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What was your first bike?

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I believe I posted about my first bike (stolen within a few days) and it's replacement, on the other thread. But I did have a Schwinn Predator a few years later. It had a chrome frame, black trim, and the 'Space Invaders' decals all over. Those came off quickly!
 
67 Hawthorne muscle. Dad & Mom had 6 kids so we all had Hawthorn’s , they couldn’t afford Schwinn . I finally found one just like it 50 years later

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My first bike was a red junker, probably a small Columbia ballooner, circa 1960.

I kept asking my dad, who was a jerk, for a bike. Everybody in the family said I was too small and couldn’t ride a bike. I knew that I could, if given a chance. My dad finally told me that he would get me a bike for my birthday, but if I couldn’t ride it he would return it.

Told you he was an *ss$(%,£!.

Anyway, I got my bike, a rusted out, beat up, piece of junk. The wheels turned....
I think he bought it at a secondhand store, probably for less than $5.

He thoughtfully stacked the odds against me by putting it in a very small, dark, basement for my initial riding test.

I knew it was do or die.

I got on, peddled with tremendous resolve, furiously shimmied the front wheel back and forth to keep from falling over, all while having to turn inside the small oval basement floor.

I rode the bike several laps around the basement floor, much to my families amazement and my fathers chagrin.
 
My first bike was a 1980s era Schwinn Aerostar made in Taiwan by Giant. My parents got it for me. It was dark blue with white lettering on the frame and had a single speed coaster brake. I used to ride down these two big hills in my yard with it. I crashed on it once where the front wheel hit a hidden hole in the grass at a good speed and turned the wheel sideways at once. I got the end of the handle bars in the gut, which resulted in some sort of internal injury or another. I remember because I went back to the house to use the restroom and my urine was red. My parents took me to the hospital but by then I had apparently self-mended enough that they just sent me home. The bike was a tough little thing because it was fine. My two nephews later learned to ride on that bike as well. I have no idea where it ended up.

My first vintage bike was my father's 1960s Higgins middleweight, which I cleaned and fixed up and rode around when I was about 12 or so. That bike is in storage in my grandparents' barn.
 
Mine was a European made 20 inch that my dad found abandoned on the railroad tracks behind where he worked,it sat in the basement and I can even remember when it was too big for me. One fall he pumped up the tires and I was taught to ride it and the next spring it was all painted up and I rode it until I got a 5 speed and think I still have the head badge somewhere.
 
1968 I turned 7 and got an Orange Krate and my brother got a Lemon Peeler, we were kings of the neighborhood and the envy of all. My seat was lowered as far as it would go down and I could barely get on it but I did. Both bikes were stolen two weeks later and never found, I cried like a baby. I had to ride a damn second hand Panther after that my dad got from the neighbor I hated that bike back then but loved them later. I went on to own all of the Krates years later "before they soared in price" never having paid more than $75 for one.
 
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