(first posted 3/17/2015) We don’t really do bicycles here on CC, at least on a regular basis. But after recently concluding forty years of ownership, please indulge me the privilege of sharing its story. Maybe we can think of this as the Impala Sport Coupe of bikes, if that helps.
The story begins with a much cooler bike and my first totalled vehicle. On my 11th birthday in 1970, I was indulged with the pre-teen version of the Hemi Cuda – a Schwinn Pea Picker. I had been a dedicated Stingray rider since my 7th birthday, but the old gold Stingray was showing its age and I was ready for something new.
My friends were getting upsized five speeds. Kevin next door had been on a Schwinn Typhoon for awhile, but Tim down the street got a new Collegiate which sort of set the curve for the rest of us. I knew that a bike was do-able for my 11th birthday, and got my hands on a Schwinn catalog to peruse the choices.
I have always been a pretty practical and conservative guy, but twelve was an interesting time. Raging hormones? That is probably the best explanation for my sudden mancrush on the Schwinn Krate bikes. Take a basic Stingray, add springs on the banana seat, a 5 speed stick shift, and that ultra-cool chopper-style little front wheel with its drum brake. Being 1970, that metallic green was all the rage and even though I thought the name was kind of stupid, the Pea Picker was the baddest of the most badass bikes on the market.
Now I fully expected my parents to start working me down to something a little less extravagant, but to my amazement, my father ponied up with the object of my desire on the big day. Being honest here, an eleven year old boy can be in a pretty good bargaining position with his divorced dad, and in my supercharged adolescence, I was emboldened to do everything I could with the hand of cards I was holding.
I will also be honest that the bloom fell from the Picker pretty quickly. Unlike with a car, a kid’s bike depends on kid power, and keeping up with my friends on this small-wheeled racer proved to be a challenge. I was set for stoplight drags while my friends were ready for the open road. Ironically, it was just such a drag race that led to the Pea Picker’s untimely demise.
One fine summer day, a friend decided on a spur-of-the-moment race. Oh, you bet I had his ass, right up to the moment that I jammed the Picker into the back of Mr. Bordner’s ’71 Firebird that had never, ever been parked in the street – until that day. The damage tally was pretty impressive: a bumper, taillight and a rear panel on the car, parts of my two front teeth gone, and a badly bent-up hot rod bike. Time to grow up.
With my new Schwinn catalog, I was much more mature. After all, I was now thirteen. I was done with hot-shit kid-stuff bikes and picked out a nice, normal 5 speed Collegiate. My adult nature was starting to come through here, as I purposefully passed up on a 10 speed. “Never had 10 speeds before, and who really needs more than 5?” Bad call, I know, but there you have it. Like an Impala Sport Coupe with a Powerglide instead of the Turbo Hydramatic? Maybe so.
I even picked a nice, mature brown. Brown was in then, and I really did like it. Still do. Upon taking ownership, this bike served to get me all the way to my drivers license. The Collegiate took me everywhere during those endless days of summer before I was old enough to get a job. Its epic road trip was a fifty mile day trip from Fort Wayne to Huntington, Indiana and back. The brown Schwinn was my trusty companion for everywhere I needed to go.
Until I got a drivers license. From that moment, the old bike became a dusty, neglected relic whose time had come and gone. But I didn’t care. Cars were my first love, and hadn’t a bike just been a temporary expedient? Years later, my sister got married and asked if she and her husband could have my bike. “Sure, take it” was my instantaneous reply.
Later, my own kids were starting to get bikes and I got the brown Schwinn back from sis. A little oil on the chain and we were good to go for rides around the neighborhood. The Impala, er, Collegiate was a perfect neighborhood cruiser for accompanying youngsters on their much smaller bikes. Until one day when a tire blew. So, back to the garage.
The kids were pretty much beyond accompanied rides by then, and the old Schwinn sat for a few more years, gathering dust and taking up increasingly valuable real estate in the garage. I remembered it one day when a related topic came up during a CC discussion about something that I can’t remember. That was when our own Jim Grey commented that it would be cool to have a classic bike to ride, causing a light to go off in my head.
I had to be honest and recognize that there were about 4,367 unfinished projects in and around my house, the neglected old Collegiate being just one of them. It was actually liberating to come to the realization that I just wasn’t going to get to it any time soon, and how cool would it be to put it into the hands of someone who would ride and appreciate it.
The bicycle equivalent of a barn find, it needed a bit of work (and two new tires) to be operable again, but Jim came and looked it over and pronounced it worth adopting. So, I am happy to conclude my story by telling you that my former classic Schwinn remains in the CC family under JG’s ownership. A man who will undoubtedly have some better pictures of it than these.
I am plenty happy to have had over 40 years with my bike, and in retrospect, never appreciated it as much as I should have. These old Chicago-built Schwinns may not have satisfied true bike enthusiasts, but they really were built like brick outhouses. I can tell you that the baked-on finish was everything that Captain Kangaroo made it out to be on TV. Maybe one of these times, JG can take a break from riding it to give us a more objective look at this classic bike, one that is not tinted with the soft lens of adolescence. But with nice spring weather (hopefully) around the corner, my advice to Jim would be to stay away from the keyboard and keep riding.
Related Reading:
1969 Raleigh Rodeo (Craig Dickson)
1973 Schwinn Speedster (Aaron65)
That gear shifter looks like it was a very painful accident JP!I always associated Schwinns with the “sit up and beg” bike with the curved top tube paper boys always rode in TV shows and films and had no idea they made sportier bikes
Absolutely right about that shift lever. A big part of bike riding was jumping them over curbs and piles of dirt (this was a few years before all of us graduated to motocross). A couple of hard and excruciatingly painful landings and I gladly returned my buddy’s Schwinn Fastback to him, happily going back to my garden variety Sting Ray.
I graduated to a Schwinn Varsity, as did my friends, and I am not sure what the differences are between a Varsity and a Collegiate.
My brother spent a couple of days walking like John Wayne after an accident on his Raleigh Chopper which had a similarly placed gear shifter
I was flying too fast and too high to hit the gear shift when I hit that Firebird. I rolled off the roof of the car. Good thing it wasn’t a station wagon or a van.
Those stylish (but dangerous) top-tube mounted bike shifters were outlawed by safety legislation in the US around 1974.
Anyone know the difference between the various Schwinn ‘chopper’ bikes (Orange Krate, Pea Picker, Typhoon, Fastback, St
ingray)?
I know that the Stingray was the original “hotrod” bike that Schwinn put out, with high rise handlebars. My first one (from 1966) was even pre-banana seat.
The “Krate” bikes differed only by color – Apple Krate (red), Orange Krate (duh), Lemon Peeler (yellow), Pea Picker (green) and Cotton Picker (white).
The Typhoon I recall as a more or less midsize bike that was halfway in size between the Stingray class and regular sized bikes. The “Fastback” would take a little research. I seem to recall that it was like the Krate, only without the small front wheel or sprung fork, but with the stick shift and banana seat.
I still have a yellow Stingray from the mid 70s that I bought from a colleague when I was looking for a bike for my oldest son. I need to get it out for some pictures and a writeup.
Fastbacks and Krates usually had slick type rear tires with a much smaller front tire to effect a dragster look.
Typhoons were “Middleweights” that came in 24″ and 26″ sizes (for boys and adults), and these were typically lower-priced bikes, with other middleweights adding trinkets for a higher price (Corvettes and Jaguars, for example).
The lightweights were your Racers, Collegiates, and Varsities. They didn’t have the cantilever frames, and had thinner (at least thinner looking) tubes and a more angular design.
