Bikes from when you were a kid
 

A while back I posted about finding my old bike, from when I was 14, in my father's barn after he passed away. I planned on just hanging the frame in the garage but I just couldn't resist doing something with it, so I built it up as a single speed. It's certainly too small for me but it was quite fun to ride this evening on the local mup.

1986 Fuji Allegro, original bars, stem, levers, brakes and seatpost.

Anybody else still have a bike from their childhood?

https://i.imgur.com/zImKmoJ.jpg

My wife would say I'm still in my childhood, but I got this Legnano in 1964 as a 14 year old junior racer. I still have and love the bike, 53 years later! I rode it on the Eroica CA in 2016. These pictures have been posted before, but since you asked. ..

Nice! Sure beats hell out of my 14 y.o. ride.

https://i.imgur.com/DI5UfPL.jpg

I've had this bike since I was 13...

http://i936.photobucket.com/albums/a...t/photo-45.jpg

Just yesterday I saw an older gentleman riding a green Schwinn Sting Ray down the road. He seemed to be happy and enjoying his ride.

I didn't have any particularly cool bikes until relatively recently.

You win the prize, hands down. Other than a somewhat cool Sturmey-Archer AW hub with a 14-16-18-20 cog cluster (for 1/8" chain), I have no interest in any bike I owned before about 1973, when a friend gave me my first Capo frame.

Sadly, no.

Rosebud...

I bent mine in half doing a bunny hop off of a loading dock. I beat the crap out of that thing - single track, garbage can jumping, so many crashes. I'm amazed I'm still alive.

Mine are long gone but I'm passively looking for this one........... 1962 Murray Missile U-20 26" boys.

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800...923/0WYDPt.jpg

Yep, that's why I chose the user name I did, I rode the wheels off that bike as a kid. Weighed almost as much as I did when I first got it for my 8th birthday and it was all I could do to reach the pedals.

Ha! This was me until I got the Fuji. Bent one and broke another.

I terms of a road bike, I had a black Super Le Tour. Heavy pig. I used it for weekend camping trips in high school. High being a play on words. :o

But when I was a young boy, around 1972, before I was bending BMX bikes in half, a week before he left for college, the coolest kid on the block had just picked up his new Cinelli all the way from Chicago and brought it back to Madison. It had glue on tires. It made an impression.

Birthday 1964 - Phillips Pilot, a girls bike, as I was not tall enough to straddle a boys when purchased, at least it was blue. (similar to Raleigh Mountie)
Christmas 1966 - Schwinn 3 speed Stick-Shift Sting-Ray, in Coppertone Gold, Leopard print seat as it went with and looked better than the sparkle vinyl white. (of a family of designers, parents did not argue)
Fall 1969 - To replace the stolen Sting-Ray I buy a single speed Sting-Ray with car wash money.
1971 - Used Schwinn 3 speed Racer. 26" wheels.
1971 - used Schwinn Slick Chick (in pink for about 45 minutes) Turned into proto BMX bike, had low crossbar welded between upper down tube and seat tube about 2/3 of the way up, a bunch of trick changes. (had sold off the '69 sting-Ray)
1972 - used Schwinn Stingray built up into a basic bike, eventually the frame got a warranty replacement, built up into a three speed and sold it off at a modest profit.
1972 - Sold off almost all save the "BMX" Sting-Ray, buy my first road bike, a Bertin C-37, T.A., Campagnolo, Ideale.. Nervex Pro lugs… sew-ups and toe clips and straps… I had arrived.
1973, sell off BMX 'Ray to buy Phil Wood bottom bracket and Campagnolo Pedals, Cinelli plastic saddle (it was lighter) Late that year, a set of Race wheels.
1974- Busy year, Sell off the Bertin, (too big) buy a full Campagnolo road bike to race and a few months later a Bob Jackson track bike on credit! (thank goodness I got a job within weeks!)
Very late 1974, Carlsbad Masi Gran Criterium.
1975- Harry Quinn Criterium bike, Masi Track bike, color matching the road bike. A Southern California Junior racer just Needed a set of matching bikes.

That takes me through Junior high school.

Bought back my second road bike as a frame set in 1983, still have. Once repainted. Could use it again.
Never sold the Masi track bike. (almost did in 1980, thankfully not)
Bought a sistership in my size of my original Bertin C-37 early this year, needs a few things to totally recreate. Not sure if I will set up as bought or its last incarnation.

