Originally Posted by
jimincalif
BCI ride, circles around Irvine and Tustin areas I think, how ‘bout you? Still pushing that same cruiser around?
Nice. Working again today. I am still cruising the cruiser, but a lot less in the last year. Did my double last year (June 2018) and just about retired. Working crazy hours and also blew an achilles tendon late last year/early this year. Usually do 3500-45000 miles per year but ended midyear with about 2400 and this year only ~600 so far. Hopeful for 2020 to get back to normal but gotta get this work situation under control. 18 months of this is too much.
Originally Posted by
jimincalif
Richie? Not hardly. I said “stingray” since pretty much everyone knows the genre. The neighbors had actual Schwinns, I had an AMF Roadmaster Renegade stingray clone that Santa Claus apparently acquired from Fedco in San Bernardino. Launching wasn’t the smartest thing to do of course, but the bikes were durable. If we broke ‘em we had to fix ‘em. Mostly just flats or realigning the handlebars, or putting cards in the spokes. We did actually wear out tires too.
Yeah our parents were not on-call private Uber drivers either. We had our bikes and our territory was defined by how far we could ride them while still being home when the street lights came on. Funny I was just thinking about this last week, riding home thru my neighborhood mid-Saturday. There are a fair number of kids living here but I did not see a single one outside, riding bikes, playing, getting in trouble, nothing. Came around the corner and saw my neighbor loading up a kid and all his stuff in the SUV to go to a game. I get the team sports thing - to a point. But it’s not the same as a group of kids with their bikes and a whole day to fill on their own.
Haha, I had an AMF Roadmaster BMX bike. I remember Fedco. I put mine on layaway from some local department store and made payments. But in those days that payment plan meant you didn't get it until it was paid off. LOL Interesting to note, I remember it was something like $80 for the bike (mid 70's) and you could buy that same 20 inch bike today for less. Kinda illustrates where manufacturing has gone.
Indeed, we beat our bikes up pretty good and learned how to fix them. When I was in the mid-west, we'd go puddle running after a good rain and then spend the rest of the day cleaning them up. Good times. Moved to Lake Havasu in the mid 70's and became an expert on patching tubes!
Yes, it's a shame. Wherever we lived there were kids all over the streets from dawn to dusk. We spent very little time indoors. Too many organized sports these days and 95+% don't ever do them beyond that so what's the point. We dabbled in AYSO and did some high school sports but never really got into the club sports. Just couldn't justify the expense, driving all over the state every weekend or flying around the country. Just wasn't for us. We were still too busy. Hopefully our kids will do it better then we did.