Actually Fastbacks and Krates were different. Krates had the smaller front tire. Fastbacks had 20″ wheels about the same width as 10-speeds. They came with either the high rise handlebars (Stingray Fastback) or ram’s horn handlebars (Ramshorn Fastback)
A friend of mine, back then, had a metallic blue Ramshorn Fastback. Even the banana seat was metallic blue vinyl. He added 2 more accessories, a sissy bar and diamond shaped headrest that matched the seat. Talk about a cool looking bike!
Bob
The original stingray was a standard schwinn boys bicycle with tall handlebars. There was many different price levels. Fenders or no fenders chrome or painted. Banana seat or standard solo seat. Etc etc. The “krate” was the fancy bike that crossed into the absurd. Tiny front wheel and springer forks resembling chopper motorcycles of the era and a gear shift that resembled a sportscar shift lever. Krates are the most sought after for schwinn collections. The fasback was a high-speed variant of the stingray. Skinny tires and a light(er) weight frame.
Those gear shifters are known as “gut rippers”.
I got gypped on my first bike. My sister had a Schwinn Stingray with banana seat in that green apple color. My bike was a Base Huffy that was so lousy the chrome plating rusted off and the paint faded. So Dad and I gave it paint job in the garage one day using maroon paint left over from his friend’s Buick Century re-paint. The bike looked as uncool and dull as you are imagining plus there was masking tape on the seat.
Next up for me was a Schwinn Varsity in a bright yellow color. It had the dropped down handle bars that looked like ram horns, derailleur gears (it was a 10 speed) and skinny tires.
It was a super cool looking bike and I put a ton of miles on it. The snobbier bike riders had Peugeots with their lightweight alloy frames and 15 speeds but they didn’t look as sexy as my Varsity. Kinda like how some high-end European sports cars don’t look as hot as a new Mustang or Camaro.
When it came time for college “beach cruisers” were all the rage but my Yellow Varsity, now with the handle bars turned up, held its own. It was an easy bike to ride without having your hands on the handle bars.
Yeah, I had that base Huffy ‘Cheater Slick’ K-Mart special, as well.
And, man, look at those prices for the Schwinns. $80 was a big chunk of change back in the day. Price adjusted for inflation, I’m sure it’s well over $800 in today’s dollars, which is probably just about right for an equivalent Trek. But, then, it was an American-made Schwinn, sold at an LBC (Local Bike Shop), too.
You don’t want to see what a clean Krate sells for nowadays – the prices are commensurate with a Hemi Cuda convertible. I’ve seen mint ones go for $4000. Which boggles me, as they were the most useless bicycle ever made.
The analogy of the Schwinn Krate bike to the Hemi-Cuda regarding obscene current selling prics seems entirely appropriate.
Good to see a nice serviceable and near original bike like that find a good new home. In 1972 I had a 1955 Viking that had originally been my mum’s – a proper bike mind, that she’d used on Club runs when my dad was dating her. Me on the right on a run in Essex or Hertfordshire:
I rode that until the early 1980s when I acquired a 1976 Dawes Super Galaxy. I still ride that, though it needed a new frame and front wheel around 1984 after some guy in a Vauxhall VX decided to turn right across me coming the other way. He needed a new wing…
You have no idea how many of those I’ve picked out of barns, garages, damp basements, etc. over the past eight years; refurbished, and resold to college students. That bike is an easy-peasey restoration. 5% oxalic acid bath will soak off and an all rust on the chrome, as bit of mild abrasive paper on the spokes, completely tear down, regrease and rebuild. Add a new chain, new tubes and tyres, and you’re ready to ride.
Welcome to why I don’t work on cars and motorcycles anymore. I’m barely competent on motorized vehicles. Bicycles? I’m a master mechanic with over forty years of experience. And there’s seven road bikes hanging in the garage as of this writing, plus four folders (one is kept at work for daily bank runs) and three Sturmey Archer powered roadsters.
And, four years ago, I’m built up an exact replica of my first “adult” bike (up to that time I’d been commuting using the 1958 Schwinn Jaguar dad got me for my eighth birthday), a ’71 Schwinn Super Sport in dark red (yes, the orange one I have is a ’73 and built identical). Except that it’s stripped down, has downtube shifters and the wheels are riding 700c sew-up racing tyres. I was the first guy in Erie to be riding sew-ups.
http://i132.photobucket.com/albums/q10/sykerocker/American%20Bikes/SchwinnSuperSport1_zpsb013ee56.jpg
Let’s try this again, I didn’t expect the link to work out that way:
You have me entertaining the thought of airing up the tires on my bike and taking it on a nice journey. There is that 200 mile bike trail just a few miles north of me…
Seeing this brown bike reminds me of something I’m not overly proud of. When I was thirteen or so, I had outgrown my old yellow, banana seat bicycle. For my birthday, I was given a brown Sears bicycle, a three-speed version that while not built like the brick outhouse you mention, it was about as heavy. This style of bike struck me as something one would see being used by a resident of a retirement community. Trying to keep up with friends on their 10+ speed bikes was a bitch (especially uphill on gravel roads) and I quit riding it long before my drivers license entered the picture.
Compounding my embarrassment was my younger sister got the exact same bicycle – only the female version – soon thereafter. She never rode it. I’m not sure why my parents saw fit to get us identical bicycles, as it sure wasn’t cute for us. While I rode mine, it was always with a certain degree of apprehension as it was so unstylish to me at the time. I had yearned for a ten-speed like this one, but I got the old fuddy-duddy. Sort of like yearning for the Impala Sport Coupe and getting the power glide equipped ’51 Chevrolet 210.
I have no clue what happened to either bicycle. Most likely my mother threw a hissy fit and sold them. Like I said, I’m not exactly proud of how I welcomed that bicycle.
Jason, I read your post with both a bit of relief (that I wasn’t the only kid in the boat), and some sad shame at how I received my first “big boy” bike.
It was a single speed, formerly three-speed, Sears bike. 26″ wheels, upright handlebars, chrome finish. NOT what I coveted.
I know my chilly response to the surprise presentation must have stung my parents, especially my dad. He worked hard, and undoubtedly scrimped to save in order to purchase it for me.
Anyway, I’m grateful for your post. Echoed my own experience, and gave me a healthy reminder about the proper appreciation of gifts. Thanks.
My parents, in a not-appreciated fit of adult sense, were never willing to get me a Sting-Ray bike, as they’d spent a massive amount of money for my eighth birthday on a Schwinn Jaguar Mk. IV(?) with Sturmey-Archer 3-speed and enough chrome gew-gaws to serve as a battleship anchor. It must have weighed 50 lbs.
And, of course, was completely out of style by 1961. So what, I had a bike, enjoy it! So I built my own Sting-Ray, using a little kids 20″ bike that dad had painted at the Chevrolet dealership for me. My first ever bicycle build, and my first lesson in gear ratios. Little kids get 36 tooth chainwheels, and there wasn’t enough room on the rear stays to go to an adult sized chainwheel.
Still, I rode it and had a good time. It’s what got my bicycle mechanic abilities started. And the Jaguar languished in the storage shed, until 1969 when I took it to college for daily transportation and began a long-term fascination with bicycle commuting. I hate riding the bus.
Yes, I’m the happy recipient of the JPC cruiser. I had it mechanically restored at the beginning of last riding season and it rides almost like new. Except for removing the speedometer, I’ve done pretty much nothing to it cosmetically. Maybe I will one day, but for now I just want a reliable rider. It’s just a little scratched up with some surface rust; no biggie.
But I didn’t get to ride it much last year. I ended up needing foot surgery last summer. It curtailed all active pursuits for a good eight months.
