squirtdad

Expanding a thought I had and posted in Commuting

when and where I was a kid (Chinook, Mt early 60's ) The bike that was cool and wanted was a single speed, with fenders, 26 in wheels and sort of medium tires, gender specific A Schwinn was the ultimate object of desire, but there were too expensive so I had a red Coast to Coast. Most of the kids I knew had front basket and used it.....errands for mom, tackle box when going fishing, and all the other stuff a kid will carry. You talked about how fast your bike was and told and heard fanciful stories about how fast English Racers were. Your bike was fun and practical (you could carry junk)....my defintion of utility.

Then came the Sting Ray......They were cool, fun, a bit dangerous (learning to wheelie), but less than practical due to slower speed and because they looked completely dorky with a basket in front....it just wasn't cool. My younger brothers and sister had Sting Rays and friends. I rode them and had fun...but I always went back to my 26 wheel bike....for it's speed and basket.

But this started a whole generation who only used bikes for fun (and getting to school..) Sting rays influenced BMX, etc

Then this generation was primed for the road bike craze....just when their sting rays were biting the dust, too beat up or just too small.

So from sting rays to 10 speeds. All the 10 speeds were race like...no fenders, no baskets nor racks, but exotic, and fast......

then Came mountain bikes...and new bike craze...again focused on fun and excitment, but not very utilitarian.

So we might now be completing the circle as maybe all these Sting Ray kids (not kids any more) who have had fun with bikes over different crazes, may be open to fun and usefulness.

squirtdad

rhm

Yeah, following the move from commuting... where I saw your post as well....

You're onto something, but... not arguing with you, you understand... I'd like to make a couple additional observations:

The current trend in kids' bikes is to model them on BMX / trick bikes that don't seem to me to be descended from Sting Rays. Thus kids now ride faddish BMX bikes or bikes that look like, but do not perform like, BMX bikes. This fad is similar to the MTB fad, with a lot of cheap MTB's on the streets, not the trails. And as you say, 'racing bikes' were the fad before the MTB's. And before that, there were the Sting Rays... and before that there were....

Well, what were they called anyway? I've seen them called English racers, or touring bikes, but the English 3-speeds and the similar Schwinns and all the cheap imitations... They all look more or less the same, and they replaced the balloon-tire bikes of an earlier age, and were surely a fad in their own time, weren't they? That particular fad lasted a bit longer, maybe, than the Sting Ray fad; but there were just as many cheap imitations of those bikes as there were of Sting Rays and all subsequent fads; and a lot of them were not great bikes.

As cars became increasingly common in the 60's and 70's, utilitarian use of bikes declined, which doubtless inspired the marketing of more recreational styles of bikes. Was this a response to, or the reason for the downfall of utilitarian bikes? Yes, there have been fads, but I don't think the fads, per se, are the problem. Maybe a symptom?

PaulH

I think you are on to something. The single speed bikes of the 1950s and early 1960s were intedned as transportation for people too young to drive. Yes, I know that they sometimes had fake gas tanks and such, but that simply paralleled the tailfins on cars. Bikes were, and were marketed as, cars for kids. Functions included basic transportation and paper routes. The classic American bike was the big, reliable American sedan, and the English "Racer" was the cool inported sports car.

The Sting Ray was a real paradigm shift. It was unsuited to trips of more than a mile or so, could not cary cargo, and was very much a toy. The next step was the BMX bike, and finally the mountain bike (am I the only one who finds "mountain bike" as strange a phrase as "tree submarine"?) Not only was the mountain bike not transportation, it did not even seem intended for road use with its big, knobby tires,

Kids did not want, or get, road bikes or "ten speeds." Road bikes were always a niche market. College students mostly got around on 5 speed derailleur bikes during the 1970s. These were quite practical and fairly fast. The English 3 speeds were still around.

I'd say that the Sting Ray, followed by the BMX bike were two culprits in destroying awareness of the bike as transportation, with the nountain bike a possible factor. The 10 speeds were inconvenient to use (no fenders or chainguard) but they were clearly designed for use on roads.

Paul

der Rabe

IMHO, your theory has Its Pants on Backwards. The "Stingray Phenomenon" is an outcome [not a cause] following from a larger demographic: specifically the general increase in disposable incomes at the time, the vastly reduced need to use bikes as modes of ulitarian transportation, and the increasingly bike-antagonistic nature of public roads.

