Yes I did that many times, sounded so cool.

I only used rookie cards for that because at the time they were just unproven beginners.

@@harrybriscoe7948 Catfish Hunter? Never heard of him... 🤣

@@scottdunn2178 I heard the name

@@harrybriscoe7948 He was around at the same time as Pete Rose and those guys in the 70's.

Oh Yeah!!! I rode countless wheelie miles. But, I'm your age and I don't see any more wheelies in my future. Fart.

Hey man I miss my ole Delux but I decided to build my own. I found a Tony Hawk BMX frame someone was throwing out that has a very interesting wire brushed look and I've been collecting pieces ... found some 20" rims with real spokes on a kids bike I bought for $20. Bought a new banana seat and chrome fenders and white walls. Still got a ways to go but when it's done it will be fun to tool around in. After all...the Stingray was the first BMX bike.

@@20alphabet I rode mine in the forest all the time so it was a pretty decent mountain bike too. Actually come to think of it it was a pretty decent all around bike.

S K Are you sure it was 1969? I am 2 years older than you and was 8 years old in 69. If you were six, I think a sting-ray was too big for you. I did not get a banana-bike until 1973 when I was 12. Just wondering. No offence.

@@Brvnkaerv yep, I was six. However I do remember that my bike felt big at first, had to stretch my toes to reach the pedals

In my Humboldt Park neighborhood in Chicago, most kids & young adults ride anything from electric skateboards to miniature motorcycles or the occasional moped or electric scooters.

Too dangerous and un safe for kids to be doing that nowadays !

Sadly now they play Fortnite

@@bextar6365 That was kinda my point. Although there are other factors as well. Kids today aren't as physically active, nor do they have to go outside and "play" when their entertainment and socialization is conveniently at their fingertips.

@@SchardtCinematic No idea ????

My seat sparkled too. It matched the color of the bike which was purple plum. The seat covers they used were thick and tough.

I got the same one for learning my abc’s 1969 mine came with training wheels..

mine was 7th bday 1973 {had a '70 Huffy previously that was stolen} that was red with black banana seat because my mom knew I loved my Georgia Bulldawgs so had to have the colors - PEACE LOVE n HIPPYNESS!

Man that's Cool. What a great time capsule of a time of joy and not a care in the world at that age ✌️😎

Been there too! Complete with Burt and Ernie slippers too! Lol

Matching Christmas Jammie's

I used to see Captain Kangaroo show them on his show in the early 1960s . He was also sponsored by Hostess and Kellogs . I remember a Lionell train he had stop for corn flakes milk and then sugar at different stations to make a bowl of corn flakes.

It was a simpler time glad I had a chance to live it! I think the 70s were the best part of my life

@@harrybriscoe7948 One of my favorite TV shows was YOU ASKED FOR IT sponsored by Skippy Peanut Butter, the host was ART BAKER.

My brother & I had 10 speeds. Varsity & the Continental.

I had the Sears version it was called a Spyder.

By any chance did you live in Chicago. 🤣 If they just cut your chain it was a heartbreaker but sometimes these thugs would make you give it up. That was worse.

I could never own one when I was a kid in LA, I would keep getting robbed by gang members wanting to convert them to lowriders.

We couldn't afford a Schwinn so my dad, after pleading, bought me a Murray (which was the knockoff brand). After a few weeks some SOB stole it from the bike rack in front of our elementary school. This was the middle 1960's, in a beach siburb of LA with very little crime, and my introduction to the new liberal America that was starting to destroy the country. My dad eventually bought me another one with a bike lock, which I rigorously used. Just around this time the Watts riots occurred, a few blocks from my grandparent's house where my dad grew up. You could see the flames and smoke rising in the distance from their street. Within a couple of years almost everyone moved from their tiny houses in the working class, mostly Catholic, ethnic white and Latino neighborhood. Most often they changed from owning their own homes and land, no matter how small, to renting cheap apartments. They fled for their lives. My grandparents neighbor had his throat cut. If he hadn't been a tough Mexican he probably would have died, but he survived and moved. He, and my grandparents, died years before they should have from the stress and disruption of becoming refugees. Every time I hear or see a Schwinn bicycle I remember rhis.