This bike joins a circa 1983 Schwinn Collegiate 3-speed that had been my main rider for about the past six years. I also have a Trek Mountain Trak I picked up used about ten years ago. That’s a fine bike, but what I discovered is that riding it pinches a nerve somewhere and puts my entire lower half to sleep. I remembered the cushy, springy seat of my childhood 3 speed and set about finding one.
I should do a series: Bikes of My Lifetime (BOAL):
– Used, beat up 20″ Schwinn Dad bought me for $10 so I could learn to ride. He and I painted it metal-flake light blue.
– Huffy Thunder Road “56” that I saved my allowance for more than a year to buy myself. http://bmxmuseum.com/bikes/huffy/40960
– Sears, I think, 3 speed I bought for $20 used and painted white.
– AMF “Nimble” 3 speed I bought new with saved allowance. It was maroon with a maroon seat trimmed in white piping. I rode that bike from call it age 14 until about age 25. One of these, sans basket: https://www.flickr.com/photos/w1xq/5841164782/
– Some sort of Schwinn mountain bike. I remember it was red. I also remember that during the year it was locked in my soon-to-be-ex’s garage while I awaited the divorce settlement, that she destroyed it in anger. It was so bad that I ended up putting it in a dumpster.
– That Trek Mountain Trak. Don’t know why I still have it; I’m never riding it again.
– That 1983 Schwinn Collegiate. It’s a funky blue: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mobilene/3730124179/
– JPC’s brown Collegiate.
Things like that non-working speedometer are why it is good that you have this bike. I bought that speedo right after I got the bike and installed it myself. I always marvelled at how Schwinn designed the dial to go to 60 mph. It broke before I got it back from my sister. The fact that it was rusty and broken was an irritant every time I rode it, but it was just so integral with our shared history that I couldn’t just throw it out. But you did the right thing.
I can’t imagine that old, mechanical speedometer being very accurate, either. Cheap, relatively accurate, digital bike ‘computers’ (speedometers) is another one of the areas that has gotten exponentially better since the ‘good ‘ole days’.
Hell, I would imagine that a lot of people simply use one of those smartphone bike holders and simply get their speed via GPS.
The bike shop actually removed it — when I picked up the bike, they handed me the speedo first. I decided to just go with it!
Jim, it’s already a thing, there’s a few BOAL articles on motorcycles!
Dear Jim: The real reason you now have JPC’s Schwinn was so he could make room in the garage for my former Miata. So to complete the circle, I have to buy something wheeled from you! What have you got? SeVair/John
Um, how about my lawn tractor? 18 years old, hood held on by two Vise Grips, but it always starts right up. 😉
Hey Jim: We have about 100 square feet of yard, or more precisely dirt & tufts, so yes, I need a tractor! John/SeVair
Yes, John – one less bike made the whole thing work. I’d say a good trade.
My first “real” racer-type bike was a Schwinn Traveler in 1976. It was stolen but recovered after I bought a Schwinn Traveler lll in 1980. Sold the first bike to my neighbor for $50.00!
I haven’t been on a bike since my eye went south in 2003, and I got rid of my rusty, old Traveler lll a few years ago. I’d like to see how I would do on a bike again – guess I’ll have to try my daughter’s – my son-in-law’s bike is set too tall – he’s 6.5′ and I’m 5’10” (more or less!).
Both bikes were red, according to my custom. All my former bikes were red.
Anything with wheels, especially if old, belongs on this site, JP!
I am waiting for the snow to finally melt and the air to blossom with Spring, and once they do, to take my curbside-found, red 10x Traveler out on the road. Until then, I have a (Schwinn-built) LL Bean cross-bike to bounce around with.
I love my Schwinns.
I think I only had one Schwinn growing up, a yellow single speed with the banana seat, but sans ‘sissy bar’ and raised handlebars. It was succeeded by an off-brand three-speed (brown!) that I rode through high school.
Your article reminded me of the envy we had for the kid in our neighborhood who had “colored” tires on his bike, which were all the rage back in the early ’70s.
Awesome write-up! And it’s so cool that if one is to part with an old relic like this, that it land in the hands of a friend who can appreciate it.
I still have my ’75 Italian Atala 10 speed. I bought it 40! yeas ago, it was a “scratch & dent” in flourescent orange. It was light and fast, and I once raced a cool police officer who clocked me at 45 mph (coming off of a hill) in a 35 zone! Now, I worry about distracted drivers, so I’ve moved up to a Terra Trike 3 wheeled recumbent, 26 speeds…and wouldn’t you know, the model that custom fit me came only in ORANGE!!! 🙂
I always sigh when I see these great old Schwinns. My first 10-speed was an old used Schwinn and my first mountain bike was one of the last “real” Schwinns before they went bankrupt for the second time in 2001. It’s so disappointing to see the junk they sell today at Wal-Mart with that once-proud badge.
A bit more on that picture of the kid on the balance bike…I bought one of those, a Strider, for my son, we called it his “Flintstones” bike. Great, great bike for 2-3 year olds, it really does work to get them leaning their balance without training wheels and they can go so much faster and further than they can on a trike. Check out the videos on their website for a smile. http://www.striderbikes.com/
I owned a red Schwinn Varsity 10 speed for a few years from the late 1970’s into the early 80’s. The speedometer was the same model as the one in this article….I put about 1500 miles on it .I had constant problems with the derailleur assembly….chain would jam up shifting between the front small and large sprockets….I rode it one Summer back and forth to Summer school (10 mile round trip per day) as a 5 speed without use of the 6-10 gear sprocket…It was like driving a car with overdrive disabled….pedaling fast in 5th to try to do the same speed as 10th.
The bike finally wore out and I bought a newer Schwinn 12 speed which I proceeded to put 3,000 miles on over the course of several years. It is sitting forlorn in my basement unused for over 20 years. New tubes and tires are all it needs and someday I may revive it as an ’emergency vehicle’ for those times that the car won’t start and I need to make the few mile ride to work in a hurry.
I owned a Schwinn Varsity, also. Great bike. Weighed about 500 lbs.
I used to pull bikes like this from the trash years ago, just left at the curbside on collection days. Most of them were no worse than this – dirty, a bit rusty, needing new tires and some oiling, but generally solid and presentable. I would fix them up and put them up for sale in the local paper at about $50 apiece, I must have rescued several dozen old Schwinns, Ralleighs, Rosses, old English Humbers and Sears Free Spirits. About 10 years ago they just dried up. I haven’t seen a bike thrown away in the trash in years, except a few cheap, fairiy recently made small childrens bikes in condition beyond saving. I wonder if that’s a good or a bad thing – has the supply of unwanted old bikes finally run out, or have people just started to appreciate them more.
That’s an astute observation how kid’s bikes have disappeared from curbside trash and surely has something to do with the way pre-teens not old enough for a driver’s license now communicate and amuse themselves. Today, if they want to talk with one another, it’s all on a smartphone. Likewise, why ride a bike when you can just get on an Xbox 360? Then, if they actually want to go somewhere, they simply mooch a ride from some family member.
Maybe it’s the few bikes that are obtained are more like mountain bikes not really designed for the street and end up getting abused much more than a street bike. Could it be that when a mountain bike gets damaged, it’s so bad that it’s just discarded in the woods somewhere?
I really can’t envision the quality of the vast majority of cheap, Wal-Mart, big-box imported bikes being high enough to warrant today’s bikes outlasting the old ones. OTOH, maybe there are a lot of high-dollar bikes that are just way too expensive to leave out on the curb.
I got back into repairing bicycles back in 2005, after a 28 year absence. Back then I was seeing the same situation that you describe. But things have changed, bit time. Among the reasons:
1. Hipsters and the rise of the fixie mania. If you think resto-rods and broughams get me hot under the collar, you haven’t seen my reaction to beautiful 531-tubed, 40 year old racing frames with the attachment points chiseled off to turn it into a minimalist fixed gear. And a lot of those frames were destroyed that way.
