Our "Bikes"

I

imp

Senior Member
That's what Chicago-born folks and their kids called them. I had three growing up. The first was a 3-wheeler, driven by a chain, like the "big-kids" bikes! Got it around Kindergarten age, not too long after, I took it apart! My Dad had plenty of tools in the basement, and I had watched, fascinated, as he worked on things. He was a skilled Tool & Die Maker. Cannot recall if the 3-wheeler ever got put back together!

My cousin, 2 years older than I, he being the son of my Dad's favored kid-brother, had a Schwinn "2-wheeler", a 24-inch, which would be replaced by something better. I got Jimmie's 2-wheeler, at about 8. Always short, the "boy's bike" cross-frame piece squeezed upwards between my legs as I straddled it, the seat set to it's lowest position. I can remember the Old Man holding the back of the seat in our driveway, as he "balanced" me from tipping over. Just a few days of trying, he knew, I did not know, and he let free of his grasp, and there I was, wobbling forward in the driveway, but not tipping over! Very-early Youth Heaven!

The third, and final bike, was a Schwinn 3-speed, at about age 10. It was a 26-inch! Still straddling that danged cross bar! I asked for, and got, a "speedometer"! It registered miles travelled, more important to me than speed, and by the time that bike was retired from service, the 3-digit odometer had "turned over"! 999 miles plus, and still going!

Have you early "bike" memories too? Share them with us! Those days, gone forever, are the "fruit" which keep this old-timer "revving"! imp
 

I too started off with a trike. All I remember of it was that it was red, had those streamers hanging down from the handles and at first I tipped over more times than Arte Johnson.

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My next bike was the bike of my dreams. I had begun leaving hints for Christmas in February and kept up on-stop. I left pictures of it laying around the house and went into conniptions when we drove by the bicycle shop. It was all I ever wanted beside my two front teeth.

It was a lime-green Schwinn 5-speed (on the console) Sting Ray, complete with a sparkly silver banana seat and a big ol' sissy bar!

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(This is the closest pic I could find - just imagine a humongous sissy bar on the back!)

Yeah, I was stylin'! Poppin' wheelies around the hood, taking the girl's breath away, being the envy of all the boys.

... including the boy who saw me go into the candy store without locking up the bike ...

My introduction to the world of crime and law and order occurred that day. I came out of the candy store (Massimo's), my chubby little hands filled with Mary Janes and Nickel-Nips, and - WOOP - it hit me - no bike.

I cried all the way home.

Mom called the cops, and within an hour they found the kid riding around not half a mile from the scene of the crime. I got my bike back, with a few scratches and a bent sissy bar (he must have been practicing for the first Fast and Furious) and I learned an important lesson about trust.

Eventually my love affair for the Sting Ray soured. It wasn't built for distance, which was my new scheme - I wanted to travel all over the city. So my older brother Mickey gave me his 3-speed English Racer, affectionately known in the family as the Black Widow.

It's hard to describe her, but the closest I can come is that it was the exact same bike ridden by Ms. Gulch in The Wizard of Oz.

I don't know what brand this thing was, but whoever made it despised 11-year-old kids. If the Sting Ray was named after a Corvette, this thing was modeled after the 1960 Dodge Dart.

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It was big, it was black and weighed so much that it had its own gravitational field. Rusty fenders front and back, a seat that had 3 rusty springs underneath and tires that I swear were 43".

It took me all of three weeks just to learn how to MOUNT this bloody thing!

The Black Widow ... yeah, I soon discovered why she got that name. (I refer to the bike as a "she", because even at that tender age I discovered that only a female could bust my b*alls so effectively.)

Eventually, after much pain and a certain change in tone of my voice the Widow and I became mobile. The three speeds were all basically the same - high gear. This probably explains how I began developing freakishly large thigh muscles. We were good on level ground, great going downhill, but UP hill?

Un-uhn. Had to fall off the side and push her up the hill. And this in a city (Yonkers, NY) that had steeper hills than San Francisco.

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This is a dip in the road in Yonkers.

The Widow and I parted company after a year or so, when I had saved up enough to buy a Schwinn 10-speed. NOW we're cookin'!

It was blue with those curly handlebars, no fenders, totally stripped and made for speed!

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Oh, the adventures we had together, but that's a story for another time ...
 
Imp must have been raised in a rich part of Chi-town to have a driveway!!! I was born in Bucktown (Fullerton and Western Ave.) and had to use the alleys to ride!!

