I had a 1960 Schwinn Racer 3 speed, rode that thing for only 5 years but rode it a lot. I used to ride to other towns with it, all my friends thought I was nuts. I put a lot of miles on it...well, it seemed like a lot of miles to a kid. One of the towns I would go to was 18 miles away, but others were between 9 to 12 miles. In the summer I would ride it all over the countryside. But this bike only saw heavy use in the summer, the rest of the time just riding a block to my friend's house, weekends I would ride it further. I started doing a paper route on it as well, but in the winter, I walked the route. It was my bike for riding to "far" away locations forced me to learn how to repair flats on the road. I had a neighbor who was about 50 or 60 showed me how to fix a flat without taking off the wheel, thus I never had to carry a wrench. I still use that method today.

It had the Archer 3 speed system, it never failed as long as you kept your eye on the oil level in the rear hub. My parents and I were told by the Schwinn dealer, to use 30w automotive oil, he gave me a small oiler can to put the oil in, dad had 30w oil in our garage for the lawn mower; the dealer instructed me to put in a couple of drops every week, or until it got to the top of the bottom of the fill hole. Those hubs naturally seeped oil, which the dealer said was normal, he had put a leather like strap thing that went around the hub and hung loosely, as the hub turned it helped to keep the hub looking clean, but there was some at the hole cover, but at least it wasn't all over the hub. The dealer also installed a Schwinn frame pump on the bike, and a Schwinn saddle bag, along with a flat repair kit.

According to Sheldon Brown, sometime in the early 60's Sturmey Archer was bought out by SunRace a company based in Taiwan, and those were junk.

Sadly, that bike got left behind when we moved across the country, Dad didn't tell me he left it, till I was looking for it. I was 15 when we moved, but I needed transportation, his excuse was they didn't have room in the moving van, and there was no room in the truck, so it had to stay behind. So, someone got a nice bike.