On the other hand, it was good for business. Take a complete but shabby European or Japanese 10-speed from the 70’s or 80’s. Tear it down, clean it up, and reassemble, and you’ve got a bike worth $100-125.00 about 5-6 years ago. On the other hand, remove all the components (except for the brakes, if the idiot wants to go brakeless, he can remove them himself), replace the rear hub with a fixed gear hub, and rebuild the bike into a fixie. It would now sell for $250-300.00, and the college kids were lining up for them as fast as I could build them. Happily, the mass market has started turning out new fixies for the same kind of money, so the vintage stuff is now being left alone.
2. The general millenial urbanization. Basically, #1 but not necessarily with the same self-important sense of style.
3. Bikes are becoming used more and more for daily commuting. And the older steel framed bikes are still a bit superior to the modern aluminum framed ones.
4. The hobby of vintage bicycle collecting has gotten respectable in the past 10 years. I definitely have an article in me on this one. I have got to get writing.
That’s a great point on the whole urban millenial/hipster/fixie bike phenomenon wiping-out the availability of the free, curbside trash bike, something which I simply cannot comprehend. Of course, I’ve never ridden a fixie, either, but the notion of how they operate seems odd, if not downright dangerous. It’s, literally, like going back to the times of the Model T.
Fortunately, as pointed out, it didn’t take long for the low-priced manufacturers to catch on, and new, cheap, big-box fixies are now readily available, making the ‘hot-rodding’ of old bikes unnecessary. I haven’t seen them for a while, but Wal-Mart had those ‘Thrusters’ with wild color combinations (including colored tires). They also had hand brakes and a flip-flop rear hub so you could ride as a conventional, single-speed freewheel, too.
But I haven’t seen one in the stores in a long time. I wonder if they are that popular that they quickly sell-out as soon as they arrive, or just the opposite, and they were discontinued.
I have always ranked the Schwinn Varsity (and Suburban, Collegiate and Continental) as the most important 10-speeds (derailleur road bikes) ever made, because they were the bikes that put up with the abuse during the 70’s bike boom, as a whole lot of adults came to grips with the concept that adults could ride a bicycle, and that turning 16 didn’t automatically relegate your bicycle to rusting away in the basement.
You took a lot of shit if you rode one of those back in the 70’s from the “serious” cyclists, and those who read all the books that said a 10-speed couldn’t weigh more than 28 pounds and HAD to have a lugged frame. Conveniently forgetting that all those newly-born-again cyclists hadn’t been on a bike since that electro-forged middleweight with the balloon tyres back in their 50’s childhood. And they hadn’t caught on to the realization that the those Peugeot UO-8’s and Raleigh Grand Prix’s couldn’t take the kind of curb hopping, trail bouncing, etc. we did to those middleweights.
As someone who was employed by a Schwinn/Raleigh/Roger Riviere/Astra/Columbia dealer in Erie, PA (A.R. Adams Cycle), I was greatful for the Schwinn’s. We had a few French bikes come back for constant repairs, complete with snarling customer griping about the “low grade piece of crap” we had sold them because they were too light for the kind of beatings they were getting.
The American bike boom would have never taken off were it not for the quality of those Schwinns. And I’ll still pick up any I can get today for rebuilding. Light weight isn’t everything. And what you read in books and magazines isn’t necessarily good advice.
It’s worth noting that today’s Schwinns actually have two levels. They still sell a higher grade Schwinn with better components at local bike shops (LBCs), but there’s also a lower-grade, much cheaper version that is doled out to the discount, big-box chains (Wal-Mart, Target, etc.).
Whether the more expensive, LBC Schwinns are up to the level of quality of the older ones (in comparison with the competition) is unknown. Trek bicycles seems to have taken over that mantle today.
The bike shop Schwinn’s are every bit as good as anything else in their price range. Trek wiped Schwinn out by the beginning of the 80’s, and Schwinn’s business decisions over the final two decades of the last century definitely rival General Motors and British Leyland.
In defense of the cheap Schwinn’s, those are the best bikes that Wal-Mart, etc., sells, and the frame quality is actually decent. Components are definitely on the cheap side, though, and whether any of those bikes has seen even a bit of grease on the bearing surfaces is debatable.
The Wal-Mart Schwinn’s and Mongoose’s are definitely better than the Huffy’s and Murray’s you bought in the department store forty years ago.
Very well said, Syke!
A quote from the late, great Sheldon Brown:
The Chicago Schwinns were among the most bomb-resistant bikes ever built, and they were built with unique technology . With the exception of the Sports Tourer, Super Sport, and Superior, they are welded, not brazed. The head tubes look as if they were fillet brazed, but they weren’t. The head tube and the tapered segments that lead into the the top tube and down tube were actually made from two special forgings that were “electro-forged” (welded) together down the centerline, then ground smooth, so the seam is not usually visible. There are necked-down parts that fit into the top tube and down tube, like internal lugs.”
I never had a Schwinn, but their build quality was truly stellar. I don’t know of another bike manufacturer who used their rather unique construction technique; I’m guessing there will be classic Schwinns in use in the 22nd century.
I had a British Dunolt 26″ single speed as my first bike, with which I could outride anyone in my grade school, even the one or two kids with five speed Schwinns. The Dunolt was stripped of everything unnecessary, and was very light, and I was taller than the other kids, which meant I had a 26″ bike before any of them. It served me well enough, but the red paint turned a feeble pink within a few years, at least on the top parts of the frame exposed to the sun. The Brits probably didn’t have that problem.
We’re not riding our tandem much these days, as we ended up with two dogs, so walking has replaced biking. But I still hop on my 30year-old 27″ Japanese-built Novarra (REI) for quick hops around town or out the bike path.
Paul,
Your parents had a pretty good sense of style and trusted you to have the ability to take care of something they bought you to entrust you with a Dunelt rather than a Schwinn or Columbia.
You realize that your Dunelt (the the Triumph’s which were identical) were actually made by Raleigh. They were what my boss called the “B-line” bike. For 85% of the cost of a classic Raleigh Sports you got the crank (minus the heron stamping), Sturmey Archer AW hub, brakes, bars and stem from the Raleigh, with the frame made on the same line but of regular seamless steel (instead of Raleigh-specific 2030) tubing, cheaper rims and saddle.
I best remember the early 70’s prices, but if you wanted a British-style three speed roadster you could either buy a Japanese copy (with Shimano 333 hub) for $60.00, a Triumph or Dunelt for $85.00, the Raleigh Sports ran $100.00, the Raleigh Superbe (dressed up Sports) was $115.00, and a Raleigh Tourist (very old fashioned with 28″ wheels, rod brakes) was $125.00. A Raleigh Sprint (5 speed Sturmey Archer hub thru ’69, 5 or10-speed derailleur after that), ran in the $90-100.00 range depending on year.
By comparison, the Raleigh Record base line 10-speed was $100.00, Grand Prix was $125.00 and a Super Course (531 straight gauge tubing) was $150.00.
I’ve kind of wanted an old Raleigh Superbe or similar, with the A-W, for about 30 years. They’re pretty heavy and are geared too high, but exude the same old sturdy Britishness, like an Armstrong-Siddeley or something.
Down in the South, in the ’60’s, there was little to no bike culture. Few Schwinns at all, only the occasional Raleigh, Hercules, Phillips, etc. A lot of the 3-speed “English Racers” were the not-bad Austrian bikes from Sears. The rest of us were lucky to get something from AMF, which were often the least bomb-resistant bikes ever made!
