Not as awesome as those pics, but we had "The Little Grand Canyon" 8) ,
Beat the crap out of my stripped down "English Racer" there in the 60's! :lol:
Beat the crap out of my stripped down "English Racer" there in the 60's! :lol:
1940s BMX?
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Excellent pics!! this is proof positive why there are 100 girls bikes surviving to every 1 boys bike :lol:
if only bikes could talk :wink:
thanks for sharing!
if only bikes could talk :wink:
thanks for sharing!
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This deserves a resurgence...
Thanks Dizzle! Completely epic...and I hadn't seen them before 
Jason
Jason
.
I don't know. Rebels for sure, but I tend to think they are future greasers, bikers and hot rodders. No flower power here. LOL
There was a woods at the bottom of our neighborhood where some kids built a BMX type course. Would have been mid 70s. A buddy and me built a bike with an old dragster/muscle bike frame. Had a banana seat and short sissy bar and 10 speed handle bars turned upside down. He was the "driver" and was the pit crew. lol
I put a big 40 something tooth front sprocket on it when all the other bikes had 36's. That tall gearing made it next to impossible to spin out in the mud so he could get out ahead of the pack and stay there. He usually won.
I put a big 40 something tooth front sprocket on it when all the other bikes had 36's. That tall gearing made it next to impossible to spin out in the mud so he could get out ahead of the pack and stay there. He usually won.
Oldbikeguy1960
My name is Rob, and I approve this rant.
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I would love to see one of these New School guys get on one of these bikes and get that much air!
I would also liked to have seen what one of these Old Schoolers could've done with the superlight 6061/T6, Chrome Moly or the new Titanium or Carbon Fiber frames. My money says those Old Boys would've schooled the New School Boys after a little practice time.
But then, I was one of those boys in the 1970s making insane jumps on Stick Shift Stingrays so maybe I am biased.
Oldbikeguy1960
My name is Rob, and I approve this rant.
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I, on the other hand am proud to see these boys out there getting scuffed up and becoming real men, not the mollycoddled, nannied to death doted doper diaper babies that some of that and later generations became.
I am 62 years old and will still proudly show any scars I have left from those glory days! Because of those experiences as a kid I can now shrug off most injuries that would send some of these younger kids into shock or worse. I also have the scars to prove that.
As for helmets, I have seen firsthand (as has my son who was a EMT for several years) horrible accidents where guys have ended up paralyzed because the helmet snapped their neck.
One especially bad accident I came up on where a motorcyclist hit a curb and when he stopped he still had his helmet on his head. Unfortunately the helmet and enclosed head had rolled about half a block down the hill.
Imagine being the guy that had to clean that up, the family member who had to identify the body or the funeral home employee who had to make that into a presentable open casket funeral.
I would prefer to die rather than live paralized from the neck down, with people feeding me and hauling me to the bathroom. I definitely would prefer death without dismemberment.
Call me crazy
Rob
I’de have loved to have seen the one bike off to the left with the gas engine and gas tank on it. Looks better than a Wizzer
It happens and those kidsz with all of their fancy gears, suspension, and thermoplastic armor still don't believe it.
MattiThundrrr
Rattus All Terrainus
Even when educated, they refuse to learn. Instead, the teacher becomes an anecdote. "You will never believe the guy who scorched me on the trail yesterday. Flannel, jeans, hiking boots, on an old battered 26er. By the time I caught up with him at the end of the trail, his joint was almost finished"
Great pics! As a kid we would get air on anything we were riding when the opportunity arrived.
Old balloon tire bikes were cheap back then and plentiful, $10 would buy you a good rider at any local flea market or yard sale. We learned to avoid pot metal hubs, alloy stems, plastic seats, and anything mounted on the top tube.
I remember a bunch of kids building a ramp in the street out of stolen cinder blocks and a ramp made from a panel removed from a billboard on the highway. They would keep increasing the angle until the thing got unsteady and see how high and how far they could fly. As the balloon tire bikes got scarce they started using anything they could get for cheap, that included cheap old 10 speeds. Most than once I got air on my Schwinn Varsity. More than once I got air on my old newsboy special, baskets and all. (Very likely why the dropouts and bb shell has been rebrazed several times).
At the end of the street I grew up on was a dead end that met up with a patch of woods, about 40ft beyond the end of the road was a huge pit, likely dug back when that neighborhood was built many years prior, It was completely grown in with trees except for a network of riding trails cut by generations of guys on bikes.
Right at the end of the road was the entrance into that mass of dirt trails, but someone had dumped about 10 yards of orange clay. Likely there to keep people out. What that did was form a massive ramp, the street was roughly 1/2 mile long and the lead up to that dirt mound was about a 5% down hill run. That meant that a strong rider could easily hit 20-25 mph before hitting the pile of dirt.
On the down side of that dirt mound was a drop off about 30ft down that lead to a trail going to the right. Directly ahead was a mass of tree tops about even with the top of the dirt pile
Too fast, and you fly into the tree tops and get one terrible ride down, too slow and you simply rode down the hill with a death grip on the handlebars. Hit it just right and you cleared it all landing just before the turn in the trail which was mostly sugar sand. Miss the sugar sand and you were off looking for a new wheel, frame, forks or what ever didn't take well to the hard landing soon after. The funniest fails there were when someone was following who didn't know the terrain and they found themselves in mid air not knowing what was coming up next. Everyone one of us got hurt at one time or another there, but you licked your wounds and tried it again. People heal, bike parts were cheap then.