@@brianmccarthy5557 So many A-holes, so few bullits!

That's heartbreaking. I grew up in a pretty suburban area where we all had bikes. Never any chance of theft. Left garage doors open & bikes on the front lawn. I remember my dad who grew up in the Bronx & probably never had a bike, hiding my brothers to teach him a lesson. Never said a word, just jumped on someone else's, there were 5 of us. He did like spoiling us. Anyway, NJ is getting too crowded so off we go across the river to PA. It was like stepping back in time. Never thought my sons first real bike would get stolen! He's the only kid on the street so everyone was on the lookout. No luck. Terrible feeling.

An old sheet of plywood and some cinder blocks and we were Evel too!

Oh, yeah!! Yep

Our thing was jumping metal trash cans , laid on their side, with our Sting-Rays. You had to jump at least one can to have respect with the other kids. In that moment , you literally were "Evel Knievel". Evel was our biker Hero/God. I did 2 cans once, and that was scary. I heard of older kids jumping 5 cans, but I think that was done with bigger bikes. Most I saw jumped on a Sting-Ray was 3 , saw a couple kids crash trying to jump 3, as well. One kid broke his arm. The other got scabbed up pretty good. Oh yea, one last thing from that era,, "Channel Locks and a Crescent Wrench" LOL -American made of course. Then BMX bikes came along and Sting-Rays were gone.

Michael, I too got a route to buy my 1966 stingray, then I delivered papers with it. That was fun! I still have it in my garage. I ride it around the neighborhood once in a while. That banana seat is so darn uncomfortable! hahaha

Sadly, many kids today aren't taught to work for what they want.

These days most newspapers have adults with cars delivering papers instead of kids. Especially after some kids have met with untimely deaths getting kidnapped and mugged or murdered by creeps.

@@cliffordbodine5834 sadly it’s not safe anymore for kids to have paper routes in many places due to muggings or kidnappings.

@@glennso47 I agree. It wasn't always safe back in my day to have a paper route!

Those where the days my friend I hope they never end, those were the days!

i was born in 1959 . I wanted a Rupp Never got one Had a few enduros when I got over 18

I'm from 59 and got the 50 Cushman and 62 Vespa around 14 haha

It's not even the same company. People bought the name.

The feame quality went down back then; nut by the 2000s and 2010s quality was bacl up with models like the Voyager. EXCELLENT bike with great gearing!

People like to blame China for all the cheap junk we have today. The fact of the matter is that it is American businesses that choose to have their products made in China as cheaply as possible. It's a sad situation that keeps getting worse every year, making it harder and harder to find American made products.

Well, take the cost of today's bike and make it tens times what it is and you might have bikes made in the US. The trouble is that capitalism gets in the way when company execs will realize that they would be restricted to the North American market if anything at all, while "cheap imports" undercut them. Meanwhile, they would be thinking, "Hmm, if we manufacture in some low paying country, we can expand our market share to the world. You got screwed by your own capitalist ideals + efficient modern shipping methods. It's why container ships are getting bigger and bigger. In fact, they've gotten so big the shipping companies have been forcing ports to dredge ever deeper to accommodate them. Manufacturing is a dead donkey.

@@alainarchambault2331 It's not capitalism, it's the fraudulent fiat currency system corrupt politicians imposed on the country creating constant inflation, slowly killing profit and growth. Add unfair unbalanced trade deals, and you have desperate companies trying to stay afloat and eventually turning to overseas manufacturing for the cheep labor. Inflation has grown 2619% since 1913. Capitalism is great as long as you have real money, little to no inflation, and strictly balanced international trade.