One of my first bikes was a spray bombed (British racing green) single speed step thru frame that someone put drop handlebars on. I say bikes, but what it really was a collection of castoff refuge bikes that my dad somehow scrounged up, and my siblings and I would ride whichever ones had tires that held air. I lied to my friends that it was a type of racing bike that the British used. Due to my remarkable ability to lie, and my friends total ignorance, I think they bought it. I don't really have much of a hankering to find a qualified replacement for it. I'm sure the original is rusting and resting somewhere in a scrap heap, or it's already been reincarnated as a toaster or flag pole or some other useful steel item.

Yes i have had this bike since i was 15. I got it new, a 1990 Trek 7000

Here it is doing kid duty at a local park:

https://vivalaslider.files.wordpress...7173.jpg?w=924

Kind of from when I was a kid:

Growing up, I didn't realize it, but we were poor. So most of my stuff came to me as hand me downs from my two year older rich cousin. Anyway, the one thing that did not get handed down were any of his bikes. I drooled over his Raleigh Twenty.

So eventually, I picked one up. This is a picture as found. I've serviced it, swapped rims for alloys, fresh tires, and a nice Brooks saddle.

[IMG]https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4361/...2f3c6bfb_o.jpgRaleigh Twenty Folder by wrk101, on Flickr[/IMG]

Mine is an off topic 1972 Honda CR250M Elsinore.

I'll find one eventually.

Not a complete match, but pretty close on that Murray:

https://denver.craigslist.org/bik/d/...297065511.html

As the youngest kid in a poor family, the only bike was an old balloon tired, step thru, single speed with wire basket on the front. Being the youngest, by the time i could ride it, older siblings didn't want to. :). It gave me freedom to explore and made a paper route possible.

I wouldn't want it back, under any circumstances.

When I was a kid in the mid 60s, the group of friends I had weren't interested in anything but speed. We saw pictures of real racing bikes and copied what we saw as best we could with old unwanted English 3 speeds. By then, everybody wanted 10 speed bikes so the old 3 speeds were cheap enough for a paper boy budget. Fenders, racks, chainguards and kickstands came off. The handlebars got flipped around and as soon as you could afford it, you would go down to Western Auto and buy a cheap molded plastic "racing seat". I think we were more motivated by Norton Commandos than Tour de France riders, but we still made it our mission in life to go everywhere as fast as possible. Only lately did I realize that we were carrying on the fine tradition of earlier Scorchers.

I learned to ride on a quiet back street using my sister's Eaton's Glider, which was too large for me. Early on, I ran into the back of a neighbour's pick-up truck, which was the only vehicle parked on the street. He came running out of his garage, screaming. But he was worried about me, not his truck. I imagine the screams would be of a different nature, if this happened to-day.

My childhood bikes, in order:

196? - 197? Columbia 20" muscle bike. Cantilever frame, banana seat, ape hanger bars - their version of a Sting-Ray. This was a hand me down from a cousin 6 years older than me, I was 4 or 5. My dad painted it metal flake blue, I wanted metal flake red. Gave it to a neighbor several years later. Wouldn't want or need to have another one.

1979 Team Murray BMX bike. I was 8. Saved up for this by scavenging scrap metal for several years, particularly beer cans for scrap aluminum. We lived in a college town, and I would raid the fraternities' dumpsters after big parties and drag home large garbage bags full of beer cans. Made my neighborhood smell like stale beer while I crushed the cans, I'm sure the neighbors LOVED that. Paid for and assembled it myself, beat the snot out of it and repainted it several times over the years. Replaced wheels, bars, stem, and pedals several times over. Went to go build it up for my brother in 1988 (he's 10 years younger than I am) and the frame broke where the top tube meets the seat tube. Scrapped it, and no interest in getting another one.

197? Peugeot UO-8 road bike. Got it at end of 7th grade - 1984, so I was 13. Rode all over the place. Replaced the cottered steel cranks with cotterless alloy cranks. I was outgrowing it when I snapped the stem in 1987. Scrapped it as well. I've briefly considered picking another one up, but haven't since I most likely would never ride it.

1987 Trek Antelope 800 MTB. Picked it up in the fall. Earned the money for it working at a McDonald's in the spring and summer. Rode it all over the place, ended up replacing components many times over. Only original parts left are frame and bars. I still have the bike knocking around in the basement.

Close but no cigar, I've had a few near misses, some really nice but way overpriced or too far to drive and seller wouldn't ship, some really close but trashed, missing half their parts and still overpriced. There's one out there somewhere with my name on it though. Doesn't have to be perfect but it has to have the tank, complete headlight and rear rack.

Wow!
You had eclectic tastes from a tender age.
Brent

I can't take all of the credit...my father and I saw it on the curb while on the way to breakfast. We checked to make sure it was being thrown out, and we took it home together.

My childhood bike is long gone, but I found one almost identical to it and rebuilt it like mine. This is a 1983 Huffy Pro Thunder.......