Mr. Jim

I would have to disagree with this statement. I was 14 or 15 in the late 70s and tenspeeds were what we lusted for. Schwinn Varsitys were the ride of choice with various Murrays and Huffys being the low end of the scale and a Schwinn Traveler and a Univega owned by the two "rich kids" on the block being the ultimate status symbols. The bikes were light, for then, fast, and allowed us to go places and do things that were too far away or tiring to go to on the other bikes. Even back then I had more than one bike, my varsity and sears english style bike with a huge front basket for my paper route.

JunkyardWarrior

i dont think many bikes have gone out of style............esp from the looks of this forum....lol

its funny........i had a wide slick back tire full crome fender and chainguard banana seat ape hanger bars 5 speed shifter on the top tube..............it was sweet........but it was a tank........ a few yrs later all my friends had a bmx.........i had to have one..........even tho the hard plastic seats totally sucked..............ya had to have one to be cool

my fav bike was the stripped down stingray look alike (i think.never really looked) i found in the trash while on my paper route............hung the huge bag on the ape hangers every sunday morning...........in the snow and all.......pushed it up hills and coasted down..........that bike made me alot of money now that i think of it....very utility

i think ive been thru a few of the bike styles in my life.........stingray type when i was 12-15.......bmx at 15-17......beach cruiser when i was 18............a 10 speed when i was car free for 13 months..........later i got into mtb'n right as full suspension bikes were hitting the wider market (walmart ,kmart and target)...........and a few months ago i made a utility trike for haulin stuff...........thats when i joined BF..........and to my surprize i just became a recumbent rider............like i said.....i dont think any type of bike went out of style.........they just got specialized

thdave

Stingrays were fun. I had one. I loved that old banana seat and the handlebars were cool. The bike had fenders, so it was fairly practical, although I couldn't carry much.

Stingrays could have caused a downturn in utility bikes because kids strived for fun and parents bought bikes kids want. But the parents didn't need to abandon the utility bikes. That happened as the suburbs grew out and households started getting two cars.

Thinking back, I'd say that in the 60's, middle class America had one car. By the 70's, they had 2.

SirMike1983 

I have to admit I'll never understand why anyone would opt for a Sting Ray over a 26 inch ballooner or an English roadster (DL1 or Sports type, take your pick). Ballooners and English 3 speeds represent the bicycle in its best form if you ask me. If you own both, consider yourself lucky. The ballooner offers classic American style coupled with incredible robustness and the simple joy of a single speed coaster brake in a full sized package. The English 3 speed is great in its own right with its conservative styling (in contrast to the wild ballooners) and practical internal gear hub. You can even swap everything around to make it more hill friendly. If you really must have high performance, locate yourself a 3 speed club machine- these are the classic high performance bicycles.

And they're both pretty easy to work on once you've been around them for awhile.

So in light of that who with any sense would opt for a bicycle that has small wheels, but lacks the convenience of, say, a Raleigh Twenty? The Sting Ray is a collectible toy, I'm sorry to say it, but it really is. If you're serious about adult riding, it just isn't going to work without significant modifications.

thdave

Well, you must not have kids!

They will opt for the cool factor every time. They don't care about practical.

JunkyardWarrior

not to put down utility bikes............but from a 39 yr old kids perspective they cant do what a bmx or mtb (not the cheezy mtb but the serious downhill kind) can do............ever watch the X games?...........try that on an english 3 speed.............oh sure if ya need to run to the store for something or take a nice stroll down the street they're great..............but each bike is designed for a certain purpose...............altho the bottom line is they can all do what an english 3 speed can do...........maybe not as elegantly but they work.........im a short guy with a 28" inseam...........bmx bikes fit me better than 26" wheels...........to each his own i say..........a world only filled with 3 speeds is boring...........rejoice in the diversity

thdave

The problem is there is virtually no diversity in Ohio of utility bikes. You have to search far and nigh to find a store with more than one model, and that model only started showing up last year (Electra Amsterdam).

Tmax1

If anyone wants to part with their Stingray, let me know.

SirMike1983 

Haha you may just be right about that-


I did come off harsh on the Rays I guess- which I didn't mean to do. I think some kids did and will do well with them as riders. They really do seem to have a niche they can fill. A Sting Ray might be good for a younger kid though who wants a cool smaller bicycle his size. I just find the prices on them to be a bit perplexing is all- I see them sell for more than some really nice adult bicycles, and it seems like there's that element of "I want this cool one!" and then it sits in the garage without use. As said above, a world of all three speeds would indeed be boring- I think that's right.

