Originally Posted by Squeeze

The picture above with a different handlebar a small seat having replaced the banana seat just reminded me of something I haven't thought about in a long time.

My parents gave me my first bike in 1974, I think. It was a green Ross that looked similar to the restored bike the OP is showing us. It had banana seat with a sissy bar and those long handlebars. In 1978, we moved to another state and I got a different bike.

So, it must have been around 1976 - 1977 when banana seats had become absolutely uncool. BMX bars and a "single" seat, as I think we called them then, had become de rigueur for boys. If we didn't have a BMX bike, we at least wanted a bike more in the BMX style than what the older kids in the neighborhood used to ride. Somewhere I scrounged up a black seat with springs on the bottom and metal rivets on the back and installed it on my bike with the use of my father's adjustable wrenches, most likely. I don't remember changing the handlebars, but I remember the seat situation very well.

It's possible that the bike I'm quoting in this post was modified for similar reasons around the same time.