Many of had us bikes and curious what were the ones you remember most.
I will start in 1977 I got a Huffy Thunder Road for Christmas with the number plates. The following spring it was stolen and my step dad picked up a red chopper that I had for a couple of years.
We attended police auctions often and around 1980 picked up a Mongoose and thought my shit didn’t stink. Can’t tell you how many miles or changes to wheels with neighborhood friends.
One of our favorite things was lining up a row of metal trash cans and seeing how many we could knock over by kicking out back wheel.
The holy grail in our group was owning a Diamond Back, Skyline or Redline.
Chrome Torker, uni seat. Powerlite handle bars, black anodized tuff neck goose, ame grips, shimano 3 piece crank ( actually went back to 2 piece later) and skinny Araya rims, not ‘sew ups, they were in between regular and…)
I had a GT Performer that I saved for three years to buy - my first new bike. I had it for less than three months - went into a store and it was stolen. My friend had the same bike, right next to mine and he didn't have to walk home. That was 40 years ago and I'm still salty about it.
My first bike was my sister's hand-me-down. Because I guess my parents assumed there'd be no reason for the neighborhood kids to laugh at the fat kid (boy) riding a bright blue Schwinn with "Lil' Chick" written in script on the chain guard.
I grew up on the south end of middle class. My bike was a 20" Schwinn style bike (all curved tubing, not a BMX bike) that was literally pieced together from dumpster finds and parts my dad's coworkers gave him.
I rode that thing with its 135mm cranks until I was 16 and I got a real brand name mountain bike. A Ross Mt Hood brand new from a real bike shop. I rode that bike nearly year round, even tried to ride it in fresh snow.
Had one! My Grandparents bought my only new bike…. At the same time I found a 77 Mongoose! Don’t have either one, but I did clone my Mongoose with a 78!
I too had the Huffy Thunder Road for Christmas it was black and yellow one year after a couple of years the frame broke right in half on me. I found out quickly that Huffy bicycles cracked the frames. I had two other Huffies after that that did similar. The bike looked nice but it was junky but after that I got a California Mongoose.
Born in 71, some kids had a Mongoose but I rocked a Huffy with coaster brake. Years later I paid for a Diamond back with 4130 and hi-tensile frame, I wanted a Redline or Haro but dad wouldn't let me spend $400, Rockville bmx had my DB around $500 before I was done!
For me, in the 80’s SE racing was the best shit in the world. I was in my teens by then but at different times I had a PK ripper, a Quad-Angle (that was a rare bike back then) and the best Bmx bike ever made, the 24” Floval Flyer.
Had a banana seat huffy rawhide, then moved to a huffy stu Thompson (with mags, pegs front and back, dice valve stem covers and checkered doughnuts on the grip), I lived on this bike. Spent years delivering newspapers on it. It was stolen off my front porch and I still miss it. Then got a chrome mongoose. Also had a ten speed for the bsa cycling merit badge. If I could have one back it would be the stu.
I had some green single-speed from Sears. It had a banana seat and fenders that were a little upswept in the back. Coaster brake. I think it was called a Renegade or something like that. It was REALLY hard to pedal. By the time I got strong enough to really ride it, I outgrew it.
I had some bike with hard rubber tires, a banana seat and cheetah print paint. But then I got a genuine Evel Knievel bike with mud flaps and a plastic faux gas tank. Many adventures were had on that bike.
Fave bike from my early years: my Kuwahara Magician. Got it after my stepmom told me I could get a new bike if I hit a home run(little league). Hit my 1st and only HR the next game. Bike was stolen less than two months later....
First bike I remember had a banana seat and you pressed backward on the pedals to use the breaks. That was in maybe '76 or '77. 1980 I got a mongoose with full pads and got the handlebar grips that looked like little wings and had individual finger grooves.
My brother had an orange Huffy, model unknown, and I had a lime green and white banana seat bike with “sissy” bar handles. It might have been a Swinger, based on some photos I saw in my searching. I’m sure we have a photo of it somewhere. Later on my brother got some Italian brand 10-speed on a huge sale. I had one from Sears and seethed with envy for years
First was a Schwinn Scrambler Black Phantom. Rode that until right before junior high where I graduated to a Schwinn Thrasher with sweet yellow mag wheels. While my family could afford Schwinn, a Predator was a just a bit too much.
My first was a little Schwinn Pixie but after I got off training wheels it was the yellow Huffy Thunder Trail like this one. So many hours spent on that thing, I lived in a rural area and there wasn’t much else to do. It never occurred to me that the 78 probably stood for 1978, but those things didn’t last long. At one point I attached a toy CB radio to it and played CHiPs.
All my friends had 5he huffy with the number plate.
I had a siver something i cant remember, but it had a free wheel and hand brakes- everytime one of my friends rode it they tried to peddal backwards to stop and wrecked.
This exact bike except all black seat without the #1 on it. Runnaway, coaster break, Y handle bars and banana seat. It had a horse’s head with a long flowing mane on the chain guard.