PaulH

Urbanization is another factor. Back in the 1950s, Americans typically grew up in small towns. If you were under 16 and wanted to go anywhere or do anything, you needed a bike. The alternative was having your parents drive you there and pick you up. Bikes meant freedom then.

Paul

TurdFerguson2

Has anyone noticed how few kids are out and about on their bikes unsupervised? I just moved to a new neighbourhood, and there are a few more kids around, but for the most part I don't see kids under 12 without a parent. When I was kid (not that long ago) bikes were our ticket to freedom. I'm trying to remember at what age I was allowed to go out with my parents, but it seems to me it was at 5 or 6.

I wonder how and if this trend will affect bike styles/sales?

squirtdad

This has been a bit of a challenge as a parent, especially in these days of vigilance about everything.

My son is almost 10 (rides a bmx, gets big air and commutes with dad some times...using dads baskets).

He has been able to go out and ride up and down the street and cross another street to go to visit friends since he has been 8.

Starting this summers, as long as he has at least one other kid with him (his age or older) and they have a cell phone, he has been allowed to bicycle to "downtown" to hit the candyshop or whatever or to bicycle to nearby parks.

San Jose, especially the area we live in is very safe, crime stat wise.

I know a lot of parents that wouldn't let their kids this far out of sight at this age....to me it is a balance. He is with friends, there is communication and the area he is going to is known and very safe.

Nightshade

The Sting Ray caused what?? Poppycock!!

Cheap gasoline and a public addicted to the car
that is fueled by cheap gasoline is the root cause
of may things wrong not only in cycling but in the
Western world/culture yet to day.

The Sting Ray!! The very idea !!

thebikeguy

Growing up in Canada we didn't see too many StingRays.Our equivalent was the CCM Mustang. They had the cool factor but the best thing about them was/is we could beat the crap out of them and they wouldn't bend or break.They were tough.We used to go on some 30-40 mile trips.Equipped with 3speed they could cruise right along. I never got to try a StingRay but the crank and pedals in the Mustangs were super strong. We did some crazy jumps with those and never bent a pedal.The Raleigh's and the others 3piece cranks couldn't take it.As for setting one up for an adult to ride, it's too easy. A longer seat post and a taller sissy bar takes care of that.The handlebars are already high enough. I still ride one now and then(20 miles round trip).You're right though the prices are nuts.How can anybody justify paying $1200(US)for an OrangeCrate?I'll admit it's a really cool looking bike but $1200?(I didn't pay that much for my last truck).I have 3 Mustangs.A 1966,1969, and a 1999(a CCM 100th Anniversary remake).The 66 is one from my childhood(pretty beat up),the 69 I rescued from being tossed into a garbage truck(good original shape 3speed stickshift) and the 99 I actually bought at Canadian Tire for $99(Can).I ride the 69 now and then but I ride the 99 pretty hard(just like old times).I call it my play bike.When I ride it I tend to fart around more.I'm 47 and it's a blast.So I don't think that they were just "toys".They were our mountain bikes.Nothing else could take the punishment.
What put cycling on hold for me was getting my driver's license.I didn't touch a bike for over 12 years.I had a car,everybody had one. I got mine the last year of high school(quite the piece of crap but it was mine)It was the thing to do.
So I think that the decline was caused by a large demigraph of people all around the same age almost simultaneously getting into cars and motorbikes.I'm a child of a "baby boomer".There were alot of us.That's alot of people all of a sudden NOT riding bikes.The bicycle market HAD to take a hit.
Please don't blame it on the StingRay.Blame it on affordable cars,gas,and insurance($50,60 cents a gallon and$105/year respectively).

