Mister Jalopy Scores a Stingray Bike at a Garage Sale, and Comes to an Interesting Realization
What Mister Jalopy learned when he found a Stingray bike at a garage sale after looking for one for 20 years:
For all the years of garage saling, I have always wanted, but never found, a Schwinn Stingray. Previously, I have encountered only three. One was being wheeled away from a sale as I approached, another was a pile of parts that a fella was carrying to his car in a laundry basket and the third was a sand blasted frame which I purchased. So, this week, I found the assortment of parts shown in the top photograph. This is not a treasured Stingray rescued from the rafters of grandma's house, but rather a stalled project that somebody had put together over a couple evenings of drunken Ebaying.Garage Sale Report - September 29, 2008Recently, I have figured out that we are in an odd secondary era for this stuff. During the 1970's and 1980s, garage sales were probably lousy with Schwinn Stingrays, but, those virgin bicycles have long been sold, garage saled, garbage dumped or reclaimed by the original owner. Now, when we find novelty bowling statuary, Apple IIs or strike front matchbooks, they are being sold by somebody that paid through the nose on eBay only to get tired of it for the second time.
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I've seen one a few days ago, chained to a street sign in my town. Nice, I thought, but looks heavy.
I used to have a Schwinn (not a Stingray, but close enough) as a kid, but my parents dumped it when we moved. Good riddance. My mother once noted how I was always 10-20 feet behind the other kids when we rode bikes - and I'll tell you, it wasn't for lack of muscle or effort. That damn thing *was* HEAVY.
Mine weighed 41 lbs. I remember my dad weighing it because he thought it weighed a ton. Pretty close.
I had a lemon yellow Deluxe Sting-Ray (Deluxe=chrome fenders).
#1 and #2:
I road balloon tire bikes exclusively(including a stingray that was sadly stolen), until about 2005. Sure the things are heavier then modern bikes, but they make up for it with simplicity and pure style.
The best part? Training on an old, heavy single speed makes you fly that much faster when you finally pick up that racer! Try to catch me now.
They're all over Craigslist.
Example: http://austin.craigslist.org/bik/859594198.html
I think we have one, or at least something similar, in our basement. Banana seat, solid rear tire and all. It was my sisters' when they were young, probably handed down from my aunt. I'll have to check if its a genuine Stingray or not.
Also, we have an Apple IIc+ in our basement as well. The first family computer.
I had a Stingray in my long departed youth. Got it for free when I was in 4th grade from a neighbor who was cleaning his garage in '75 or so...gave it away about three months later. It was uncomfortable, hard to pedal even after regreasing and replacing the chain, hard to steer and to stop. I really don't see why these are a grail object. They were terrible at their purpose. A machine is supposed to be good at what it is designed to do, guess that's why they faded away and good riddance.
I bought a Schwinn Stingray at a Flea Market 10 years ago, when I was 16. It is the red and yellow one, ALL Original, tires, everything. I shipped it to Scotland when I was living there in High School. Even back then somebody off the street offered me £400 for it. But it was my pride and joy, so I've kept it. I moved back to the US, and my bike is still there. It has always been a symbol of the big choice to come back to America.
I loved riding it. It was the only bike known in the area to have pedal back brakes.
The old Schwinns were heavy but they were built to last. I have a 1947 Schwinn DX that I ride to work every day; it's here in my office as I type this. It's the same model bike that was used in "Pee Wee's Big Adventure". Fat balloon tires, springer fork...it rides like a dream. You definitely burn a few more calories on a heavy old bike but I'd rather see them on the road than in a landfill.
I had one of those in the 70's but it had the high thingy on the back of the banana seat and a chain guard. I wish we'd have known how much they sold for or we'd have kept it. I believe it was sacrificed to teenage invention in its later years by being turned into some kind of downhill ski thing with skis instead of wheels.
You need some rubber handles on the end. The bare metal seems like it would be hard on your hands, and dangerous since your hands might slip off. Tassles optional.
"Recently, I have figured out that we are in an odd secondary era for this stuff."
Tertiary, really, but I'm just nipicking.
Great find, but I always liked my Huffy.
It looks similar to my old Space Invaders Huffy.
I used to have a model similar to this, but it had a 3-speed with a giant automobile style T-shifter on the top tube.
It needs a forged stem. That stamped Wald version is from a cheaper Murray/Huffy style bike. Not only that, they were really poor at holding those ape hanger handlebars.
#14 I had the same bike. Sparkle green banana seat. The only good thing it ever did was make me appreciate my first 10-speed more.
Mine was purple with white accents. Best. Bike. Ever.
They may have been heavy and hard to ride, but those things were the bike to have in my day. It was definitely a case of style over function.
I was off BB for a few weeks. On my own, I started looking at all those old "muscle bikes" with an art project in mind. Orange Crates, Stingrays. Banana seats, sissy bars, cheater slicks. When I check back in, one of those same bikes is parked right here. That's a weird synchronicity, or else these bikes really are picking up in popularity again.
I never had a Stingray, but I've read that that banana seat was slippery; if you had the Orange Crate with the shifter on the top tube, you could geld yourself with a sudden stop. Nope, mine was a JC Penney single speed with baskets fore and aft for my paper route. Once I got a real bike with gears, I never missed it.
I have also had this same realization, regarding collectibles being sold by collectors rather than the original owners... but I think it's more a symptom of the economy, and a leading indicator of worse times to come. An example: I first started lusting after classic arcade games in the mid 90s, and the price for a Pac Man or Galaga was around $300. At the time, this was too much for me to afford. Later, around 2000, I could afford it, but the prices had gone up to around $1000 (damn dot-commers!) Recently I've been seeing those same games on craigslist for around... $300.
I had a Raleigh Chopper, in metallic green, which I guess was a British copy of the Stingray. 3-speed Sturmey Archer hub gears with t-bar changer. Nearly neutered myself on it once.
http://images.google.com/images?um=1&hl=en&q=raleigh+chopper&btnG=Search+Images
Most Stingrays & knockoffs in my neighborhood growing up got the banana seat replaced with a 10 speed seat & became the original BMX bikes & got ridden to pieces. Literally. We would ride & crash them tll they couldn't be rebuilt anymore.
In the early 70's, I inherited a Raliegh Chopper and a Stingray from my older brothers. The Chopper looked way cooler, no comparison even. The problem it had was a complex, not so great shifting mechanism, and it was not very forgiving when you went off jump ramps.
Both had "racing slicks" on the back.
The Stingray weighed a ton yes, but it was great for riding off-road and was fantastic going over jumps. I wiped out a million times on that Stingray and it always remained true.