The secret to making a British 3-speed usable is a 23 tooth rear sprocket. As Sturmey Archer never made one in that size, I pick up Shimano ones. Happily they’re the same size hole to fit over the hub drive. Even changing to a 20 tooth makes a world of difference, but the 23 essentially turns 3rd gear into 2nd, 2nd gear into 1st, and 1st becomes useful for climbing hills.
I’ve done that conversion on every AW and S-5 hub I’ve owned except for my Raleigh Twenty folder – which got geared down, but not as much due to the smaller wheels. I think I used a 20 tooth on that one.
I like old cars a lot, but I love me some old bicycles!
Here is my 1975 Schwinn Continental, all original except the bar tape and tires.
I just yesterday came into possession of my dad’s 1972 Continental in this same color as a matter of fact. Only trouble is that as a result of my grandparents misinterpreting his request when they got the thing, its almost too tall for me or him to ride comfortably. Won’t stop me, though.
I had an 1982 like that, the frame was just a little too large. I rode it a lot before parting ways with it, just be very careful or OUCH!
Several comments:
1) Schwinn bicycles sold today have no, none, zero relationship to those of the Pea Picker/Collegiate/Sting Ray/Varsity vintage discussed in this posting. The current “Schwinn” bicycles are Schwinn in name only. Chicago Schwinn is the subject here and that company went through bankruptcy decades ago. Boulder Schwinn was the next bankruptcy – and those bikes were not Chicago, nor even American, Schwinns. Current Schwinns are Pacific Schwinns – headquartered in Madison but of absolutely no lineage to the Chicago Schwinns we still admire.
2) The Collegiate and Varsity can look similar. Collegiate always used 26″ tires; Varsity always used 27″ tires. Collegiate could be, over a long lifetime, three, five or ten speed and was also available in tourist or “racing” styles. Varsity originally had eight and later ten speeds. Varsity could be had in a tourist style in early years; the Suburban was the (27″) tourist style Varsity in later years. The Collegiate and Varsity tourist style bikes had chromed fenders. The Suburbans (like most of the three speed 26″ Racers) had painted fenders.
3) All Schwinn “lightweights” are incredibly durable. They all have high quality parts. Chrome (compared to an English or French competitor) is excellent. Paint is excellent. Rims are strong (and heavy). Tires and beads are unique to Schwinn. The Collegiate/Varsity/Racer/Speedster/Continental lightweights have kickstands on their “electroforged” frames.
I too buy, sell, restore and collect old Chicago Schwinn lightweights. My favorite is any three speed Suburban in the largest (of three) frame sizes.
I remember the Continental was a step up from the Varsity when I got mine. One difference was that the cable for the brake calipers pulled from the center on the Continental as opposed to the side on the Varsity.
I vaguely remember the reason being that the center pull gave a more balanced stop. I thought it was odd Schwinn didn’t put the “safer” center pull on all the bikes as I figured it couldn’t have cost much more. Then again who cared about safety back then we all road around without helmets.
Do you know what the other differences were? Was the frame lighter? More gears?
Back in the day (the 70’s, when I was in college and got into bikes again during the Great Bike Boom), it was conventional wisdom that cheap side-pulls were pretty awful and center-pulls had more leverage and stopped better (I believe that’s what it says in my 1979 copy of Richard’s Bicycle Book by the also late, great Richard Ballentine). Higher quality side-pulls gradually became more prevalent. Side-pulls dominate the road-bike market. Center-pulls were common on touring and mountain-bikes till superseded by V-brakes (with even more leverage) in the 90’s and various forms of discs (which have pluses and minuses), especially on mountain-bikes.
Frame, crank, derailleurs were identical. The biggest differences were: a. The Continental had a tubular, brazed fork, while the Varsity used the Schwinn forged fork that goes back, I swear, centuries. Or at least decades. That was the biggest difference for your $25.00 extra (1972-73). Centerpull brakes, as you’ve noted, quick release hubs. Chrome tips on the forks. Possibly difference handlebars.
Go up an additional $25.00 and you got the Super Sport, and here the difference got subtle but huge – a Chrome Moly brazed frame (internal lugs), although they still stuck you with that boat anchor of an Ashtabula crank. Plus, alloy clincher wheel rims rather than chrome steel. The performance of the Super Sport over the Continental was pretty significant. Unfortunately, you had to go to the Sport Tourer (another $50.00+) to get a good European three piece cotterless crank.
More on Schwinn lightweights:
The “tubular” type fork (“Tange”) found on a Continental was also used on most Suburbans – with the exception of some that escaped the Chicago factory with the “bladed” fork found on lesser models (and 26″ lightweights). (Supply problems at some time seemingly?) The Suburban also often had the chrome crown cap on the fork.
The Ashtabula crank, though heavy, is preferred by this bike guy because it is easy to work with when “re-packing” the bottom bracket with fresh grease. A lighter, three piece alloy (or steel) crankset used on a then contemporary English/French competitor bike is a pain – due to the use of “cotters”. The one piece crank used by Schwinn is easy to manipulate.
Brakes on the low end Schwinn lightweights were generally Weinmann side pulls – made in Switzerland, Germany or Belgium. These were followed in later years by an identical copy by Dia Compe from Japan. These worked better than what Raleigh made for themselves in England. Most Schwinn components were very good quality.
The low end (“electroforged”) steel Schwinn lightweights very generally had interchangeable components. This includes 26″ Collegiates, Travelers, Racers, Speedsters and 27″ Varsities, Sprints, Continentals; Suburbans. The next step up in frame was the 27″ brazed Super Sport/Sport Tourer – a very small fraction of which at the end used better quality alloy crankset. The top of the line was the hand built, lugged frame Paramount – built in a special location at the Schwinn Chicago factory.
Enjoy your original, real Schwinns. They are as much a part of American culture as other family enterprises: Ford and Harley-Davidson.
My first Schwinn was a 1974 Sprint. A 2 year only model, it was essentially a Continental with a much shorter wheelbase. The frame was modified to clear the rear wheel. Compared to the Continental it had great response and handling but a rougher ride as you sat more so over the rear wheel. Still have it.
Bob
Let’s hear it for the steel frame bike. Maybe a little heavier than aluminum, but decidedly more comfortable and eternally repairable.
The Fort Wayne decal triggered a childhood memory. Surprisingly, in the late 1950’s radio station WOWO could sometimes be heard at night in southern New Brunswick, Canada. When I was a kid, it held the record as the most distant AM station picked up on my plastic bedside tube radio (a wire antenna hanging out the upstairs window helped).
WOWO was a 50,000 watt clear channel AM station. It was always the 800 pound gorilla of Fort Wayne broadcasting all through the 1970s, although the kids started deserting it early in that decade. As kids, we used to hear rumors that under the right weather conditions, GIs serving in Vietnam could pick it up. I have no idea if that is true, but even as kids we knew that it was one powerful station. It was, after all, “The Big Fifty Thousand Watt Voice of Farming in the Midwest!”
After dark, big AM stations in Boston, New York, and Buffalo came in pretty clearly for hours at a time in eastern Canada. They were a great resource for rock & roll starved kids at a time when small-town local stations played way too much country music and Lawrence Welk. One way in which AM was superior to FM.
That just reminds me that it will be 20 years of bike ownership for me tomorrow. I grew up during a different time. My bike was purchased a few days before my birthday in 1995. But it is one of the low end Venture Road Runner 12-speed basic ATB (All terrain bike) models sold in what used to be Zellers in Canada. It had shiny wheels with a paint that faded from dark grey to black. I’ve had some adventures with that thing but eventually it got harder to keep up with my friends’ faster bikes. I also wiped out once, and later a friend rode right into me, putting the rear wheel slightly off.
