1976 Schwinn Sting Ray Jr. Yellow
My first bike and a birthday present from Mom and Dad. As a Stingray Junior, it was a smaller frame, but shared most of its styling: single speed cruiser frame with sparkling yellow banana seat and grips. The one styling difference between the junior and the original was that the junior came with a full chrome fender on the rear wheel (The picture above is not my original bike). That full fender gave it a vintage retro look, but was trouble when it came to popping wheelies.
Dad taught me how to ride it on the first try. No training wheels, thank you, just plopped me on the seat, showed me how to use the coaster brake and then jogged along gently until I was riding on my own. Thanks for getting me going, Pops!
I rode the Stringray junior throughout the neighborhood with my friend John Guerrerio, mostly pretending we were CHiPs. I was Jon Baker and he was Officer Francis "Ponch" Poncherello because he was Italian and looked more like Eric Estrada than I did. That was a frequent source of frustration because Ponch always got the coolest slow-motion crashes. And the babes, too. Anyway, we seemed to work it out, at least better than our on-screen counterparts.
And with my older brother Matt on his blue Stingray, we rode on a secret quest to buy fireworks in another county one Fourth of July weekend. But I'll save that story for tomorrow's Part III installment: the Blue Schwinn Stingray Deluxe.
Goldilocks and the 3 Bears
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Let's pick up the story in roughly the middle of the action.
... Goldilocks first sampled Papa Bear's porridge, "Holy shit, that's hot,"
she cried, toss...
2 years ago
Man, how I coveted the Stingray. Especially with the after market mods. The sparkly banana seat, the sissy bars, the really long chrome seat back attacher thing that looped up about 6 feet high. Never had a Schwinn, though. I have an old "Le Tour" now, but that's another story.
ReplyDeleteOh, I forgot to mention something
ReplyDeleteumm ... Fred? The chrome seat back attacher IS the sissy bar. Ape-hanger bars are the tall handlebars. I'm embarassed for you.
ReplyDeletemy dad has a half-dozen Schwinns in the basement. One is from 1947, one's from the 50s and the rest are from the 60s and 70s.
Thanks for the heads up Bryan. I'm glad you set me straight before I made a complete fool out of myself at the big Sissy bar and ape-hanger convention in Vegas next month.
ReplyDeleteSo, um what's your dad doing with those bikes? Are they in good shape? My uncle has one from the 50's, but he doesn't do anything with it. It would be cool to clean it up and take it for a spin. Even though it weighs about 50 pounds.
Excuse me, but this is my blog.
ReplyDeleteAnd as my blog, I try to brighten a very dark world with nice things about bicycles, running and and whatever suits me.
But then Fred comes along with his slander and undoes all the lovely things.
Don't you know that my Mom reads this blog? Heck, your Mom does, too! You should be ashamed of yourself!!
So, although it's not necessary, I need to clear the air for my own personal pride, and in the event that I should ever run for public office. I am not a "homo". I know this because I am attracted to women and I've always stayed the hell away from airport bathrooms.
Please refrain from such sophmoric behavior in the future. Grow up Fred!!
Oh, I forgot to mention something
ReplyDeleteWhat's he doing with them? Why, keeping them safe ... from something. The 60s and 70s bikes are in the best shape. The 50s one is a mess, but the 1947 one is pretty good. He rode it around town last year. It got repainted, but it still has the original equipment.
ReplyDeleteAnd he has a 1960 Columbus, but it's a spot-welded model. It has a generator that still works on the rear hub.
Should I mention this or this?
ReplyDeleteAfter all of the scuffling, I do believe that the second CHiPs video, if not all of the comments, deserves an honorable mention to your original post.
ReplyDeleteBrady. Did you say you were responding for the sake of your "pride"? Interesting. Maybe we should organize some sort of parade or something. Just throwing it out there.
ReplyDeleteNearly everything I say is a cliche. That one rolled off like the best of 'em. But since you brought it to my attention, perhaps a parade is in line. We could call it the "Not Gay But Still Prideful" parade.