Yep. Got a green one like in the thumbnail at Christmas 1973 when I was 7. Great memories. Had a Big Wheel too 🤣

Why are you all saying 5 speed? They were 3 speed. Did they have 5 speed in the 60s and 3 speed in the 70s? Also it didn't have the springer frontend. Which is what the video showed. But I remember the slick back tire. Ok just seen another video which explain my confusion. His bike was a fastback They didn't have the spring front, front wheel is a 20" and its a 3 speed.

@@baddog9320 my Stingray had a 5-speed gear shifter on the center bar/frame. I remember going up hills and my leg hitting the shifter and changing into the higher gear by accident.

@@baddog9320 '66 first year of fastbacks w/5spds.!

Me too 1968.

My brother and I had Sting Ray's, mine was lime green and his was purple. We had them for about 2 years but one day we left them in the garage with the door opened. 10 minutes later we were heart broken.

I was one of the kids that modified their bike to look like a stingray before Schwinn came out with their version. I also had a wheelie bar on the back.

I still have mine

never follow the herd

Mine was a hand me down from my big brother. Who knows what the original color was. We painted and repainted our bikes all the time.

Mine was a new one bought in 1982. The bike shop is still in business. Very old place. Was very happy to pick it out. Have several photos of it in an album. This video certainly brought back memories.

@@RUBIZEN my brother and I did that too ... paint em over and over again ... sometimes with Testors model paint lol

I know I lived on mine!

We demonize kids today. We have a completely different attitude towards children. We blame them for not being active but it’s not their faiult. If we saw kids riding their bikes out in the streets like we did, they’d be considered to be in our way/get off the road ... we’d think of them as out getting into trouble/being up to “no good” and they’re just kids being kids, being free, riding their bikes, having fun, pleying outdoors. We don’t let kids be kids

$$$$$$$$

Yes it was a good bike

Worth big bucks now !

Your bike and me are the same age as I am circa 1963.

SAME 👍

Best days of my life we had the same sort of bike called the chopper like the stingray lovely bike uk.

I do remember though that the bolt that held the handle bars would loosen up a bit after doing popawheelies. Use to drive me crazy.

Lime green in the '60s Lakewood, CA. Ditto! Over Signal Hill all the way to The Pike in Long Beach and return. Did not tell our parents!

Me too mine had Crome wheels looked amazing

@@chrishuston4445 Yeah, that too.

They still have group rides where there are hundreds of old Stingrays that ride around that area, i think the last one we had in May was in Huntington Beach. Its awesome to see how many of these are still being ridden

I have an original. I'll sell it to you.

Forest green Rams Horn 5 Speed. Wheelie machine!

@@iusedtoliveinmymothergary9827 better hold on to it , it's now worth alot !

Me too- we were the coolest! Lol

In the late 60’s I had saved my allowance and asked anyone that came to visit if I could have their pocket change. I finally had enough money (50.00) for my beautiful pea metallic sting ray schwinn with white banana seat. I’m 63 years old now and I still think about all the fun I had riding my bike everywhere. I felt so free and happy riding my bike with my friends. Those were truly the good old days

We cared! Yes we did!

I only got a coast - to - coast bike.

I had a Huffy, I was able to do wheelies all the way down, the street, I told my friends it was easier on a Huffy. Then they all wanted a Huffy.

That's right, be thankful for what you get. Any bike is better than no bike. Never in my childhood did we ever get brand new bikes but I did get a used plain model Schwinn one time, which got stolen.

@@charlesbaldo The CTC bike was so heavy that it was tough to just lift up the front to get up a curb. It was a beast. I tried riding out in the country with heavy single speed bike against a decent wind was not the fun we thought it would be.

Those were the days when we were playing all day and into the night. Bike riding around the bloc and doing stunts. Riding in packs like a herd of animals to a local store to get baseball cards, Yoo-hoo, soda and candy. Carrying our baseball bats and putting our gloves through the handle bars. We lost that in America and we are worse off for it. Today the kids are risk averse and can nit be pulled away from video games and their phones.

