50 Years Ago: February 1970 in Bicycling! magazine
 

Sorry, I was asleep at the wheel and missed posting the Feb 1970 issue last month. So, here you go. There were no Feb issues in 1980 and 1990, so I'm current with those posts.

Articles presented here are "Tandeming with the Blind", "Chain Drives", and the final concluding article of "A Ridiculous Contrivance" where one shouldn't miss the concept drawing of a multi-level, horse-powered, public transportation trike.
The article about the Moulton prototype was posted in a previous Road Test/Bike Review thread. https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-v...prototype.html

As usual, let me know if you'd like to see something else listed in the ToC and I'll do my best to send you a pdf.
Just send me a PM that includes your email address.

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Ty, i love that u do this.

You're welcome, 52t!
Positive vibes are always appreciated. :)

someday this may be the only preservation of the magazine. Meanwhile i get to relive my miss spent youth.

In 1970 our father bought my sister and I Kent 'Sting Ray Style' from the Western Auto down the street. High handlebars, banana seat, coaster brake. New for like $30 each. They were not Schwinns as they were $72 for the Varsity and Sting Ray. Schwinn had theie own special Schwinn store; Pete's Cycle. I'd go in that store and knew I didn't belong. And they knew I didn't belong. Growing up in NE Baltimore was the best. (Still there). Of course we all worked on our own bikes and it was a horrible travesty. Having a pipe wrench or pliers was about as good as it got. In a year the lug nuts were round and I had gone through several tires as the cool thing to do was to get up speed and do a sideways skid. My poor dad, I was the last of seven kids, five boys, and he was disappointed when I would bust the wooden pieces off the expensive plumbing wrenches he had saved from his dad. And buying me tires and the occasional rear rear. I was such the clusterfick, still am, only more refined.

It still boggles my mine that we went on the road trips that we did. We just went places, 30+ mile round trips, we rode on the interstate, we rode on the beltway, we rode around the Loch Raven reservoir north of the city. Between the 4-8 of us we probably had three dollars, couple tools and a patch kit. Some kids had metal WWII era canteens from Sunny Surplus, most of us had glass coke bottles with wax paper and a rubber band for the lid. I rode 30 miles on a severely bent rear rim. By the time I got home the sidewall had completely worn through to the tube from rubbing against the chain stay.

I rode everywhere on that bike. To football and baseball practice that was usually a couple miles away and hilly. Never had lights, had reflectors, but just tried to avoid cars. Funny, back then you never thought of a hill as an obstacle, just stand up. Easy to say when you weigh 120lbs.

Those bikes you see in those magazines were for the relatively rich families that had one or two kids. Sorta like the car magazines that are all about Porsches and BMW's. We as kids rode the equivalent of Toyota (Sears?) or KIA (Kent?). And NOBODY had a ten speed, maybe somebody's uncle went off to the war and gave them an old 'English Racer'. A Raleigh three speed, the absolute height of class. Needless to say, we being the skilled mechanics that we were, having 'hand' brakes meant you shortly had 'no' brakes. Oh gosh, the parts we would lose and just shred to garbage with pliers.

We all had told our moms we were going out biking, where we were going I never knew. And never forgot.

I LOVE the pics and the story !!

Its great to go down " memory lane"

Some of the best years of my life was when I rode a bike everywhere!!!

And like mentioned above.....most times you did not have a destination.......just go !!!!

If we could all just " turn the clock back" for a day....

Thank you for sharing.....brought a smile and warmed my heart :)

Super fun, really interesting to read.