It was bare bones basic as we even had to get an employee to install a kickstand at the store. With a paper delivery job and searching around, I managed to accessorize it with plastic fenders, rear carrier, compass bell, generator with front and rear lights, special arrow shaped wheel reflectors, water bottle with holder, etc. I even had a bike radio on the handlebar at one point that was a bit heavy.
Sadly I neglected it for too many years, especially after purchasing a car. Rust and corrosion started to attack the once shiny wheels. I was hoping to get around to cleaning, polishing and touching it up one day (after the other items on my to do list).
I noticed that some of the newer kids bikes resemble choppers. I recently saw this new bike (pictured below) at Walmart for $298 with the fattest tires I’ve ever seen.
That’s the newest lunacy: The Fat Bike. Made for riding in snow, on beaches, and a sales person at the last bike shop I dropped in on claims some mountain bikers prefer the big soft tyres over the usual.
I told the little lady I spent the late 60’s and early 70’s trying to get away from balloon tyres, and saw no need to regress back.
You got the name right. I think that the tires were at least 4 inches wide. The wheels just seemed too heavy and I’m wondering what kind of pedal power it would require to get going. Surprisingly, a special fat fender is also available online. One of my former co-workers suffered a scratch after a careless cyclist collided into her and just took off during one Summer, but these fat tires could do much more damage. I was asking my friend as a joke if I should buy one and keep it (in case the fad fades and it becomes a collectible).
Fatbikes are a fad now in mountain biking, most of the major makers have one in their product line. They do have some utility on loose terrain but the friction of the wide tires must be awful on a regular surface. I’ve even seen guys show up to races with fatbikes. They swear they can keep up with the regular mountain bikes, but unless the course is a total mud pit I don’t quite believe it.
I was on my second real bike ride of the season this last weekend and got passed by something with crazy tires like this. There seemed to be a lot of attitude in the 30 something driver as well. I was trying to figure out if it was a home creation, but Syke has brought me enlightenment.
This was on 7 miles of mainly smooth asphalt trail around a lake, so the bike seemed like overkill for the environment.
This is called a citybike, a Puch in this case. Steyr-Puch has a 2WD conversion kit for the more rural areas.
Where are you located?
Syke, I’m in Canton, MI.
I’m reposting the pix. Didn’t realize how big the files were, so I’m resizing them to save server space
Alrighty, the fragmented Steve BOAL.
First up was a 20″ Polar Bear of West German manufacture, from Federal Department Store in Dearborn, probably about 1957 or 58. Steve kept growing, so the old Polar Bear gained chrome fenders a banana seat, high rise handlebars and a new coat or red paint.
The single speed, coaster brake Polar Bear couldn’t keep up, no matter how furiously I pedaled, so next up was a shiny new Schwinn “Racer” with the Sturmey Archer three speed hub. Purchased at Hudson’s at Northland Mall in Southfield, in 63.
The Polar Bear and the Schwinn, both long disused, went in garage sales in the early 80s as my mom sold her house and there was no room in my apartment.
My dad passed away in 90, and I inherited a minty Ross 3 speed. No time to use it or space to keep it, so it also went in a garage sale.
Maybe 15 years ago, I was taking the trash out one night, and there lay a Schwinn begging for a home. I took it in, cleaned up the chain a bit, pumped up the tires and took it for a spin. It’s true, you never forget how to ride a bike. No room for it in my dinky condo garage, so it was put in the basement…..where it has sat ever since.
Now I’m retired, planning on relocating, disposing of stuff. Anyone willing to give a vintage Schwinn an appreciative home?
Also a Collegiate
Proof it’s older than Jim’s
Let there be light! When I tried out the bike, I engaged the gennie, and it worked.
Mine had a Schwinn generator on it at one time, but it had long ago frozen up. I took all of the electrical stuff off and pitched it.
Your bike looks to be from the mid 60s. That looks like the color of my first Stingray, which I got in the summer of 1966.
Your bike looks to be from the mid 60s. That looks like the color of my first Stingray, which I got in the summer of 1966.
Yup. I remember seeing Collegiates exactly like it advertised soon after I got the Racer in 63. I don’t think the saddle is original as Schwinns in the 60s generally had a two tone saddle, frame color and white, with an “S” on it.
At one time, I entertained the thought of taking it to the Schwinn dealer nearby and having it cleaned and serviced, but I realized I would never get significant use out of it. I’d like to see it go to a good home.
It probably looked like this when new.
That’s definitely early/mid 60’s with the shifter on the top tube. Schwinn went to stem (actually headset) mounted shifters in 1967. While I won’t venture valuable, it’s definitely rare, as are any adult derailleur bikes before the Bike Boom (1971-74). Prior to the Boom adult bikes weren’t selling all the much, just slowly growing numbers – and then everything exploded!
“Like an Impala Sport Coupe with a Powerglide instead of the Turbo Hydramatic?”
Lol!
Nice story, happy ending.
My first bike was a balloon tired ’50s Schwinn in beater condition in 1972. I moved on to a few Huffy 10 speeds that did the job, but were way outclassed by a Takara branded bike I purchased at a local bike shop with my first real pay check as a 16 year old. There were several of us that rode bikes to work at our local supermarket, we had just been through OPEC II in early 1981 and it was kind of nice to leave the V-8 powered cars at home.
The Takara was kind of an oddball I’ve never seen again. I wanted to get back on a bike with my kids about 13 years ago and bought a lower end Trek that has served me well. I don’t know the classic Schwinns well, but the Trek may be the worthy successor.
We had a final old Huffy in our house, purchased for my wife around 1995. It was surprisingly crude, but she put up with it, and we replaced it with new lower end Trek just last year that she really enjoys. That 1995 Huffy was made in the U.S., probably among the last volume built bikes made here.
The Huffys were made in Celina, Ohio. I had some cousins who lived there and who had summer jobs at Huffy during their college years. Two sets of cousins who lived in northwest Ohio all rode Huffys. Not sure if it was regional tastes, local pride, or lower price. Maybe it was a distribution thing also. The two biggest bike stores in Fort Wayne (Kern and Kohlinger) were Schwinn dealers. I don’t think any of us kids in my neighborhood adequately appreciated how much money our parents spent on those Schwinn bikes which were far and away at the top of the bike food chain.
Was there a Huffy factory in Dayton, too, or was that just their headquarters (which are still there)?
I think some guy named Huffman was the founder and owner from the beginning, and Dayton, OH, to this day, has a decent set of paved bike trails extending for many miles in all four directions. In fact, at some point in the future, there’s actually going to be a dedicated loop that goes all the way down to the eastside of Cincinnati, then back up the westside back to Dayton. It’s very nearly completed, already.
In the sixties and seventies, the hierarchy of American built bikes was quite market. Schwinn, of course, was the best and you fought long and hard to get a Schwinn dealership. And Schwinn was smart enough not to have too many dealers in a given area. Erie, PA (pop. 150,000 city and suburbs) had two. Related to each other.
Columbia was the next step down. It may have looked like a department store bike, but was better built, used Sturmey-Archer hubs rather than Shimano, and was the lowest end bike that a bicycle shop would carry. By the Bike Boom, Columbia seemed to be falling on hard times, and they never really got into the 10-speed business like everyone else.
Murray and Huffy were next. Department store bikes, and we didn’t think much of them at the bike shop. Their 10-speeds were nothing more than the 3-speed bikes with the rear hub replaced and drop bars replacing the tourist bars. Still had the 26″ wheel.
Iverson and Rollfast were bottom of the barrel, Try to visualize a cheaply built Huffy. We had a coupe of Iverson’s come in the shop with the head tube sheared off from hitting a bump in the road. These were usually sold at catalog stores (the forerunners of Wal-Mart) and department stores wouldn’t touch them.
