1973 Kool Lemon, J-38 Schwinn, Sting-Ray.

[cyclingday]

Ok, new old stock tires and full size pedals installed!

 

[Misterotis]

Ok, good to know!
Thanks!
I can use all the help I can get.
Did they use that model pedal on the standard J-38, or only on the top of the line Krate models?

The funny thing about trying to get these bikes as accurate as possible, is that I remember my buddies and I going down to the Schwinn shop when we were kids, and buying replacement pedals for our bikes, because we didn’t like the government mandated reflector pedals. Lol!
I’m sure we gave fits to the collectors that found our bikes in the scrap heap.
We put moto bars and solo saddles on them so that we could pretend we were Malcolm Smith. Lol!

Same here with my Kool Lemon Stingray. Got it secondhand, first thing to go was the banana seat, replaced with one off a Varsity. Moto bars, and a knobby on the front completed the look. My buddies and I would ride them in the Placentia oil fields and orange groves. Cops would chase us but they never could catch us, haha. Turns out our generation was inventing BMX, who knew?

 

[Misterotis]

Here’s a trip down memory lane, from the 1973 catalog.

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View attachment 1809371I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve got to find a pair of those bad ass cycling shoes.
Oh, yeah!
Anybody got an n o s pair of those in a size 11?

At my school, a kid would have gotten his ass beat for riding a bike equipped like that.

 

[cyclingday]

Definitely!
I only knew one kid with a Krate back then, and he was this super straight laced Mormon kid with a Mom that pretty much had him tied to a leash.
He always seemed to on the outside looking in, no matter where we were, or what we were doing.
We all thought the bike was ridiculous.
One of the guys got a Sears Screamer for Christmas, and we just laughed at it.
He ended up stripping it down, but there was only so much you could do with a bike like that.
My guess is now, that the reason those bikes are so collectible, is because it was almost impossible for one to survive with all its gingerbread intact.
The only ones that made it, were owned by the Mormon kid with the overbearing Mom.