Originally Posted by
BarracksSi
$100, to a kid in the 1970's, is a lot of money. You'd have to mow a lot of lawns or deliver a lot of newspapers to collect that kind of scratch. If you can buy a bike -- if you can buy freedom to roam beyond your immediate neighborhood -- you don't care if it can be lighter. You want a bike that looks cool and feels fun to ride. You're gonna get that bike.
On the nose, my friend. When I was growing up, EVERYONE had a Schwinn Varsity. And those that didn't wished they did. The lucky kids had Continentals. They were solid and unbreakable, they were cool, and they gave us the freedom to roam far and wide. AND, we could afford them if we really, really saved our beans from the paper route income.
We rode them everywhere, and did everything with them. Wheelies, curb-jumping, some dirt track, riding doubled up with someone on the Plescher rack in back. We used them for "work" on our paper routes, rode them to school, rode them to each other's houses, and rode the hell out of them on the weekends.
We used them heavily, and abused them badly. They never broke, and they seldom needed anything more than new tires and bar tape once in a while.
Those are days gone by. No such bike exists anymore, but in it's day a Schwinn Varsity was the biggest bang for the buck around.