Rollfast is still in business (or at least the name still exists), and they are still building a 1970’s-cheap bike frame. One the components are (slightly) updated. They’re the bottom of the line at Wal-Mart, and are absolutely pieces of garbage.
Schwinns were always out of my family’s price range….None of our bikes came from bike stores…I did get an AMF Hercules English Racer….actually made in England…It 26″ white wall tires with a 3 speed twist grip gear changer…In metallic red
I remember seeing that Schwinn catalog back in the day, although my first bike was a Columbia kid’s bike. While I saw Schwinn Varsities (the 10 speed version) around, my affluent suburb preferred imports so my first 10 speed was a Raleigh Record and I saw a Peugeots and Fujis as well as Raleighs.
Also by the late 70s even the Schwinns were shifting from the old arc welded frames to lugged frames with Japanese parts. I still see the occasional old Schwinn around although my Raleigh and the Austro-Daimler that replaced it are long gone. I got a Specialized mountain bike in 2000 and I’ve never looked back. My current fleet includes a Redline cyclocross bike (Redline is definitely a CC worthy brand, from dirt track motorcycles to BMX to cyclocross and pioneering single speed mountain bikes), a Trek MTB, a Kona MTB and a tandem, but I live in the bike mad Portland area.
bikes ofalife. 1965 schwinn 20 ‘,2. 1968 raliegh 3 sp,3.70 schwinn lemon peeler,4…10 speed raliegh…. later old amsterdam bike i bough for 15 or 25 guilders, and a walmart bike we got a few years ago for under 100.
Seems like a lot of Schwinn knowledge here; 50 years ago, when I went to Gamalski Hardware to buy something for my Huffy, I noticed half the parts were marked ‘Schwinn Only’. What exactly was different from my Huffy? Metric?
Running into the back of a car; my brother and me were fighting a headwind and both of us were head down and tucked. He ran into the back of a Buick. The owner must have been looking out the front window when my brother crashed. He was out of the house like the Flash, jumped over my brother and tangled bike to check out the back of his car.
After making sure there was NO damage to the Buick, he asked my brother, ‘You OK’? My brother still mentions that guy. Same brother was on MY Huffy, rode in front of a moving car and destroyed the bike. I think that guy asked him; ‘You OK’? too…
I bought the other brother a ’72 Raleigh 10 speed at the Pro Bike Shop in Ann Arbor. His money, I just spent it for him. Warren didn’t have Pro Bike Shops, just run of the mill stuff.
Schwinn’s used different sized tyres to start with. Their rim sizes were slightly different, and no a 26″ wheel is not necessarily a 26″ wheel.
Hint for when you’re buying bicycle tyres. Don’t bother with the, say, 26×1.75 size on the side wall. What you want to look for is the second set of number printed on the tyre, it’ll say something like 37-590. This is a French metric system of tire measurement. The first number is the width of the tyre in millimeters. The second is the Bead Seat Diameter (BSD) of the wire bead, also in millimeters. This is the real size of your rim.
The classic English 3-speed uses a 26×1-3/8″ tyre, which in the French is 37-590. A modern 26″ wheel mounting bike usually uses a 26×1.00 thru 2.30″ tyre, in the French that would be a xx-559. A Schwinn 26×1.75″ middleweight (S-7) rim in French is xx-571. And that’s just the 26″ wheels.
Also, the Ashtabula crank on a Schwinn used heavier bearings with more balls than a Columbia, Murray, or Huffy. So yes, the American bicycle industry was Schwinn on one side and everybody else on the other. Just like the British: Raleigh and Raleigh-owned brands vs. everyone else.
Perhaps I should have known the end of Schwinn was near in 1990 when visiting the Chicago resort destination of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. There I saw a ’90 Mercedes SL (it was the first of that body style I had ever seen) with Illinois vanity plates “SCHWINN”. Once the descendants of the original Schwinn family are out partying at clubs in Lake Geneva you know the brand is done.
A Schwinn family member lives in Lake Geneva and owns/runs a cheese shop there – and has since about the time you cite.
Another Schwinn lives in Waterford, Wisconsin and owns/runs Waterford bikes which, among other tasks, restores original Chicago Schwinn Paramounts.
They must have made a Collegate in some other colors, as my neighbor, Dennis, in 1971 or so had a purple one that he famously wrecked one day due to his fear of dogs. There was a huge German Shepherd named Zonia (I don’t know anything about that name other than it was “Sonia” in some oddball Eastern European language, where the owners were from) in my neighborhood back then. Zonia scared a lot of people, due to her immense size (I’ve never seen a bigger one), and her tendency to stare people right in the eyes when she was talked to. She was an almost daily visitor to my house, so I was used to her, and totally unafraid. The neighbor was scared of my Beagle, and terrified of the old yellow Lab that lived in back of him, so Zonia practically made him crap himself on sight. One day, we were riding quickly down the street, me, a friend of mine from school, and two neighbors, one was Dennis. Zonia was off to the right on an intercept course with us, and Dennis panicked. He was riding as fast as he could, screaming, as Zonia closed on him. The rest of us were laughing. Maybe we shouldn’t have, but it was just too funny. As Dennis got close to his house, he went into his neighbor’s yard to try to get to his front door before Zonia got him. Suddenly, the neighbor’s car appeared, backing down their driveway, and Dennis hit the back wheel, screaming, “Noooooo!”. He flew over the car, landing on his butt, and slid along the grass. Zonia caught him, and proceeded to really not do anything but mouth his shoulder length hair for a few seconds. He was still screaming after she stopped, even though Zonia was just sitting there, watching us approach. The Collegate had a broken fork, fender, and front wheel. It was soon repaired, but was never quite the same as the paint was messed up from the crash. The neighbor’s car, some sort of big Olds, had a messed up wheel cover and scratches on the trunk. The owner was more worried that Dennis was hurt than about the car being damaged. Dennis claimed that Zonia had attacked him from that point on. I would have loved to have a video of it, but just the audio of him screaming would be good enough. Dennis was fine, by the way, not even sore the next day, and some people claim that marijuana has no medical value…
The only difference between this and the bike I owned in Panama is the speedometer. Even the same color. Rode it from coast to coast. Stolen from the stair landing in my apartment when I came back to the states. Most common sense bike ever.
I had a Pea Picker… I remember what I called the “Hurst shifter” for my bike. I outgrew it at the end of the ’70’s and ended up with a 5-speed Varsity. Not an Impala… maybe a Chevelle or a 307 Nova of a bike? Bent the hell out of the front wheel/forks/neck in a wreck running over a kid on a BMX bike.
Seeing that old varsity reminds me, I have an old varsity 26″ in blue. I also had a 1962 Schwinn Typhoon 26″ men’s in red that I got a good offer on and sold it. The typhoon was made into a “racer” before I owned it, the fenders and speedo and other chrome bits junked, and the original balloons replaced with the thin 26″ wheels, possibly from a varsity. Kinda wanted to keep it, cause it rode well for a single speed, and it had the one-year only straight across support tubes. I also have a 20″ Schwinn Bantam I found on the side of the road as a kid. Fully dressed, and I still have it. (I have had many bikes over the years!)
As far as other vintage bikes go, My first big bike was a 1975 Murray 26″ 3-speed, Tan, with a brown leather “checkerboard” Springer seat. Got it for free from a family friend, along with many others. I still have it. Before that, I had a new bike, a 2001 Mongoose Toast 20″, which in turn, replaced a 1970s Mongoose BMX 20″ that was painted flat black, had no brakes, and had the tires filled with expand-a-foam. I rode that one till it fell apart. Yeah, I was hard on bikes as a kid, my brother had a 1970s western Flyer that when it broke, we took the fork and rode it on a Zipline.
