acg_schwinn
Finally riding a big boys bike
This is me, circa 1963, on my spiffy new Gresham Flyer. The scene is outside our house on the corner of Toller Road and Chestnut Court in Quorn, near Loughborough in England:
(My Dad was an avid photographer and shot nothing but color slides. We recently had them all digitized, and the colors in the perfectly-preserved Kodachrome and Ektachrome slides are pretty stunning.)
If you look closely behind the right rear wheel, you can see a tubular black rubber handle, which is clipped into its stowed position in the photos, but unfolds into a lengthy chromed telescoping handle that the Concerned Parent can hang onto so that Junior doesn't go zipping off into traffic.
I hesitate to call it a "tricycle" because it's really a full-blown three-wheeler, including a rod brake up front, standard mounting shoe for a headlight on the handlebars, and a complete opening trunk (or boot) in the back. (How 'bout those chrome hubcaps!) The chrome boot handle is visible in the photos. Open the lid and you will find Batman and Green Hornet stickers stuck to the underside.
How do I know about the stickers? I still own it.
It came to America with us in 1964, I rode it long enough to add the American TV series stickers a few years later, and it has spent the last 50+ years in the basement of our family house, where we occasionally trip over it. It's pretty rough now and would need a total restoration to be ridable again, but I think it's all there. I peeked at the stickers a while ago, closed up in the boot since the Mid-Century Modern years, and they looked practically perfect.
(My Dad was an avid photographer and shot nothing but color slides. We recently had them all digitized, and the colors in the perfectly-preserved Kodachrome and Ektachrome slides are pretty stunning.)
If you look closely behind the right rear wheel, you can see a tubular black rubber handle, which is clipped into its stowed position in the photos, but unfolds into a lengthy chromed telescoping handle that the Concerned Parent can hang onto so that Junior doesn't go zipping off into traffic.
I hesitate to call it a "tricycle" because it's really a full-blown three-wheeler, including a rod brake up front, standard mounting shoe for a headlight on the handlebars, and a complete opening trunk (or boot) in the back. (How 'bout those chrome hubcaps!) The chrome boot handle is visible in the photos. Open the lid and you will find Batman and Green Hornet stickers stuck to the underside.
How do I know about the stickers? I still own it.
It came to America with us in 1964, I rode it long enough to add the American TV series stickers a few years later, and it has spent the last 50+ years in the basement of our family house, where we occasionally trip over it. It's pretty rough now and would need a total restoration to be ridable again, but I think it's all there. I peeked at the stickers a while ago, closed up in the boot since the Mid-Century Modern years, and they looked practically perfect.
Oh, well, it was new to me, anyway.
