Your First Bike Ever

My first bike was some small unrideable piece of crap, I was already too big for it when my dad gave it to me. I learned to ride on a friend’s bike that was BMX pit bike sized. Just got on it and rode it.

My first bike that I actually rode was a green stingray, banana seat and big bars. Learned to fix flats and other stuff on that bike. My dad took it and switched it with a girl’s Schwinn because he was worried about me falling on the top tube and damaging my jewels. That caused endless arguments and I started earning my own money to buy my own bikes. Picked up several at police bike auctions that I cobbled together for a main bike to go jumping.

Then one of the “big kids” at the dirt jump hangout gave me a DG frame which was light years better than what I was riding.
 
I can’t remember the brand but it was orange, a present to reward my silence during one of the many encounters with nurse blood sucking (I wasn’t a healty child, not by far, and needed lots of injections and blood work as I was among other things anemic )…long story short I demanded no training wheels, OTBed at the sight of the first car entering the parking lot of the building where my mother still lives. Opened a gash on my head and scraped my hands making them bleed. My only words were “she didn’t suck all my blood then…”
 
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Ian F said:
First non-training wheels bike... honestly not sure... something from a dept store or Lionel-Kiddie City in an Atlanta suburb. Probably purchased at a discount because my mother worked there part time during the Christmas season. I remember I broke it when I was ~7 jumping it and my grandfather tried brazing it back together, but the alignment was off. That was replaced by something I don't really remember and was stolen from our apartment steps. Then a Murray that I had for a number of years and the move from GA to PA until I got a Schwinn Predator in 1982 from Guy's Bikes (the Murray then went back to Atlanta where it stayed at my grandparents' house so I'd have a bike during summer visits). The Predator I still have, although it's just a frame now.

I don't think I have any pictures of them. My parents weren't much into taking pictures while I was growing up and all we had was a little 110 compact camera.
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HBD!
 
cfrone1 said:
1969 Schwinn Sting Ray Deluxe in green....got it under the Christmas tree December, 1969....I have a pic of it somewhere, have to dig it up...
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Green Stingray for me too. When my younger brother got a new Scrambler, I rebuilt the Stingray into a BMX bike with bright red paint, saddle seat and black painted bars. Even bought the Scrambler style Schwinn decals and converted the coaster brake to freewheel. It was sweet. 😁
 
First bike was a Murray BMX that weighed more than me. I’m sure my dad found (stole) it from somewhere. I didn’t know anything about bikes and I knew it was a piece of crap.

Fortunately my cousin quit racing bmx when he got a drivers license and I inherited his GHP bmx bike.
 
GSTim said:
Green Stingray for me too. When my younger brother got a new Scrambler, I rebuilt the Stingray into a BMX bike with bright red paint, saddle seat and black painted bars. Even bought the Scrambler style Schwinn decals and converted the coaster brake to freewheel. It was sweet. 😁
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my brother still has his scrambler - well it is his second. The first did not have a gusset where the tubes met the head tube.
he had an unscheduled disassembly.
 
Ian F said:
Distance jump challenges... I have fond memories of doing those, although never in any official capacity. When I first moved to PA there were a few development sections of Bensalem that were incomplete and not under construction, but a lot of the land-clearing had been done. Specifically the "Dudley Court" area near Valley Elementary School. There would a few ad-hock jumps we used to hit. Always landing to flat, of course, because we didn't know any better... :shrug:
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I remember those distance contests. One time we built a sketchy jump out of broken concrete and a piece of wood. The jump was about 10” high. I rode to the top of the hill on my banana seat bike and went down as fast as I could. When I hit the jump my stem bolt came loose and my hanger bars rolled forward. My face smashed into the front tire, and I ended up under a car.

Good times! 😆
 
a.s. said:
I remember those distance contests. One time we built a sketchy jump out of broken concrete and a piece of wood. The jump was about 10” high. I rode to the top of the hill on my banana seat bike and went down as fast as I could. When I hit the jump my stem bolt came loose and my hanger bars rolled forward. My face smashed into the front tire, and I ended up under a car.

Good times! 😆
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The monster scar down my entire right shin was from setting up a sketchy ramp trying to jump over a guardrail. The whole thing collapsed and I smashed straight into and ripped the whole front of my leg off from the knee down. By the time my mom got me to the hospital most of the skin died and they grafted skin from my ass to fix it 😂

We were all so dumb.
 
Schwinn Stingray from the early 70's. I was so short the seat had to be slammed all the way down, and looked like a biker with ape-hanger handle bars. Busted the top and bottom tubes off the stem (too many wheelie's, and jumps) leading to my first face plant.

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TheGerd said:
I had one of these too, wish I still had it. 😁. I did can the banana seat for a small saddle seat. View attachment 244152
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Ian F said:
That was my dream-bike when I was 7 or 8 back in the 70s. I remember fawning over them in the Lionel toy store near Atlanta and hoped so much I'd get one for Christmas. But the price was just way beyond what my parents could afford at the time.
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I had a customer who built up and restored one of these as his parent's wouldn't get him one when he was a kid. Spent over $3k with all the re-chroming. Said his kid would ride it once he's old enough to ride. Too bad his kid would probably end up wanting some POS Huffy like his neighbor's kid had.
 
Ian F said:
That was my dream-bike when I was 7 or 8 back in the 70s. I remember fawning over them in the Lionel toy store near Atlanta and hoped so much I'd get one for Christmas. But the price was just way beyond what my parents could afford at the time.
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I got hit by a car when I was 10, I guess my folks bought this for me for going through that. It was not lost on me how much they spent on it ( like $150 bucks) that was insane to them to spend on a bike but they did it. I guess it was better than getting me a Yamaha with a motor. 😝
 
Not mine but my brother's real first bike after a couple of hand over bikes from me...again, just a stock picture because any picture from back there was on film or paper and kind of out of reach for me right now...a 'Saltafoss', which translates in 'DitchJumper'...there was no jumping any ditch with that thing, it was as heavy as e-bike (and not a light one)! Full suspension though!

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Bike N Gear said:
I had a customer who built up and restored one of these as his parent's wouldn't get him one when he was a kid. Spent over $3k with all the re-chroming. Said his kid would ride it once he's old enough to ride. Too bad his kid would probably end up wanting some POS Huffy like his neighbor's kid had.
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If I had unlimited funds and space, I could see myself finding and restoring one. No kids, so it would just be me looking at it and maybe riding it around the neighborhood once in a while. I would probably install a set of 3-piece cranks because those one-piece cranks always felt weird to me after getting used to 3-piece. I'd probably do other stupid stuff like find a way to install hand-lever drum brakes instead of the coaster brake.
 
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