-=(8)=-

^^^^
Post of the Week


I still remember my first Blue Sting Ray, Christmas of '67, and riding
it through 1' of snow in Pittsburgh Pa because I was so excited I
couldnt wait until spring. I have to think that feeling is what has kept
me in it this long even though I will never be able to reproduce the
feeling of elation that simple little bike gave me. I have a new, Re-pop
Sting Ray Grape that I keep for tooling around the neighborhood and its
fits me well at 5'10" with the seat all the way up. I think a bicycle historian
would find the venerable old StingRay to be the model -T of bicycling.

ilmooz

My first new bike was also a blue Sting Ray, Christmas 1970, and I rode it that very day in the Chicago snow without caring a bit that my nose and fingers were about to freeze off. When my family moved west for a few years and BMX exploded I remember trying my best to convert my Sting Ray into a BMX'er as best I could, mainly by ditching the banana seat for a single and adding some knobby tires. That held me over until I got a Mongoose with Tuff Wheels. I also had an old Varsity, but that didn't get much use on dirt roads.

All of those bikes stayed west when we moved back home to Chicago, but I figure somehow they led me to my current trio of bikes - a pure racing bike, a bike for touring, and a mountain bike. I have a use for every one of them, but I still wish I had my Sting Ray if not to just pedal around the block every now and then just for the fun of it. I may have to pick up one of those new purple Sting Rays; I'm finding them too irresistible.

JonathanGennick 

Wow. Thought-provoking thread. Squirtdad, you're probably only a few years older than I am. I remember when "banana" seats and sissy-bars where "the thing". And I remember the 10-speed craze. Mom wouldn't buy me one of those. Instead, she bought me a single-speed Schwinn with heavy-duty, balloon tires. In hindsight, she was right. I used to ride "off road" a lot on the railroad right-of-way near my home. I would've destroyed a 10-speed. That was back in the early 1970s, before mountain-bikes were even conceived.

Not sure I agree with the conclusions in the original post though. I'm sitting here thinking that there are probably concentric circles of audience, or market for bicycles. From smaller to larger, we might have something like:

1. Those who ride bikes for utility and transport because they want to do so. Looking around at my neighbors, I'm thinking this must be a small market indeed.

2. Those who ride bikes because they have no other choice. Put younger teens into this market, many college students, a handful of adults who've lost their driver-license for one reason or another.

3. People who will buy into a sport because of the cool factor.

Nothing really wrong with #3. People need some sort of exercise, and there are always people who will choose their form based upon what their friends are in to, what's "hot" at the time, etc. That doesn't bother me. I myself have changed forms depending upon where I live, what's convenient to do, what my friends do, my own changing interests.

Bike manufacturers build what sells. I don't know that we can blame them for downplaying utility bikes. It's probably more accurate to blame their customers.

As more people become part of group #1, we'll see more people from group #3 being exposed to the idea of bicycling for utility and transportation. I know that I've exposed a fair number of colleagues, friends, fellow church members, and neighbors to the idea of bicycle as my first choice of transportation for local errands. Yet I cannot point to a single person whom I've influenced to actually ride a bike at all, much less for utilitarian purposes. And that leads me to my next point:

It will take a lot of time and a big shift in culture before group #1 becomes significant, if it ever does. Group #2 has the best chance of expanding, and I see that growth being driven by rising fuel prices. While I cannot claim to have converted anyone into a cyclist, I do see greater numbers of people biking about town this year than I've ever seen before. Why is that? I can only imagine that they are driven by high fuel prices to become part of group #2 (the reluctant bicyclists).

I suppose, in a way, that high fuel prices might end up driving the next "craze", which seems destined to be the "utility bike craze". And bike manufacturers will keep right on building whatever they believe that they can sell.

JunkyardWarrior

ya never know......maybe someone started riding again because they saw "that guy" (you) riding around again and it inspired them

PaulH

I don't think so. All it takes is a shortage of parking spaces and frequent gridlock. People will cycle when and where cycling is more convenient than driving.

Paul

tpelle

I disagree with this statement. To my way of thinking, the Stingray style of bike was a bicycle version of the "chopper" motorcycle. That was the era of Big Daddy Roth and the Rat Fink. The really extreme hot rods. The Munsters. It was cool to be weird. The Stingray bike just was a reflection of that.

Today took at the kids that are into the fixies - tattoos, orange hair, body piercings. (Have you ever seen one of these guys on a typical road bike? Imagine them in spandex - they'd melt like the Wicked Witch of the West.)

It's just a cultural thing, and an expression of rebellion - the fixie of today and the Stingray of yore are one and the same.

JonathanGennick 

Possibly, but that puts them into what I called group #2 in my original post. They'll be "reluctant" bike commuters, who are biking to avoid bad traffic, and not because they enjoy riding a bike.