Still have your first bike?

[Lil' rat rod]

Who still has their first bike(s)? Let's see um!

First is a 16" BMX style my dad pulled out of the dumpster at his work. I wanted it painted gold so that's what he did for me. Been with me ever since. I don't even remember riding this one, but remember trying to as I got older.

No idea as to its manufacture.


Then my second bike, my brother was into BMX so naturally that was the cool thing to get. I never got into it, but rode this thing countless miles. Wore the rear tire down doing skids. Only things not original are the rear tire and the grips. I still remember going into the shop and picking this one out. I sold it to a buddy about 8 years ago or so, he wanted a spare bike for his grandmas house, at the time I was wrapped up in stingrays so I couldn't have cared less. Fast forward to now and we are grown up, he's fresh out of college and moving away for a job. I asked him if he still had it. Brought it home tonight!

Sure not high end stuff, but I love it! The nostalgia feeling is high right now!

Bout a '98 GT Dyno Nitro.


Still have all the paperwork, minus the sales receipt. Sadly the shop is no longer in business....



So who is lucky enough to still have their first bicycles?

Jon

 

[deorman]

Not me. My dad threw some barn paint on it and gave it to the neighbor's kids. By the time yours were made I was driving.

 

[Lil' rat rod]

How bout bikes you've had for a long time and don't plan on getting rid of?

 

[Joe Monstermaker]

It's not my first bike but it's the one I built and rode in high school, very early 1980s. It's a '79 Mongoose, which was THE bike to have at the time. It was a beat up used one I traded a CB radio for. I couldn't afford a new bike but I had wanted a Mongoose since they came out. I'd broken the frame two or three times on my Team Murray!
I took it all apart, gave the originally-red frame a pretty good rubbed out gloss black rattle can paint job and new parts as my paper route afforded them, until it was complete. The frame, fork and cranks are stock and pretty much everything else is 1981 aftermarket parts. Its not stock Mongoose but you could call it era-correct.
The way you see it here is exactly how I had it. I meant to restore it exactly how it was, but recently I've decided screw that, it's my original high school bike and I'm gonna keep it forever and retain most of the parts but I'm gonna build it how I WISHED it was. I had Tuffs but I always really wanted Motomags, and I recently bought a set on eBay that I'm doing a full smooth & polish on. I think I'm gonna go with metallic or candy blue paint this time. I want to put repop stock decals on it but I can't decide if the gold orange and red colors of the original stickers will clash too much with all the blue.
The only thing I always wanted back in the day I still haven't got is a set of blue anodized 3-piece cranks.
Finding a nice old set has proven impossible so far, but that's OK, the Ashtabula one piece on the bike was what my friends and I used back then, you could beat them to death and they never broke.
I could just leave them alone.
Those are the original 1981 blue gumwall snake belly tires in the background, still in good shape but I got new repops because they look better and I don't care if I wear them out.
I'm not happy with the new pads, they don't look right like the old California Lites did, but the old ones are all faded. Maybe I can dye them. It had blue Oakley grips, which have rotted out but I found nice blue repro Mongoose grips that will work.
It's got a Shot Gun seat, MX1000 brakes front and Dia-Compe Nippon rear (even though it had a coaster brake - I thought it looked wrong with only one brake & lever). The levers are Dia-Compe if I remember right, they had a bend in them and mounted on the "down tube" part of the handlebars. I've not seen any like that since, but my friends all had them back in the day. I wish I could still find them because one of them is very sun-faded.
The blue anodized aluminum handle bars came from the local shop, I don't remember what they are. Same for the seat post and clamp. The stem is a Tuff Neck I got used, originally gold anodized but I sanded it till it was silver then painted it with candy blue to simulate blue anodizing, same with the used, originally-gold quick-change sprocket.
The candy blue paint trick worked quite well back then, maybe that will save my faded out brake lever now.

 

[Joe Monstermaker]

Sorry, I got on a roll there...

 

[us56456712]

I rebuilt this 1957 Schwinn American for a friend last winter. Rebuilt the Bendix manual 2 speed, re spoked the rear wheel. The clamp on cantilevers are gone. It was his first bike and was passed around to various family members. A nephew on a farm in Wisconsin ended out hanging it in the barn after he was finished with it. He retrieved it at a Christmas get together last year and I worked on it for him. He is the only person I know who has his first bike.

 

[piercer99]

How bout bikes you've had for a long time and don't plan on getting rid of?

my 78' Huffy good vibrations, I bought it new right after high school, in Huntington Beach. Over the years it has changed a lot. Then it slept in the barn for about 9 years, until I pulled it out and brought it back to life this past summer.

 

[deorman]

Pretty similar story.