As a kid in the early 70’s the bike to have was the Schwinn Stingray, particularly with the 5 speed shifter mounted right on the top tube & the quintessential rear tire, the slick. What a cool ass bike that was. As much as I wanted one, my old man ended up getting me the slightly cheaper (literally by two bucks, I looked it up) & less desirable ‘Typhoon’. It was the same frame & all around nearly the same bike as the one-speed ‘coaster’ version of the Stingray except it did not have the much sought after banana seat & butterfly handlebars that came stock on the Stingray. I must’ve bore-assed him plenty because eventually we retrofitted the seat & handlebars so my bike looked like a Stingray, I ripped the chain guard off to get rid of the ‘Typhoon’ moniker, dumbass that I was.
Fast forward, I don’t know, 25 years, my parents sell the house & call me up & say hey, do you want your old bike, if so come & grab it otherwise it’s going in the dumpster. I’m not all that sentimental & have very little from my childhood, but this bike was really the first real thing I can remember really wanting & then having for many years, y’all know what I’m talking about, that thing that you associate some of your best memories with… so I went & grabbed it & stuck it up in the loft of my garage where its been collecting dust since the late 90’s.
Fast forward again to maybe a week or two ago when a Stingray came up in my Book of Faces Marketplace feed. Normally it’s packed with Jeeps, bbq grills, pizza ovens & some other random bullshit, but when I saw the bike I naturally clicked on it. You know what happened next, every day there are 50 old Schwinn bikes on there, so I’ve been drooling over these old things day after day. Tonight I started thinking about even picking one up, an actual Stingray. They can be had, depending on condition, from a few hundred bucks to well over a grand & more. As I started thinking it through it hit me, I practically already have one & it’s a helluva lot more valuable to me than any of these others I could buy. Granted it’s in horrific condition but it’s the same one my little 6 year old ass rode for the first time 50 years ago, why not pull it out & git’r back on the road.
I’m no bike mechanic but it seems sound, brake still works & everything is straight. I’d need to clean it & paint it, it was ‘Campus Green’ when I got it, I’d like to find that paint & bring it back to original, & I’d also have to find a good replacement rear tire, and I’d like it to be a slick, as much as the old man tried to help me back in the day make it look like a Stingray, it was always missing the slick… Front tire is also basically crispy & rotted off. Probably needs a new mounting bracket for the rear of the seat, this one is bent up down below where it connects to the frame & I’d need to raise it to its highest position to be able to ride it. It’s also missing a pedal.
Maybe when I wake up tomorrow & the Hefeweizens have worn off this thing will go back up into the loft for another 25 years, but maybe not, I feel like a new project is afoot.
Anyone ever do anything like this?
Fast forward, I don’t know, 25 years, my parents sell the house & call me up & say hey, do you want your old bike, if so come & grab it otherwise it’s going in the dumpster. I’m not all that sentimental & have very little from my childhood, but this bike was really the first real thing I can remember really wanting & then having for many years, y’all know what I’m talking about, that thing that you associate some of your best memories with… so I went & grabbed it & stuck it up in the loft of my garage where its been collecting dust since the late 90’s.
Fast forward again to maybe a week or two ago when a Stingray came up in my Book of Faces Marketplace feed. Normally it’s packed with Jeeps, bbq grills, pizza ovens & some other random bullshit, but when I saw the bike I naturally clicked on it. You know what happened next, every day there are 50 old Schwinn bikes on there, so I’ve been drooling over these old things day after day. Tonight I started thinking about even picking one up, an actual Stingray. They can be had, depending on condition, from a few hundred bucks to well over a grand & more. As I started thinking it through it hit me, I practically already have one & it’s a helluva lot more valuable to me than any of these others I could buy. Granted it’s in horrific condition but it’s the same one my little 6 year old ass rode for the first time 50 years ago, why not pull it out & git’r back on the road.
I’m no bike mechanic but it seems sound, brake still works & everything is straight. I’d need to clean it & paint it, it was ‘Campus Green’ when I got it, I’d like to find that paint & bring it back to original, & I’d also have to find a good replacement rear tire, and I’d like it to be a slick, as much as the old man tried to help me back in the day make it look like a Stingray, it was always missing the slick… Front tire is also basically crispy & rotted off. Probably needs a new mounting bracket for the rear of the seat, this one is bent up down below where it connects to the frame & I’d need to raise it to its highest position to be able to ride it. It’s also missing a pedal.
Maybe when I wake up tomorrow & the Hefeweizens have worn off this thing will go back up into the loft for another 25 years, but maybe not, I feel like a new project is afoot.
Anyone ever do anything like this?