Schwinn Stingray "50" today.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324809804578511363194241052.html

I wanted a Krate but I got a Murray F1 Eliminator in 1969. I then saved and bought a Schwinn 10 speed racing bike in 1974 and another in 1982.

Bicycles started the car craziness for me......those Krate/Stingray bikes were sweet. Still are.

My older brother had a blue metallic 5 speed Stingray. I ended up with a purple metallic 3 speed something. To this day, I don't know what kind of bike that I rode for four years. But I'll never forget that my brother had a 5 speed Stingray.

Awesome. My older cousin gave me his '70-71 Fastback when I was a kid. It survived his childhood, but not my early attempts at "I can fix it and make it better."

About 10 years ago I started collecting them. Have a '67 Fastback frame with mix & matched parts for a pit bike, a black '68 Fastback 5-speed, and a '69 Campus Green Fastback 3-speed.

Pit bike is in the garage. Might have to dust it off and go for a ride.

In reply to Woody:

Did your bike look similar to a Stingray? Possibly a Ross Barracuda?

I've got a 45 year old Stngray tandem...

AND I'm the original owner...

AND I've had it on both the autocross AND dragstrip tracks at the $20XX Challenge!

I had the very rare 10-speed Sting Ray in Lime Green.

I hurt myself a LOT on that bike.

Rob_Mopar wrote: In reply to Woody: Did your bike look similar to a Stingray? Possibly a Ross Barracuda?

I know that it wasn't a Ross Barracuda because my first bike was a Ross Barracuda 16 which, coincidentally, I still have. My daughter and I just started some minor restoration work on it (her first project!) so that she can use it to learn to ride without training wheels.

I have been wondering about the purple bike for a while and this thread motivated me to spend an hour or so with the Googles looking at old bikes. Wiki was no help but I started looking at three speed stick shifters and it had a Sturmey Archer 70D like the one on the left:

That led me to believe that it may have been a Raleigh or other British bike, but I can't find a Raleigh that looks similar. I know it wasn't a Raleigh Chopper. My bike was pretty much a copy of the Schwinn or Ross.

Check out the New England Muscle Bike Museum site:

http://www.nemusclebikes.com/

I had a '67 Stingray. I got it in '68. My parent negotiated a better price at the Schwinn dealer because it was last year's model. Grandma paid for a good part of it because my parent couldn't afford it. That was a good bike. My neighbors went through 2 or 3 Huffy's while my Schwinn only needed an occasional tire.

In reply to Woody:

Very cool Woody. Very cool.

We have a few 20" Ross Barracudas in the collection. A pair of purple ones. Both a boys & girls.

When we did the body and paint work on my wife's '67 Barracuda convertible we had two bikes painted to match. If I ever get time to put the rest of that car together the bikes will make a cool display with it.

I used to have an original Raleigh Chopper, but not the cool stick shifter. It was almost impossible to keep the front wheel on the ground.

I quickly posted that link about the bike museum after I found it, but then I went back and spent a couple of hours looking through the photos there. I was shocked at the number of bikes they have. They have a fairly narrow scope, but if you need to identify one of these things, it's a good place to start.

When I got home from work this morning and opened my garage door, one of the first things that I saw was my Ross Barracuda. It made me smile.

Woody wrote: My older brother had a blue metallic 5 speed Stingray. I ended up with a purple metallic 3 speed something. To this day, I don't know what kind of bike that I rode for four years. But I'll never forget that my brother had a 5 speed Stingray.

Thirty six days after the original post (and having bought a three Speed Schwinn in the mean time), I finally figured out that my purple bike was a Raleigh Fireball DTR.

Restoration of the Schwinn has begun. The search is on for a Raleigh. I have thought of nothing but old bicycles for the past month.

Did you decode the serial number to see what year your Fastback is?

I had my '67 framed 3-speed Fastback pit bike at the track a couple weekends ago. It was a hit. Decided to keep it at the shop for now. It's been a hit with several customers. I've been enjoying riding it around the parking lot before closing up at night.

Stingray - Where BMX began

Good watch:

Rob_Mopar wrote: Did you decode the serial number to see what year your Fastback is?

It's a 1973, still Ohio built. I'd like to get an older one, but this was too local and too cheap to pass up.