1968 Ross Convertible

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Buddy of mine has a pool cleaning business. He saw this in a customer's yard and picked it up for me for the cost of a case of Old Milwaukee.

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Well, what do we have here? A Bluetooth front axle!

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The headset has me perplexed. It's like a prehistoric kiddie version of a threadless headset, but with plastic bushings instead of ball bearings.

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I mean I get that convertibles were essentially sidewalk bikes intended for really little kids, but I've only ever seen bushing setups like this on little Roadmaster 16 inch bikes with solid rubber wheels. I figure it'll be easy enough to switch over to ball bearings; I have a couple of extra forks in the hobby dungeon.
 
ROCK-ROCK, ROCKAWAY BEACH! Awesome Ross head badge.
Definitely a cool kids bike.
And this kid? No doubt loved his Whacky Packages.
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View attachment 281328 Couldn't figure this one out.

I'm originally from Long Island, and I'm now in Pennsylvania, so that's part of why Ross bikes are special to me.

And I gotta say I'm impressed with your ability to identify those stickers :cool:

edit: I thought I saw what looked like Certs breath mints in that last one so I Googled "wacky packages certs" and this came up.
nertzcerts.jpg
 
I used to buy them and try to collect the puzzle pieces. I remember making the Gadzooka Gum puzzle.
Good fun back then. No such thing as instant gratification when I could only afford a couple packs a
week or so. One of my first bikes was a Ross. Got it at the Patchogue Bicycle Shop. Stingray lookalike,
light blue with a blue flame seat. Got stolen the first day I rode it to elementary school. Shame that. :confused:

And there it is! Nertz! Garlic Flavored! 🤢
 
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I used to buy them and try to collect the puzzle pieces. I remember making the Gadzooka Gum puzzle.
Good fun back then. No such thing as instant gratification when I could only afford a couple packs a
week or so. One of my first bikes was a Ross. Got it at the Patchogue Bicycle Shop. Stingray lookalike,
light blue with a blue flame seat. Got stolen the first day I rode it to elementary school. Shame that. :confused:

And there it is! Nertz! Garlic Flavored! 🤢
Patchogue! I grew up in Huntington Station, went to school in Stony Brook, still have family in Holbrook and Islip, and my parents recently moved to Ridge. Sometimes I get nostalgic for the Island... anytime we go home to visit I still listen to WBAB :cool:
 
They didn't move to Ridge. They moved to Leisure Village. lol
And who doesn't have 102.3 on their pre-sets? I also have 90.1
WUSB Radio Stonybrook pre-set for Thursday morning Blues.
I'm still in Medford. After all these years.
 
I want to figure out those Robot Reflectors. I'm thinking they were from a box
of cereal or something like that. I remember a Sugar Bear reflector like it. Grips
the spokes like that. It's going to be a deep, dark rabbit hole though. You may
not hear from me for a few days... or more. Wish me luck. I'm going in!
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It's pwetty daark down hea...
Oooh! Sugar Bear! Cool.
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There's more... up ahead.... I see a light... oh. Nope. Wrong Sugar Bear.
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Gotta be a light switch around here... somewhere... WHOA!!! What was that?
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Looks like a dead end. You guys keep looking around here. I'm going this way.
... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ouch ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... I think I smell cereal ... ... ... ... ...
I do... ... ... ... what kind of cereal is it though? ... ... ... ... Man, I haven't smelt that
in years... ... ... ... ... Kellog's something... Ah ha! Paydirt!
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Now. How the heck do I get out of here?
 
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THAT'S AWESOME! I never would have ventured down that rabbit hole. But now you got me wondering... Monster robots? 1985? Was this like an attempt to capitalize on the popularity of Transformers?

ok, after spending three minutes in Wikipedia:
Transformers: Generation 1 (also known as Generation One or G1) is a toy line from 1984 to 1990, produced by Hasbro and Takara Tomy.

so I'm thinking... yes
 

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