Did you and your friends ever put two bikes together to make a bike for two??
 

Ken N Tx said:
Imp must have been raised in a rich part of Chi-town to have a driveway!!! I was born in Bucktown (Fullerton and Western Ave.) and had to use the alleys to ride!!

Did you and your friends ever put two bikes together to make a bike for two??
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Nah....Ken, I was born in Berwyn. The only house on the entire square block with a side-drive, that's why my Dad wanted it. Brick bungalow on 35-foot wide lot. All the others were 30'. He paid if I remember correctly, just a bit over $ 4,000 for the place! Right around the start of WW-II. I was born '42.

Fullerton & Western! Then you gotta remember Riverview Park! I attended DeVry Technical Institute on Belmont, just west of Western. imp
 
I had a two-wheeler with balloon tires (with inner tubes).

One day I was speeding along on it when the front tire had an aneurism; a thinning of the rubber wall, and busted out of the tire bead;
the size of a football, and stopped the wheel in a split second on the next revolution.

The bike STOPPED and I flew over the handlebars, landing on the sidewalk with skinned knees, elbows and my pride.
 
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Awww that wuz cute. I remember da bomb was having a banana seat. Evil Kneivel was making news at the time. The braver kids would make ramps and jump their bikes, me? Eh I was a big chicken...not much better behind the wheel now.
 
If I could only make out the year of that background car.....

What a cute kid! imp
 
Ha! That picture was probably about 1952, give or take a year. Should not have posted it.:eek: By 3rd grade I looked like this :zombie:.
 
I need to look for the photo of the bike I had in 1958 (I was born in 1949), my 2 younger brothers and I shared it. It was all rusty and something on the front was held together with wire. I can recall the end of the wire hitting one of my knees and causing a lot of pain and making it bleed. We lived out in the country on the Oregon coast. Oh how I loved our bike and the FREEDOM it offered us! :)
 
NancyNGA said:
Ha! That picture was probably about 1952, give or take a year. Should not have posted it.:eek: By 3rd grade I looked like this :zombie:.
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Despite anything you might say, Nan, I don't believe you! Sorry, you're much too nice to look like that!

1952, eh? Let's see now,... about 4 on the trike, then,.... glory, born in 1948? Wondrous year!

Forgive my brashness? imp
 
imp said:
Nah....Ken, I was born in Berwyn. The only house on the entire square block with a side-drive, that's why my Dad wanted it. Brick bungalow on 35-foot wide lot. All the others were 30'. He paid if I remember correctly, just a bit over $ 4,000 for the place! Right around the start of WW-II. I was born '42.

Fullerton & Western! Then you gotta remember Riverview Park! I attended DeVry Technical Institute on Belmont, just west of Western. imp
Click to expand...

Vividly remember RiverView...I went to Lane Tech right next door to it!!
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SifuPhil said:
You mean Ken's video - it showed the roller coaster, and the cars were enclosed.
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Phil, I am an ass! Failed to note it was a vid. Sorry. Think the enclosed roller coaster was the "Silver Flash", designed to look like the Burlington Zephyr locomotive of the day. Blue Streak may also have been enclosed. The wildest one of the 8 coasters there was world reknowned: The Bobs!

The "Pair-O-Chutes" was a harrowing ride experience, I never went on it; my sister did. 'Course, she chased ambulances, too! Thanks, Ken, for that vid! Old memories! imp
 
No problem, Imp - I've done that many times. Conversely, I've spent hours repeatedly clicking on a still photo, thinking it was a video! :rolleyes:

And thanks - I see the connection with the Zephyr now. :D

Here's an interesting history of Coney Island's Parachute ride - it was first built as a training device for military paratroopers! I went on this ride as a kid with my Dad and boy was I terrified! They closed it down in 1968 but I understand new management is planning to re-open it with some improvements.
 
Thanks for that link! Riverview's ride had 4 chutes, big springs at the bottom of the guides to absorb the sudden stop. Still, my sister claimed it made her back hurt. I can recall on the news, several times during my 30 years in Chicago, a chair getting "stuck" at the top, failed to release. Chicago Fire Department was deployed to rescue the revelers. imp
 
A bicycle built for THREE?:confused::playful::rolleyes:
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Dang it! I wish one could learn more about this member who has access to such wonderful information! Built for 3! Indeed! imp
 
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