We think Spoilers on cars are so uncool my husband & I still call them Sissy Bars 😂

Second grade and I ran slow enough so that she could catch me 😏😏

Me too blue Le tour 10 speed

😂🤣😂🤣😂

My nickname was endo, that's how I knew I was doing something wrong right. Scabs were my constant companions. The head dents were icing on the cake.

Richard, Darrel, we were crazy back then! How did we survive?

@@rcdogmanduh4440 with a lot of scars. Road rash and concussions were part of growing up. It was fun. And as a child even going to the hospital was an adventure. Usually a painful one.

Could've possibly made eating corn on the cob difficult. Those were still better days, though.

I too am 65 and was born and raised in So Cal, just 5 miles from the beach. Growing up, I thought it was the greatest place to be. We spent our summer days often at the beach, swimming in the ocean. We had our skates and skate boards. I remember all of us neighborhood kids playing Hide and Seek. But I remember my Stingray bike being special to me. It equaled "freedom" in my mind.

@@SandraHof Yes, all us kids loved our Stingrays, riding them did give us such a free feeling. How I loved playing hide and seek on those summer nights at dusk. When it got too dark to play, we’d then hang out under the one and only streetlight on our block until our parents whistled for us to come home. Sweet memories.

I remember the Roller Derby steel wheel skateboards. They were deadly. I thought I was all that when I could make a 90' turn without eating sidewalk

@@roryschweinfurter4111 Yes, me too! And we skateboarded barefoot!

@@SeaTurtle515 Just the thought of the turf toe you risked makes me cringe even today. And the vibration from those steel wheels when you picked up a rock and went straight into a header. The urethane wheels of today would be like riding a Cadillac

Same with Columbia

Gone....Like most USA made products.

Craftsman Tools.

@@itsjohndell Craftsman tools are trash now foreign made junk.

Another icon gone to cheap cutrate labor and materials!

a half-inflated toy balloon tied to the fender rail made a very satisfying rumble.....until it popped after a few minutes of riding.

I only used rookie cards in the 1960s because they were guys no one knew about

Aw hell yeah!!

🤚

Had the Matel "Veroomm" on mine. Used a key to start it and it sounded like a motorcycle.

Sound like USA today.

Lots of bike thieves back then. Mine was also stolen, my parents wouldn't buy me another one so I bought a used scate board for $2 and that was my new transportation.

VRoom by Mattel !

Nice to know some of us still remember the Mattel "Vroom!"

You mean 3 speed?

@@baddog9320 Krates had 5-spds.

@@baddog9320 I looked into it, bc my memory was my brother's bike was 3 speed hub shifter/coaster brake while my Collegiate was "better" because it was a 5 speed with hand brakes, etc. And yes, found an Ebay page selling such a used bike. The documentary skips over that part of Stingray history.

@@Qossuth I am replying to you but this is a in general answer to all I found more info. In the 70s there was a 3 speed with a slick on the back. And didn't have a springer frontend. Basicly it described my brother's bike 100%. I do not remember the name. But it is in the comments here someplace. And he got it about 1975 when I received my 16 inch stingray. Which I can not find information on. Closes is a Stingray pixie. But mine was a boys bike and the top rail didn't come off. And yes it was a Schwinn and it had the Schwinn plate on the front. Now, I think it was much older. May have been new, but something tells me it wasn't. Honestly my memory is a little foggy and I maybe thinking of later. But I think my father painted before I got it. I know he did this years later when my little bither got it. Important!!!! The 3 speed It is NOT the Crate. Back to the baby stingray. I remember riding it back and forth to kindergarten . Which was about 2 miles each way. To school was with my brother. Home was by myself. Lol. I remember once getting my hide tanned because I didn't ride strait home one day. Like several hours late. I also remember I wasn't allowed to ride to school until the training wheels were off. A few years later we, my older brother and I got 10 speeds. We rode 10 miles to school. The old type of 10 speed like the bikes in tour de France with what I call ramhorn handlebars. I know at the time Schwinn was the only company that made small 10 speeds. I thought it was 20 inch. But looks like it was 24 inch. My father was a person that though Schwinn was the best bike. Later this caused problems because I wanted a bmx. After I built a bmx from parts I found. Thier was a compromise. ( Schwinn had just started making bmx) I was allowed to buy a schwinn bmx. But I has to get rid of the bmx I had. And it had ti have a coaster brake. My Sting cost my $500. Which was quite expensive back then. Heck a couple years later I paid less then that ($350) for my first truck. I had though that my Sting had been left at one if the many move my parents had done. But about 20 years ago, I found it in pieces. I have all but the handle bars To this day. I don't know why other then being a dck why I couldn't have a wedge brake. After all the 10 speed had them. Maybe he thought with a coaster I couldn't do bmx. Which isn't true. I made team Schwinn for my local shop. But moved before my first race. ( BTW it wasn't that hard. The other Sting owner in town got me on. To qualify I had to have a Sting or Predator and to of qualified on the local track)

