[Rebelbase]

Every kid in my ‘hood had a Schwinn banana seat bike. I told my parents I wanted one for Christmas and ended up getting a Sears knockoff called a Gremlin.

With peer pressure and all that I felt like I was driving a Yugo among Mustangs. Yeah, bad analogy but hindsight allows that.

[Maine Mariner]

For me it was a J.C. Higgins bike-either Sears or Montgomery Ward.

[cherry]

I can still remember the pain of going to hometown triple A baseball games and NOT winning the pony and NOT winning the Schwinn bicycle....

[SamAdams76]

Huffy bikes were the standard in my neighborhood. We'd spend hours doing "modifications" to them such as attaching playing cards to our spokes so they made a sound like an engine.

[Yardstick]

Oh yes, my best friend had a Schwinn. This was early ‘80s. My dad got me a bike whose name I can’t remember. He liked it because it had long pedal shafts...he said they would give more torque. In reality it just made it harder to sustain a long wheelie. And thus I suffered.

These are the kinds of lessons you learn when you have an actual childhood.

LOL

[The Antiyuppie]

I recently restored an early 70’s Japanese 10-speed for myself. Riding is still fun and my skills if not my stamina came back after a month or so.

Schwinns were almost indestructible because of how their tubes were made and how they were welded, but that also made them very heavy. The object of bicycle lust in my era was a Schwinn Krate, a flashy stingray with 5(?) gears and an automobile-like shifter. A good one today goes into four figures.

[rockrr]

We moved a lot when I was young so my bike was my constant companion and salvation. Being the “new kid” meant coming up short in the peer pressure department - on just about everything. So the miles I rode were mostly solo.

[Kickass Conservative]

My Dad spent over $60 buying me a Stingray when I was eight years old.
I spent over $60,000 buying myself a Stingray when I was sixty years old.

[V K Lee]

The real cool kids even attached a playing card to the spokes. The bike I rode didn’t even have a light or horn. The power came from just two legs and the only noise made was from the rider, panting from the hot sun.

[21twelve]

For my birthday my folks bought the neighbor’s used, beat up bike. No speeds, but it did have the high handle bars. I did odd jobs and saved up money for half of a Schwinn - my folks paid the other half.

While we had lots of adventures, we also got into our fair about of trouble. Thankfully rarely got caught!