Furyus

Thank you!

Furyus

Just the angle of the pic. The bars are original to the bike - '65 stamped Schwinn.

Furyus

I think I was the only kid that had a Sting-Ray, too. I think my parents bought it to make up for how much they fought. Sure loved that bike, and love 'em to this day.

They are art in my eye.

Hobbiano 

When I was a kid one of my friends had a Stingray. He could wheelie that thing forever, like down the street and out of site. Then he'd come back and still be on the back wheel. He was an inspiration!

RandolphCarter

This is the same color as the one I had. Mine was the Columbia version, not an actual Schwinn. It was a hand-me-down from my cousin.

I got it when I was 4 and rode it for several years When I was 9 I changed over to a Team Murray 20" BMX bike in 1980.

sykerocker 

A "Sting Ray" was the beginning of my bicycle building back in junior hight school (circa 1963-64). My parents weren't about to buy me a new one, they figured the Mark IV Jaguar they got me back in 1958 for my birthday should still be doing fine . . . . . . . so I got hold of a Schwinn 20" kids bike, figured a way to put a bigger chainwheel on in, then added the high riser bar and seat picked up at Sears. After dad saw what I had built, he asked me to take it back apart and took the painted parts to his Chevy dealership and had his paint guy spray it 64 Chevrolet dark blue.

And that was the beginning of what I'm doing now.

sykerocker 

A genuine Schwinn Sting Ray cost something like double what a Huffy or Murray cost. Back in my hometown (Johnstown, PA), if you couldn't afford a Schwinn, a Sears clone was the second best option.

repechage

Don't recall white lettering on Schwinn tires, but do recall the oval mustard emblem with the black SILK typography.
Silk casing!

noglider 

My mother bought me a bike like this when I was nine, so that would have been 1970. I think the name on it was GT Torino. It wasn't as well built as a Schwinn, but it served me well. I had rear view mirrors installed on both sides of the handlebars, and they had two big reflectors on the backs of each one. The bike had a Sturmey Archer AW three-speed hub and a big stickshift on the top tube. A kid in the neighborhood adjusted my hub at one point, and I watched him and learned how to do it myself. I can adjust one of those with my eyes closed, literally, using sound and feel. The brakes were crappy long reach sidepulls, and they didn't work well, but I didn't know any better. I rode that bike until I was 14 and it was time to get my first 10-speed for a bike tour.

BigChief 

My little brother had the 24" Manta Ray version back in the early 70s. I used to ride it up the hill past my house and do sharp S turns back down. Very quick handling bike. A blast to drift the back wheel into turns on that down hill.My Rudge wouldn't do that.

speedevil 

My younger brother had a 20" Sting Ray (Sears version) and I had a 26" bike, also from Sears. We rode those bikes everywhere and a lot of places we shouldn't have. From our house, there was a little town called Lytle Five Points. We could sometimes get a quarter from Mom or Dad, and we'd ride over there and buy ice cream sandwiches at the little country store. We would sit on the store's front porch and eat our ice cream, then hop on the bikes and ride home.

We would strap our bamboo poles to the bikes and ride to a nearby pond where we would fish for bluegills. Took a small shovel to dig worms for bait.

Fun times.

rumrunn6

mine looked like this, w/o the fenders & w/o the front brake. it was stolen outside a pet shop I went into for fish food. Dad called the cops. we got a call back a day or two later & said they had something. before showing it to us, we didn't record the serial # so when the officer asked me if I could identify anything personal about it I told him I had tied a red bandanna around the saddle rails, underneath so it would blow in the wind. when we got to look at it, the thief had ripped that bandanna off but there was still some of the knotted cloth under the saddle. score! after that I started writing down serial numbers.

SpeedofLite 

The rich kid in the neighborhood had a purple one. Some of the rest of us got our knock-offs 2-3 years later. By that time, the rich kid had moved on to be the "early adopter" of the next cool thing.
Anyway, mine was from Sears (like pretty much all my clothes and stuff).
It was an elongated Sting-Ray-like bike called The Rail. It was purple and had a 5-speed T-handle shifter on the top tube surrounded by a plastic "wood-grained" console.
I see a Huffy model of that same bike occasionally, but I rarely see the Sears version.

Bigbandito

Wow! These bikes bring back memories. I had a Sting Ray knock off in the late 60s. Loved the flat rear slick. As I recall, the bike had a silver glitter banana seat and low "sissy bar" (anyone familiar with that term?). I wanted one of the high sissy bars that went up higher than your head. Sure wish I had that bike now.

I remember wearing a t-shirt my parents found at the thrift store with "You Bet Your Bippy" written on it and a baseball cap from the same store with a "Basagran" logo on it. My brother and I always wondered what they meant.

In the early 70's I rode with a neighborhood friend who was a chopper fan. He hacksawed the forks off another bike and slid them onto the ends of the fork on his bike. We never thought about it then, but there was probably a pretty good chance of "catastrophic failure" for that arrangement.

I believe I'll be able to relive those days in heaven.

repechage

Never saw the white lettering rear tires at my local Schwinn shop--- I would have bought in.
They did have a "cheater" slick with wavy square tread in the later 60's.
Also got my first lesson on tire sizes... 1.750 = 1 3/4" except when it does not.

By 1970, it was a single mattress saddle as the one of choice, small early or Junior Sting-Ray front chainring, no guard, tractor tires as we were in proto-BMX era.
Then, girl's frame with top tube welded in about 60% of the way up, small tube between the original two down tubes, bright color rattle can frame and matt black fork.
Welding by Cycle Products West, a Motocross tuning shop. Learned to miter tubes with a big rat tail file.
The Banana seat returned, but the hoop was cut off, struts on the inside of the saddle and fender washers to keep things strong and tidy each side, I found button head cap screws...and nylock nuts, one had to keep up appearances you know. Then I saw tied and soldiered spokes on a track bike... hey, I can do that!

Helped a number get set up similarly. The local Schwinn shop owner could not understand why I wanted a Slick Chick used in Pink no less for $25... Then he saw the result, snapped an image no doubt for Chicago to review. They did not understand this bicycle motocross thing. BMX was not yet a term. Sold my transformed Girls bike for a profit a few years later, bought a pair of Campagnolo pedals and Phil Wood bottom bracket for my next chapter, a Road Bike.

noglider 

That's such a sweet story.

Furyus

Furyus

Furyus

noglider 

Believe it or not, here in the lower half of Manhattan, people commute on all kinds of bikes, including these high-rise bikes. Their reason is that it's at hand, no sentimentality in most cases.

cudak888 

Have always been partial to the shorter pre-'66 frames. Still looks good too; paint wear be damned.

-Kurt

speedevil 

Personally, I prefer "seasoned" to "scruffy".

gugie 

The rich kid "down the block" (which was a quarter mile away since I was a country kid) had a Sting Ray. I got an American Eagle (later marketed as Nishiki) knock-off when I was about 10, my first bike.

noglider 

Interesting how so many of us are basically telling the same story. The Schwinn was the desired bike, and we compromised with similar and inexpensiver bikes.

Hobbiano 

+1
Thats the way it was in my neighborhood. The few times I rode a Schwinn it always seemed a lot nicer then what the rest of us were riding. I bet part of the reason was because they came from a bike shop instead of a department store and were set up better. This feeling carried over until I bought my first ten speed - a Super Sport.