@@baddog9320 Nice detailed story-thx.

Apparently we weren't rich either, monkey wards piece of junk 5 speed, thing would rust just looking at it.

I got a Montgonery wards knockoff as well in 1966 rode it until 1973 when I got a yellow Schwinn Varsity for xmas, beautiful bike could not kill it even though I tried. Schwinn's were tough bikes and heavy, you could not break the frame even if you tried.

Right? We were never inside.

You know the price of some of those bikes today will buy you a pretty nice used car yes?

I never got one either, or a Big Wheel, still pissed about that...... and I'm 65!

Never got one either..you can imagine my disappointment when I saw a Western Auto bike under our Christmas tree

@@karynroeseler2652 lol. I never got a Western Auto Bike either. But our (Mine and yours) parents were good people and did what they could. I have no regrets whatsover. My mom is gone. My dad is 89.

I had a knock-off version of a Sting Ray. Couldn't afford a real one.

@@billymitchell1513 you should be..!!

He probably wasn't wrong. My dad was an Ironworker in NYC & let's just say we didn't have to wait for birthdays or Christmas for bikes or fireworks. BB guns. Lot of guys selling stuff at job sites.

@@samanthab1923 Yeah, he was just a kid.

I did. Plying cards or baseball cards that are probably worth a lot of money now but who cares? It was worth it.

Did the balloon in the spokes for a good rumble - until the deafening silence following the pop! 😐

Do dog snouts and trotters count?

Yeah, sad seeing kids collecting cards like stamps now. Greedy adults ruining a kids game

No.

Me too. I delivered newspapers on my schwinn stingray. Had the canvas bag draped between the handlebars loaded with 50 rubber banded papers. Would ride down the street tossing papers on front porches. I was good at it. Sunday papers were brutal. I earned about $10 a week. That was fifty years ago. We loved those bikes.

@@steved3001 Wow, that conjured a perfect Norman Rockwell painting! Thx

Same here. Those bikes were huge here in the UK back then and my parents doled out 150 quid for it. A lot of money back then but it had all the extras. the speedo, lights everything. I still have it do this day and I'm 66 years old now.

I had an "Apple Crate"...loved that bike, it was gorgeous!!!

Thats what i said the very first video !!!

@@halbud Ha ha ha Great minds think alike!

I agree. I can't believe the detail in these videos. I have no idea where he finds all these pictures. I enjoy every one of them.

Exactly! Mine in Christmas 1968 was $64. Not sure how I still remember that...

Did it have a sparkly green banana seat?

@@memorykeepersarchive3953 Yes it did. 😁

What is the value of one today? I would say what's the average, but I'm sure there is no such thing.

Good for you, my ex has quite a few and I have 2 that need restoration

I had late 60's, early 70's baseball cards in my spokes. I don't even want to think what that cost me, but it sounded cool!

Received a J.C. Higgins 24" bike when I was 5 years old for Christmas and rode the hell out of it using it for my paper route 6 years later. Went through countless tires and tubes but that bike was tough.