ReplyDeleteHey Fred!! Let's get the neighborhood in on it and decorate our bikes. You'll make an excellent Ponch!!!
I finally figured out how to post a comment on this blog...
ReplyDeleteEvery once in while, it is necessary to do a google search with your name in the tag bar to see what comes up. In this case I was surprised to see my name used synonymously with officer Poncherelli. I thought it was a joke, but after further reading, I deduced that this crime of association was perpetrated by none other than my childhood friend Brady Murphy.
I can't say that I was necessarily proud to have this comparison broadcast over such a public domain like this; ...but to reminisce of old times was truly a nice way to spend an evening.
You see, I too grew up in the magical neighborhood of Greenbriar, two doors down from this blog's author.
I remember countless days riding bikes, playing soccer, football, and rugby on the 'cut'; Zimmerman getting the basketball stuck on the roof and lighting off the referenced fireworks on the fourth of July, including homemade ones jerry-rigged by pouring the gunpowder of bottle rockets into homemade containers in order to consolidate the explosion into a larger bang. Of course, we had no idea what we were doing, and only through the grace of God did we not lose any fingers or our hearing.
After Greenbriar started catering to non-neighborhood fatcats, we were often chased out of our own backyard by people who lived in 'far-away' places, and we were repeatedly told to get off of the beforesaid 'cut' by the country club golf course security because we were 'wrecking' the nice grass. We tried to explain that this was our nice grass and it made a perfect playing field, but were told we would be ticketed or jailed for trespassing. Who was trespassing, really?
These first encounters with the 'law' sent us into another world, a more dangerous world, down by the train tracks. All we wanted to do was play in our own backyard, but the officers would have none of childish logic.
My mom told me that I would be grounded for six months when we first moved into the neighborhood if she ever caught me down by the tracks, but we were forced to build a fort down by the steel rails. Over time, we became more comfortable with the iron giants and began studying the schedule of trains that passed through our neighborhood on their way to markets that, at the time, were unknown to us. Like the golf course security, these trains were trespassers in our neighborhood.
All grown up, we now know where those trains were headed; they were part of the economic engine that was driving this country slowly, but most definitely sure-footedly, into the the future we now live in; a world littered with environmental degradation and climate change that threatens every living species on the planet.
If we could have, we would have stopped those trains. I only wish I had the authority of officer Poncherelli where I could have stepped onto the tracks and commanded the train conductor to pull over or turn around and take his godforsaken train back to where it came from (the same to that ridiculous security officer); but alas we had no such power; our power was still only locked up in our imaginations. In fact, the train's caboose conductor would shoot salt gun pellets at us whenever he would see us poking our heads out from the fort we had made down by the tracks. This went on until we grew tired of that.
As for bikes, I certainly did not have a Stingray, but I did have a Tornado with a banana seat and fenders that we removed to make the bike look 'cooler'. I crashed on the biggest hill on the golf course and ripped by arm to shreds one day; visiting the hill as an adult did not do the imaginary story in my head any justice; the hill was maybe twenty feet long (I guess the world just looks so much bigger when you are young).
As for getting more girls...this simply was not true. My brown skin, hair, and eyes brought me more ridicule than my fairer skinned counterpart from the girls at the country club, and I am still trying to recover from some of the hurtful things that kids say to each other growing up...happier times, though.
The memories can go on forever, because like Brady says, Greenbriar was a magical place back then; or maybe, the innocence of youth is what makes any location magical.
Thanks for letting me reminisce. Hope you get to review comments from years past since this post was put up a year ago.
Give my best to Matt and make sure you tell him that you and I are still the all time rugby champs; 101-99 (probably still the longest rugby game ever played in the history of the sport). For those of you who weren't there, we started at 2 pm and did not reach 100 until well after 10pm; no break for supper. The trophy of nostalgia is still my most valuable possession.
I hope all is well, and thank you for the memory splashed unsuspectingly across the internet.
Peace.