# Ross Apollo 3 Speed



## Axlerod (Nov 19, 2022)

I recently picked up this clean Apollo 3 Speed. It was listed as a 1970 but I think it might be a 1974. It has a few flaws but super cool. Please chime in if you know the exact year.


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## Oldbikeguy1960 (Nov 19, 2022)

Ross Bicycles still exists as a family owned company and I believe they will still give you info on these old bikes.


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## Axlerod (Nov 19, 2022)

Oldbikeguy1960 said:


> Ross Bicycles still exists as a family owned company and I believe they will still give you info on these old bikes.



Thank you. I’ll look them up and see if I can get info.


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## Grey Ghost (Nov 19, 2022)

Thumb shifter would indicate that it is a 74.


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## Oldbikeguy1960 (Nov 19, 2022)

Yes, on the thumb shifter. I didn't say that omly because the possibility that some overprotective parents had a bike shop do that so Junior could have a better chance of reproducing the family gene pool for another generation.
Glad my parents didn't care!


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## jungleterry (Nov 21, 2022)

this is a November 78 for sure,Missing yellow seat strap but all rest original


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## Axlerod (Nov 21, 2022)

jungleterry said:


> this is a November 78 for sure,Missing yellow seat strap but all rest original



Thank you for the information. Do you decipher the serial number to determine year or identify the options?


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## jungleterry (Nov 22, 2022)

yes


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## Oldbikeguy1960 (Nov 22, 2022)

Looks like he is using serial number. First four digits 1078 would be October1978.
That was too easy.


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## Axlerod (Nov 22, 2022)

Oldbikeguy1960 said:


> Looks like he is using serial number. First four digits 1078 would be October1978.
> That was too easy.



1078 sounds like October ‘78 but jungleterry identifies it as November. I was just wondering if Ross serial numbers weren’t as obvious as it seems


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## Oldbikeguy1960 (Nov 22, 2022)

I wonder if the 10/78 was the frame stamping date and the bikes didn't actually assemble and sell until a month or so later?
Thats what the consensus is here on Schwinn bikes.


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## Axlerod (Nov 22, 2022)

Oldbikeguy1960 said:


> I wonder if the 10/78 was the frame stamping date and the bikes didn't actually assemble and sell until a month or so later?
> Thats what the consensus is here on Schwinn bikes.



That’s a possibility. I’ve had a few Schwinn’s where the serial numbers on the frame were months before the headbadge serial numbers.


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## Oldbikeguy1960 (Nov 22, 2022)

I personally believe that happened more on the later 1970s bikes. The earlier Stingrays and Krates especially were in such high demand I cannot see how they could've had frames sitting for months waiting to be assembled.
Plus as you probably know the headbadge dating did not start until after the Krates and original Stingrays were gone.


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## Grey Ghost (Nov 23, 2022)

I concur.
The stingrays and Krates were selling like hot cakes at that time. 
Plus, the Schwinn factory wasn’t that big. It’s doubtful that they even had room for hundreds of frames waiting to be built.

The Murray facility was huge in comparison to the Schwinn building.


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## Oldbikeguy1960 (Nov 23, 2022)

Grey Ghost said:


> I concur.
> The stingrays and Krates were selling like hot cakes at that time.
> Plus, the Schwinn factory wasn’t that big. It’s doubtful that they even had room for hundreds of frames waiting to be built.
> 
> The Murray facility was huge in comparison to the Schwinn building.



