This is a Roger DeCoster BMX bike, and while it may not be at the top of your wish list today, you really couldn’t have had a better birthday gift as ten-year-old in 1977. Unless you give them other ideas you may end up with a restored kids’ bike from 1977 as a birthday gift. The old Nitto handlebars were wide and put the rider in a comfortable upright position, and the ergonomic molded grips felt great.īefore you interupt your spouse to show off this web page, excitedly recalling the virtues of your first BMX bike, you should be warned: Your 50th birthday is coming up. This mountain bike was designed with a slack head tube angle and lots of fork rake, nice design elements that made the bike handle beautifully on the trails and kept the rider fairly stable at high speeds. This Schwinn Cimarron, on the other hand, deserves some nostalgia. Some folks reminisce about Schwinn road bikes… Don’t get us started on the Schwinn Varsity 10-speed. Some Schwinn fans reminisce about the 5-speed Sting-Ray or Krate models, bikes that when ridden aggressively were likely to impale the rider with a handlebar end or the shifter knob, bend a fork or break a frame. Those were pretty stylish bikes, but they were outrageously heavy and inefficient… And they were designed for children who sometimes weighed less than the Schwinn they were riding. People look back fondly on Schwinn’s balloon-tire cruisers of the 1950’s. If you find yourself at a Schwinn “dealership” these days, we suggest that you check out the grills or the lawn furniture instead. Professional bicycle stores and trained mechanics are rarely involved in the assembly of new Schwinns. The bikes are built overseas, not in Chicago. The Schwinn family is no longer involved. So with all of that, keep in mind that Schwinn bicycles of today are not the bikes that we hold in such high esteem. They made industrial-age bicycles seem new and exciting during the space-age.įor many of us, Schwinn bicycles are the reason we even ride a bike today. They built bikes for adults at a time when cycling was considered just a childhood activity. They trained bicycle mechanics and helped build professional bicycle dealerships across the country. ![]() In the three decades immediately following World War II, Schwinn nearly single-handedly kept the United States riding bicycles. In fact, there are enough of them that we decided that they deserve their own museum section. There are a lot of old Schwinn bicycles kicking around Classic Cycle. Schwinn would go on to build many variations of the Sting Ray, but the Krates, produced from 1968 to 1973, are some of the most beloved.Like most great Schwinn products, this sign is over 60 years old. By 1968, Schwinn had sold two million Sting Rays. The company could have sold more, but couldn’t make enough tires to keep up with demand. The two men made a 20-dollar bet, and Frank Schwinn lost big: The company sold 45,000 Sting Rays in the last half of 1963 alone. Fritz, however, predicted it would sell 20,000 units that year (1963), which would make it the best-selling model in Schwinn’s line. Schwinn, laid eyes on Fritz’s prototype Sting-Ray, he was not impressed. Kids were building “pig bikes” by adding longhorn handlebars and a polo seat (also known as a "banana seat") to a 20-inch frame.īased on the account in No Hands, Fritz assembled his own pig bike in Chicago, then added a dash of styling inspired by Southern California’s car culture-including slick dragster-style tires-and named his creation “Sting-Ray.” The story is recounted in No Hands: The Rise And Fall of the Schwinn Bicycle Company, an American Institution by Judith Crown and Glenn Coleman ( get it for $30.27 at Amazon), as well as Schwinn Bicycles by Jay Pridmore & Jim Hurd ( get it for $13.95 at Amazon).Īs it says in Schwinn Bicycles, in 1962 one of Schwinn’s outside sales reps told Al Fritz-then part of Schwinn’s design department in Chicago-about a trend happening in Southern California. ![]() The Story Schwinn first introduced the Sting-Ray in 1963. RELATED: Fascinating Rides: Schwinn Sting-Ray
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