mattleegee

2 part thread but they are so tied together i had to do it all on one

P-1 Any good stories of locating an identical childhood/early teens bike?
P-2 Is a 1990s still in the box even possible? Is this legit??? (check links below)

When i was 11-15 i had a 1990s GT Karakoram it was grey with orange lettering, i sold it before even out of high school but have been thinking of a possible restoration bike or something to ride with the sigo since my bike is just to quick to do a couples ride.

I checked eBay and found a few frame sets, none the same color. But great that i got some hits

But also did find a guy that claims to have 1990s GT bikes in storage still new in the box! Is this real?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/NOS-GT-Kara...YAAOSwdr1b7ev8

https://www.ebay.com/itm/NOS-GT-Kara...0AAOSwjBhb7zF7

mattleegee

Here she is!!!! I know no one else is excited but this is the one! Sold on March 29..... crap

Bianchigirll 

hobbs1951

Doubt any of you will have heard of mine from a little known but quality London maker, a Christmas present (I was either 5 or 6 yrs old) from my parents. It was called a Pavemaster and was flam blue and red - I have pics but not been able to find one.

John.

horatio 

My first bike was a red single speed, probably a Huffy or Murray. My first road bike was a yellow Schwinn Continental, purchased with my own money when I was 12. I’ve had the opportunity to buy several yellow Continentals in recent years, but passed on them all. I may buy one yet, just for the heck of it.

Trueblood

try this boolean search in a browser site:craigslist.org Rosebud

Glennr134

My first real bike was a Huffy Wildfire. Almost bought one on Ebay . I wore that bike right out. Luckily I still have my road bike. Got it when I was 12. My uncles Hercules 10 speed. Its priceless to me.

bikemig 

bikemig 

I didn't intentionally set out to look for my childhood bike but I did find it. My first bike was a Robin Hood raleigh 3 speed.

I found this bike 2 years ago and couldn't resist buying it:

rustystrings61 

Not a childhood bike, but one from adolescence - my Dad bought me this 1976 Puch Royal X in 1978, and I rode it lots and all over.




In 1987 I sold it to fund a guitar amp purchase, regretted it, but was unable to buy it back. In '97, when I got back into bikes, I started looking for another white 23-in Puch Royal X. Zip. None to be found, no matter how far and wide I looked. A couple of weeks ago, on a whim, I look at Facebook Marketplace and run a couple of my usual searches for old French bikes, and on a whim I type in "Puch." And up comes this, for $100.


and yeah, it's in Georgia and I'm in South Carolina, but I find a shop near the seller who will box it and ship it, and the seller agrees to take it there to get his money, and I'm really happy that I've got a bike like I have been seeking for more than 20 years. I poke around looking for any records of serial numbers but have no luck, and then the bike arrives and I disassemble it and start cleaning and I get to the head tube and I see this -



- that vertical scar down along the H? I did that. I remember seeing it after one of several moves in a short period of time, I remember being sad and bummed about it - but what are the odds of there being TWO white 23-in Puch Royal Xs in the state of Georgia with that particular scar? It's MY bike.

Here it is this morning, as I reassemble it to ride for a season or two before I have it properly refinished with the right transfers -

bikemig 

Great, great story. I read one like this about someone who found his old Peugeot PX 10,

88Tempo

My childhood bike is a 78 Chrome Mag Scrambler that I got for Christmas. It's stored in my parents attic right now. I've thought about getting it and getting it and going through it.

sykerocker 

No chance of that happening for me. First off, there's the age of the bike: A 1958 Schwinn Mark IV Jaguar.



Secondly, it got used to death. First as a child, 1958-1965 (of course by 15 I was ashamed to be seen on it), and then it was resurrected in 1969-71 (with all the gewgaws long stripped off and thrown away, of course) as my first college commuter bike. It gave me my first appreciation of the Sturmei-Archer three speed hub. Summer of 71, it was gone, replaced by a Schwinn Super Sport, and then I got serious about cycling.

Yeah, there were a couple of 20" used Schwinn repainted by dad's bodyman at the Chevrolet dealership, but I was thinking in terms of new bike. Makes a better starting point.

RobbieTunes

I floated the idea to my son of a C&V banana bike. He recoiled in horror.
Then I suggested I'd just ride it instead of him. Went downhill from there.

Chinghis

That Puch is a great story.