1973 Schwinn Collegiate 5 Sp. Mild custom/Restoration. (Before pics seen in group photos here… https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1357358551014446&set=a.1357358191014482.1073741834.100002209424597&type=3&theater) Fresh coat of red paint (frame), Flat Black fenders and Gloss Black to the crown of the chain guard along with replacing the bent front rim in with a matching rim same as came on the bike brand new. Handle bars have been replaced with close to the same as original Butterfly Bars but a little lower and slicked back at the grips than the originals.
Next and final improvement will be better Brake Levers and Calipers.
I have this bike 15 years and this season I decided it was time to get it out, fix it up and make it more of a style I really wanted to ride. The Chrome was shot, I didn’t like the red it came in and the front wheel was bent and just everything needed a freshening up.
These are great bikes and I’m happy a friend sold it to me years ago so I can let a little imagination fly today on this all original drive train beauty.
Thanks for the thread and great bikes to everyone on the thread and the posts.
Going to go ahead and post the “before” group photo here in my comments section. As you can see I originally painted the fenders gloss black at the time (I had already changed the fenders because original chrome fenders where to far gone) and the shade of red the bike was couldn’t decide if it wanted to be pink or red. Worst part was this orange hue that came out of it in the sun light. It was the original paint but I just couldn’t stand it. It also had a little extra pink over the oxidization over the years and Armor All wouldn’t get the color back to how it should have looked (unless for some ungodly reason that was the color they came up with) plus it only really accomplished taking off the Schwinn logo print anyway.
I think I have created a bit more of a contemporary look for this bike and added just enough to make it a little different from the rest. It was a fun project and I would do it all over again.
One last group photo to get the other side from the back (before custom restoration).
I have sense added a Chrome headlight and stripped and polished the Schwinn logo on the front. Next two photos will show the changes.
Photo #1
Photo #2 Polished badge
A rather timely re-post for me. Bicycle CC effect, I suppose. Just yesterday, I pulled my circal-1972 Continental out of mothballs. It should be a fun project. The hardest part will definitely be replacing the front wheel hub, since my wheel-building skills are still pretty rudimentary. It’s pretty fancy bike, complete with full fenders, a saddle bag and an odd little wheel-mounted odometer from Brevettato. The odo only shows 280.7 miles! (The bad front hub is entirely my fault. Should have greased the bearings right after I got it.)
The odometer:
My 1973 Jeunet Captivante 10 speed. I still have it to this day. I have a later model Raleigh or something, but I prefer riding this one around our small lake, er I mean drainage pond.
In April 1968 at 13, I drained my savings and bought a metallic green Varsity Sport, With the same speedometer was $86.22 out the door. A Coliegiate was $150 and a Paramount was $245. BIG money. Rode it for 3 years and speedo showed 2200 miles when I sold it for $55,
I rode a metalflake green Schwinn FastBack; skinny rear slick, banana seat, etc…basically a Pea Picker without the 5-speed. I mean, it had handbrakes, like a grownup bike! I can vouch for the sprinting capabilities!
My Aunt and Uncle had his ‘n hers brown Collegiates. I later traded in the FastBack for a yellow Stingray with motocross handlebars. I finally bought a used Varsity for $75 in 1980.
I had forgotten about all the cool speedos, headlamps, and odometers. Thanks for bringing them back for me!
This post is still cool. I received a new 1974 Schwinn Sprint for my 15th birthday which I still ride on occasion to this day. This was a fairly rare bike only made in ’74 and ’75 I believe. Not a big seller in its day. It is essentially a Continental with a shorter wheelbase. The seat tube is curved to clear the rear wheel, and the kickstand is a shortened version welded underneath the bottom bracket. Makes for a more responsive handling bike but the ride is not as smooth as a Continental.
Wow I forgot I wrote this before. Ha!
I passed this Schwinn onto another owner last year. It was a fun ride, especially after I had it overhauled. But I started to run into the same sorts of space problems that led JPC to pass the bike on to me in the first place. I had two old Schwinns, this and a 1986 Collegiate 3-speed. The 3-speed frame was larger and a better fit for me, and so that was the one I kept.
I am glad you got some enjoyment from it, and that it is still being of use to someone else.
My first 26-in bike was a department store Murray single-speed cruiser, a Christmas gift when I was 10 years old. It had lots of chrome bling, was quite heavy, and turned out not to be all that durable (although it still resides in the shed at my current home, having resurrected it for riding in the late 1980s). One of the more memorable failures in the 60s was the twisting off and full detachment of the stem, as I was straining on the handlebars uphill at low speed. (I did not fall off fortunately.)
I never had a Schwinn, but we did purchase a 20-inch Manta Ray for our older son for his 6th birthday (this was in 1984, so I assume the bike was the still the “real” Schwinn at the time). It was well made and durable; it’s still in our possession as well.
My current ride is a 1991 Specialized Hard Rock Cruz mountain bike (21 speeds, steel frame). It’s held up extremely well. I ride mostly on pavement now, so it has Kevlar-belted street tires in the 26 x 1.95 inch size.
My son rides an orange 1991 (or so) Specialized RockHopper to high school. The other kids love it!
Yet another CC that I must have missed first time around. Like Syke, my parents didn’t approve of StingRays so my first bike was a 24” Schwinn Racer 3 speed, replaced in 1969 with a blue Varsity 10 speed with the same chrome speedometer as Jim and Jim’s bike. In college I discovered that my once-cool bike was quite uncool, so I stripped it down, painted it black with black cable housings, removed the brake lever extensions and hoped that no one noticed the stem shifters, Ashtabula crank, chrome rims etc which revealed its Chicago origins. It was stolen in the early ‘80’s and not replaced for a few years, this time by a cheap mountain bike.
Today, my wife’s and my chief outdoor activity is mountain biking. We’re pretty fit and capable but still tailenders when riding with many of our similarly senior friends, both uphill and downhill, and sometimes do the hike-a-bike thing on tougher trails. But vacations in Moab, Oakridge (Oregon), Tahoe, Mammoth and the Rockies have been wonderful. It’s easy here to be nostalgic, but a modern carbon-framed, full suspension mountain bike with hydraulic brakes, seat post dropper, 11 or 12 speed cassette with no front derailleur, and tubeless tires is an amazing vehicle. Our 5 year old bikes are “obsolete” by modern trends but have been very reliable and low maintenance ridden about 1000-1500 miles a year, almost all on rough singletrack; pavement just to get to the trails.
I never got into the “spyder” type bikes (like the Pea Picker, or the other color fromes) but my younger sister had one. I went from my “kiddie” bike with training wheels to a 3 speed Sears sold english racer with sturmey-archer shifter, my other sister got a Sears Spaceliner (which I still have, she lost interest in it years ago). I rode it to/from school 4x/day and it had a speedometer/odometer, which I bragged to my Uncle I had more miles on my bicycle than he had on his new 1969 Ford LTD. Kept the racer until 1972 when I got a Gitane 10 speed with resin Simplex prestige derailleur. I had that one up until 1986 or so when unfortunately it was stolen from my condo balcony, replaced it with a Mercier, which unfortunately was in an accident with me in 1992, where I hit a car and it was totalled (the tubing was given to my best friend who used it plus some other tubing to make a recumbant). I bought a Performance bicycle to replace it, but the accident caused me to rethink my habits, and unfortunately I’ve hardly ridden in the almost 30 years since then (though I still have the bicycle). People have tried to get me into mountain bicycles, but I can’t ride fast enough to provide cooling that I enjoy on a road bicycle, though you don’t need to deal with the cars so much….the city I live in has been booming since my accident, and I wouldn’t dare do some of the local rides I used to enjoy from my home; I don’t really like taking my bicycle in my car out to the country to ride, so the bicycle goes unused.