Wow, man. I cannot recall anyone else bucking this bronco, and you made a point I had not connnected!
The sheer size of the storage area, at least priming them so they did not rust and touching up primer chips or worse paint ahead of time would make this unreasonable.
Maybe by the mid 1970s when the Schwinn employees were slitting their own wrists by sending out trash due to unions and importing from Japan and Taiwan making them seek revenge. That thug model was later used by Air Traffic Controllers and the USPS to insist on higher wages and raise postal rates to this day.
Not in the Heyday when Schwinn was still an employer name to be proud of.
Besides, as I say often the 1,000,000th Schwinn (Orange Krate) off the line press extravaganza was mid December 1968. How could it cut that close if there were still hundreds or thousands of frames waiting to be built in the warehouse?
Hang on, I am now donning extra clothing to absorb the blood and cushion the flogging I am about to receive for once again daring to disagree with the "experts"


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## Axlerod (Nov 23, 2022)

Oldbikeguy1960 said:


> I personally believe that happened more on the later 1970s bikes. The earlier Stingrays and Krates especially were in such high demand I cannot see how they could've had frames sitting for months waiting to be assembled.
> Plus as you probably know the headbadge dating did not start until after the Krates and original Stingrays were gone.



Yes, I was speaking of mostly mid to late 1970s and early 80s cruisers. I had some stingrays/Krate when I was a kid but we never cared what year they were. As long as you could pretend to jump over 15 buses they were good to go


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## Oldbikeguy1960 (Nov 23, 2022)

I was building a ramp in the back yard. We lived by the freight yards and I was planning to jump the Amtrak Turboliner on its way through.
Mom got suspicious when I got past the first 8 ft section.
I still have my pin from when it came through the first time in my toolbox. But not the newspaper article lamenting the grisly details of my agonizingly slow death from not clearing the top of the train.
End of story.


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## Grey Ghost (Nov 23, 2022)

Not only would the frames be stacking up, getting rusting/getting dinged, but also that model year handlebar, shifter, etc.

That’s a lot of storage for future parts. Factories don’t store things if the don’t have too, they make them as needed, or right before implementation.. That’s why they’re called factories.

Remember, they weren’t retooling the frames, just certain components. If they ran out of a certain years handlebar or shifter, that was changing to a newer design, they were already committed  to that design. They would have, and did, use the new stuff regardless. They wouldn’t have re-re-tooled to make some more old design parts. They were committed to the new designs. The frame design didn’t matter because it stayed the same for long periods. 

Just keep making the frames, what you hang off it doesn’t matter, the frame stays the same, there is no retooling or new engineering involved. 

If backlog frames were the case, they never would have mixed multi year components on the same bike would they? They simply would have made more year correct accessories to stick on them. 
i.e. 1,000 1969 frames= 1,000 1969 shifter types, despite the mid year change.

But, if they started selling far more frames that year than they had made components for, they would have, and apparently did, dip into the new stock to fulfill orders. Can’t have kids wanting bikes for Christmas and not getting them can we?

I suspect they simply couldn’t keep up with frame demand and ended up using the newer models components to fulfill orders on complete bikes.

From what I see on late year bikes, including mine, they ran out of model year component stock, due to unforeseen demand on complete bikes, and substituted the next model years upgrades on the old model year frames.

I have seen many later year frames with the next years shifter or handlebar design on them, sometimes both. They looked like the bike came with them, and the owners believe they are bone stock that way from the factory, too many to believe that every one was a customer change at point of sale.

I don’t believe there was such a thing as recalls on much of anything until the early 70’s. However, serial numbers were used, among other things, to identify problems in lots. (Tires are a good example of this) If, let’s say, frames had started catastrophically failing at one point during the sales year due to some unknown, or unforeseen, manufacturing process, tracing the problem back to the SN# date, which might have been erroneous, would have forced them to research many more months of  frames than had actually been built during the manufacturing failure timeframe. That means EVERY Varsity, Heavy Duty, StingRay etc.that was, say, “built” in the September- to December SN# timeframe would have to be under scrutiny even though many had not actually been built until later than the SN# date.

Not likely in my view.

Could they have had storage areas for 1,000s of cranks that fit the majority of their models? Sure. I could put that many in my house storage room. Handlebars would be another matter, and frames would be completely out of the question.

Schwinn had many record sales years. I highly doubt they were ever sitting on a bunch of unbuilt frames and dropouts, at least not until BMX reared it’s head and the market had started to change.


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