Mine would be a 1970 or so red Schwinn Speedster. Single-speed, coaster brake. Weighed a ton. Probably why commuting with panniers now doesn't faze me at all. It's still lighter than a Speedster!

I think I would have better luck finding my next bike, that green Schwinn Collegiate from 1973 or so.

gugie 

Bought it when I was 15. Sold it when I was 23.



Smacking forehead ever since.

John E

My first bicycle, received the summer I turned 12 and could finally balance one of the infernal contraptions , was an early 1950s Schwinn American "middleweight" -- 26x1.75" tires, mudguards and chainguard, cantilever frame, paperboy handlebars, 2-speed Bendix coaster hub shifted by what resembled a handlebar-mounted brake lever, probably weighed 45-50 lbs. I have not seen the exact model and combination of components, but I pretty sure that's what it was.

My second bicycle, received in December of the same year, was a then-new Bianchi Corsa, obviously a bottom-of-the-line road bike with Huret gears, steel 26" rims, 21" frame, cottered steel cranks, and a 1-piece head tube and lugs. I rode the hell out of it and started down the road to a lifelong passion for bicycling. I have not seen another of that exact model ever since.

In a sense, I have come full circle, because today I have a fat-tired Schwinn and a Bianchi road bike, but both are vastly superior to anything from my youth.

agmetal

The last bike I had as a kid was a 24" wheel Specialized RockHopper, so between it being too small for me now, and generally not caring for MTBs, I'm all set. I went for something like 10 years without a bike at all, and my first adult bike was a Columbia Sports III that gave me tons of problems and eventually got sold. The Sturmey-Archer 3-speed hub that was on it is now in use on my drop-bar franken-3-speed.

SamSpade1941 

My first bike was whatever was at the hardware store , cruiser of some sort I think it was a Schwinn but I honestly can’t recall. Biking wasn’t a passion at the time , it’s just how we got to one another’s house and the store , or to go fishing .

No no one that I knew of growing up had good bikes and the small town I grew up in had as I said earlier a couple of hardware stores that both sold bikes, Schwinn and Huffy that I recall.

When I turned 16 I wanted a car and got one , 17 into the US ARMY that was that . I didn’t even give bicycles a passing thought again till 2014 . I have some regret because I really do enjoy cycling now and had I stayed with it from childhood I would most likely be in far better physical condition , minus my bad knees from the aforementioned military service .

ryansu

Sting ray
My child hood bikes were a hand me down Schwinn sting ray and a tank of a Schwinn Typhoon that both my older brothers had ridden and the eldest probably received it second hand. I did actually ride it to commute to Jr. high probably all of two miles round trip, I cringe to think how dry that bb must have been.

My teenage 10 speed was an earth toned huffy I barely rode (we had moved by then to a house on a big hill and I was a runner back in those days) and it can stay lost in the mists of time. I have much more fun finding bikes I would have enjoyed in college had I only caught the riding bug a few decades earlier. YMMV.

squirtdad

My first bike was a candy apple red Coast to Coast medium weight Schwinn Clone.... it hung at my house for years, after I moved on to a columbia 3 speed and an Azuki 10 speed. My youngest brother got ahold of the first bike and started welding things to on to haul his lawn mower trailer.......until it just kind rusted away. Don't remember what happened to the columbia, I sold the azuki to a coast guard friend when I got out as I had no place to store in in my first NYC apt.

nothing as cool as refinding a puch

horatio 

Guess waht popped up on the local CL? Yep. A rusty, yellow Continental, just my size!

Glennr134

wait till you get it together. My Hercules was all apart in my parents shed since 1987. On the first ride after the rebuilding, it made every sound it made while riding as a kid. I was 12 again . What a rush. Glad you found it !!!

canklecat

But I don't want another green Sears knockoff of a Schwinn Stingray with white banana seat.

OTOH, I wouldn't mind having another copy of my first serious bike that I actually liked. Just a standard Schwinn 3-speed, also green. But it was a proper bicycle and fun to ride, even with that hi-ten frame.

But, nah, my hybridized Univega Via Carisma fills that niche nicely, thanks. I don't really need my childhood bikes again. My equivalent to a Stingray now is an early version of the Trek 5900, with purple paint, blue cable housing and hi-viz yellow bar tape. All it needs now is some handlebar streamers, blinky lights and an Ah-OOO-gah horn.

merziac

Love it when a plan comes together.