called him,also known as Eddie Pepsi as he always had a bottle with him, spent thousands on his bike, or at least we thought he did. Around that time Sean Kelly was a racing superstar and was from the area.

Frayed Knot Sep 08 2011 02:11 PM Re: Tell me about your childhood ... bicycle

metirish wrote: I'm from a small village and we had that one guy, I'm sure there was one in your neighborhood too that had a Tour De France grade racing bike, Fast Eddy we called him, spent thousands on his bike, or at least we thought he did. Around that time Sean Kelly was a racing superstar and was from the area. You have to remember that in this country - especially back around the '70s or so - there wasn't the bike culture as exists in Europe (and still isn't although it's a bit better). Back then an adult riding a bike was looked at as a bit odd (I know, because my father was that guy) and a biker or even a jogger (dad was both) was as likely to get run off the road by a car than driven around. The nicer drivers merely drove through puddles and splashed you.

Willets Point Sep 08 2011 02:28 PM Re: Tell me about your childhood ... bicycle

My first bike I don't remember well was small, blue and had training wheels. I was late learning to ride a bike and was too big for this bike by the time I could take off the training wheels so I moved up to bike #2: a red Ross 3-speed. I found a picture online that looks pretty much like what remember that bike. It definitely had the same long, flat seat. Around fifth grade I moved up to a blue Ross 10-speed which I rode until I crashed and broke the wheel and then it sat in my shed for years. In high school, I got another new bike, a mountain bike (when they were a new thing) that was black with neon green details and was made by, yep, you guessed it Ross. It was a piece of crap bike and I think my Mom got it at Caldor which made it seem even more crappy, but it did the job until I got to college.

metsmarathon Sep 08 2011 02:49 PM Re: Tell me about your childhood ... bicycle

i don't remember my bike(s) well, but i know they were huffys.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Sep 08 2011 02:53 PM Re: Tell me about your childhood ... bicycle

I was looking for a photo of the Ross Apollo, but remembered it as a schwinn. Nice.

themetfairy Sep 08 2011 03:15 PM Re: Tell me about your childhood ... bicycle

Mine was a pink Schwinn Stingray with a banana seat. The details come back slowly....

Vic Sage Sep 08 2011 08:00 PM Re: Tell me about your childhood ... bicycle

my bike was purple; it had a banana seat, and high bar in the back, with rattails on the handlebars. It was a pimped out ride for a 10-year old, dudes. But i have no recollection of the brand. knowing my parents, it was probably a "Pathmark".

Ashie62 Sep 08 2011 08:09 PM Re: Tell me about your childhood ... bicycle

Green Huffy with Banana seat used to impersonate Evel K with Snake River jumps on ramps..

John Cougar Lunchbucket Sep 08 2011 08:33 PM Re: Tell me about your childhood ... bicycle

Hard to find a Ross Apollo where the cranks hadn't scraped something off that paint job.

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr Sep 08 2011 09:41 PM Re: Tell me about your childhood ... bicycle Edited 1 time(s), most recently on Sep 08 2011 09:51 PM

Black-and-blue Huffy, later tricked out with pegs and a funky DIY "volcano"-effect spraypaint job, then traded for a handbrakes-only, neon-green hardy Haro, which I took off countless dirt, wood, and concrete obstacles, with wildly-varying degrees of success. Let's just say that letting my cousins and me rent "Rad" cost our family dearly in terms of bandage, antiseptic and ER bills.

Rockin' Doc Sep 08 2011 09:44 PM Re: Tell me about your childhood ... bicycle

My parents bought my first bike from the BX at Incirlik AFB in Adana, Turkey when I was in kindergarten. It was a bright red Raleigh with front rod brakes and (of course) training wheels. It had a head lamp that was powered by clicking a rotary cylinder against the side of the front tire. The wheel powered the light. If the bike stopped, the light went out. It was a great bike that was unique and it had character. I loved that bike. Later when I was in the 5th grade, my parents bought me a pale green, 3-speed Huffy that was at the time to big for me. We initially had to put blocks to build up the pedals so I could ride it. I kept that bike until I left for graduate school, so my parents really got their moneys worth with that purchase.

metsguyinmichigan Sep 09 2011 08:33 PM Re: Tell me about your childhood ... bicycle

A Murray, of course! Yellow with a black banana seat.

cooby Sep 10 2011 06:44 PM Re: Tell me about your childhood ... bicycle

Mine was a pretty ice blue metal flake banana bike. I loved that thing, and it was perfect except I never did get the sissy bar I was saving up for. Brand? Are you kidding? That was forty years ago, guys....

Valadius Sep 11 2011 12:57 PM Re: Tell me about your childhood ... bicycle

I had a white and green Huffy as my first bike - later I had a blue and red something or other that was stolen at a pool party.

RealityChuck Sep 12 2011 07:28 AM Re: Tell me about your childhood ... bicycle

Columbia. What was called at the time an English Racer because it had three speeds and hand brakes instead of a coaster brake.