After some years some pansy got hurt bad there one summer they first put in a row of short pilings which were sections of old phone poles that they buried with only about 30 inches or so sticking up at the end of the pavement. That made it even more perfect as guys found some more plywood and nailed it atop the poles to make an even better ramp off the end of the street. When some rich kid tried it with his moped and broke the thing in two, they put up a dozen 'no trespassing' signs and two galvanized steel beams with four lengths of guard rail across them with the top one about six foot off the ground.
It stood there for a fairly long while, but eventually someone dragged out an oxy/acetylene rig and cut it down, but by then I was grown and had long since moved away. The final death nail to that hill was when they bulldozed in the pit from the other side to build another cul de sac that stemmed off a main road on the other side of the trees, and that area become someone's back yard from the next block. Nowadays there's no place to ride, everything is busy highways, private property or fenced in. That area is now devoid of trees, with nothing but cookie cutter type homes which now as they are reaching 40 and 50 years old are looking pretty sad. Gone are the trails, adjacent farms, the acres of farm roads to ride on, and dozens of other patches of woods riddled with dirt trails.
Old balloon tire bikes were cheap back then and plentiful, $10 would buy you a good rider at any local flea market or yard sale. We learned to avoid pot metal hubs, alloy stems, plastic seats, and anything mounted on the top tube.
I remember a bunch of kids building a ramp in the street out of stolen cinder blocks and a ramp made from a panel removed from a billboard on the highway. They would keep increasing the angle until the thing got unsteady and see how high and how far they could fly. As the balloon tire bikes got scarce they started using anything they could get for cheap, that included cheap old 10 speeds. Most than once I got air on my Schwinn Varsity. More than once I got air on my old newsboy special, baskets and all. (Very likely why the dropouts and bb shell has been rebrazed several times).
At the end of the street I grew up on was a dead end that met up with a patch of woods, about 40ft beyond the end of the road was a huge pit, likely dug back when that neighborhood was built many years prior, It was completely grown in with trees except for a network of riding trails cut by generations of guys on bikes.
Right at the end of the road was the entrance into that mass of dirt trails, but someone had dumped about 10 yards of orange clay. Likely there to keep people out. What that did was form a massive ramp, the street was roughly 1/2 mile long and the lead up to that dirt mound was about a 5% down hill run. That meant that a strong rider could easily hit 20-25 mph before hitting the pile of dirt.
On the down side of that dirt mound was a drop off about 30ft down that lead to a trail going to the right. Directly ahead was a mass of tree tops about even with the top of the dirt pile
Too fast, and you fly into the tree tops and get one terrible ride down, too slow and you simply rode down the hill with a death grip on the handlebars. Hit it just right and you cleared it all landing just before the turn in the trail which was mostly sugar sand. Miss the sugar sand and you were off looking for a new wheel, frame, forks or what ever didn't take well to the hard landing soon after. The funniest fails there were when someone was following who didn't know the terrain and they found themselves in mid air not knowing what was coming up next. Everyone one of us got hurt at one time or another there, but you licked your wounds and tried it again. People heal, bike parts were cheap then.
After some years some pansy got hurt bad there one summer they first put in a row of short pilings which were sections of old phone poles that they buried with only about 30 inches or so sticking up at the end of the pavement. That made it even more perfect as guys found some more plywood and nailed it atop the poles to make an even better ramp off the end of the street. When some rich kid tried it with his moped and broke the thing in two, they put up a dozen 'no trespassing' signs and two galvanized steel beams with four lengths of guard rail across them with the top one about six foot off the ground.
It stood there for a fairly long while, but eventually someone dragged out an oxy/acetylene rig and cut it down, but by then I was grown and had long since moved away. The final death nail to that hill was when they bulldozed in the pit from the other side to build another cul de sac that stemmed off a main road on the other side of the trees, and that area become someone's back yard from the next block. Nowadays there's no place to ride, everything is busy highways, private property or fenced in. That area is now devoid of trees, with nothing but cookie cutter type homes which now as they are reaching 40 and 50 years old are looking pretty sad. Gone are the trails, adjacent farms, the acres of farm roads to ride on, and dozens of other patches of woods riddled with dirt trails.
Actually Matti I was wearing a Hawaiian shirt, Chuck Taylors, jorts, and no joint (just beer). But you got the old 26er right
Oldbikeguy1960
My name is Rob, and I approve this rant.
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Looks like an Ashtabula forged Cycle Truck stem. It is probably still in service somewhere unless someone sent the bike to the scrapyard after the kid quit riding it. You could get long stems like that on Schwinns for sure as well as some English bikes. There were a few selling on The CABE not too long back, and not even unreasonable considering their age.
I don't think you will bend one very easily. Most were forged Ashtabula style stems and the ones that weren't were made way more durable than a standard stamped Wald stem.
Did anyone else notice the Schwinn Fore- Brake on the front wheel? it isn't hooked up but it is there.
Yes, long stems came on some excersize bikes as well, but not many of those in the 1940s. Unless of course you count the action in these photos as excersize.
The Schwinn Runabout had a longer stem as well I believe but that will be much harder to buy reasonably.
If any come up for sale I will post them here on case you are still serious about wanting one.
Rob
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Oldbikeguy1960
My name is Rob, and I approve this rant.
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Actually, I believe it is a Whizzer, check the tank logo. It was just customized by a kid, thats why it looks better than a normal Whizzer.
Also, you could buy the Whizzer as a kit and put it on whatever frame it would fit on.