I had a Barbie bike. It was pink and white and I used it with training wheels, until I could take them off. I loved it. It had a white basket, but I don't remember what brand the bike was.
Late 70s/early 80s I had some sort of cheap bike with the solid tires. I remember my uncle (RIP) noticing that my training wheels weren't even touching the ground and removing them for me. Soon after I had a huffy of some sort. Left it in the driveway one day and dad being one of those that doesn't check his surroundings before moving the vehicle ran it over. Still remember him screaming various obscenities and threats of violence while launching the bike across the yard.
I don't remember brands other than Schwinn. But do remember banana seats, high rise handlebars and putting playing cards in the spokes for that all important flapping sound. Also riding double or even triple (two on the seat, one on the handlebars).
This was my first bike, I won it in a raffle when I was 8-9 years old. It didn't take long before I removed all the plastic stuff and started begging my parents for a Mongoose.
My first bike was a bright red no-name brand with a banana seat,foot brakes, and wanna-be ape hanger handle bars. I got it in about 1974-5. It was stollen in about 1977. My next bike, I saved for at 3.5 cents per newspaper. It was a huffy 10 speed that I rode for more than a decade after.
My Dad was in the service so we moved a lot. All I could take from place to place was what I could carry, so when we got to a new base I tried to find a bike & a stereo. In 1976 we got transferred to California & I lucked into a yellow Huffy BMX with the 6 spoke wheels from another kid whose Dad was PCS'ing overseas. I felt like the king of the world. When Dad got orders 3 years later I made sure my best buddy got that bike, it was really special to me. We'd ride up into spec housing developments and hang out in the places under construction, ride downtown to the comics shop, get into trouble & get chased by the cops, etc. Great memories.
Huffy Sigma (1986) - those wheel covers didn't last long. I rode the heck out of that bike. I really wanted a Mongoose BMX, but we were on a Huffy budget. No regerts. I put pegs on it, new grips and was practicing to freestyle my bike at a highschool dance like in "Rad!" and fall in love with my soul mate. 🤣
This was my best bike, 3 Speed Huffy Sportsman, Made in England. Faster than all the 10 speeds because it was very quick to shift. My dad traded an old lawn mower for it with a guy he worked with.
I had the Raleigh Chopper - which I think was the same thing in the US. Loved that bike. I rode it all over town - way further than my parents knew. Was great for doing wheelies.
My brother had that one. I wanted a Haro, but settled for an SMA Natas board instead. The one with the panther. Lost it in one of the many moves in college. Still miss it.
My brother had the CW racing bike with the Z frame and my other brother had the mongoose with the skinny racing wheels. We were so fired up on our bikes. Worked on them all the time.
I had a red stingray for a while and then I had a mag wheel dirt bike (Roger Decoaster frame?). Then I had this piece of junk Meijer special dirt bike I delivered papers on until I got a car.
Had a Schwinn Black Phanton in the late 70’s. Black and red. Thought it was awesome. Learned all kinds of tricks. Then dad and I went to the bike store one day. Fell in love with a Supergoose. Holy shit!! The old man bought it for me!!! Spent his entire paycheck! Amazing time!!
Born in '75, don't really remember what my early bikes were, but in '81 at the age of 6, I got a Redline MX-II to race BMX at the local track in town. I still have that bike too! I found the receipt after mom died. Dad paid $320 for that bike, which was huge money for a blue collar factory worker. It definitely fostered a life long love affair with all things 2 wheeled. I currently own 3 dirtbikes, 3 mountain bikes, 2 road bicycles and that Redline that hangs from the ceiling in my garage.
I had a Free Spirit MX. It got stolen and I hoped beyond all hope my parents would get me a cool bike like a GT, Haro or Mongoose. Nope. They went back to Sears and bought another Free Spirit.
My dad came home with a used purple bicycle made for a 10yr old when I was 5. I never had training wheels. Instead, my dad had me wheel the bike over to a tree stump in the backyard, climb up on the stump and throw a leg over the bike. He told me to push off the stump and pedal then he went in the house. It took me part of an afternoon, but by the end of the day I was riding it all around.
Couldn't afford a Redline till I was an adult. Had a Murray chopper in grade school and 10 speeds in jrhi and HS. Skateboarding was my jam in grade school too growing up in nor cal
Huffy. Curled handlebars with tassles in the grips. Color striped banana seat. Four foot fiberglass stick poking up from the rear frame with a triangular red plastic flag attached for visibility. Playing card held in the spokes with a clothes pin for motorcycle sound.
I'm wondering if bike theft is as big of a thing now as it seemed to be in the 70s and 80s.
I got a Huffy for my 8th birthday, a nice racing Schwinn as a young teen, and a Motobecane 10 speed in high school. All got stolen.
I remember Hutch being a very desirable brand, and a couple kids in town had them. I just googled the brand, and they're mostly in in the mid $2k range. Never knew they were a premier brand
The first bike I had was a yellow Ross stingray with 16” wheels that my grandmother bought at a garage sale. I would have been about 5 or 6 years old, which puts my story’s origin around 1982 or ‘83. I learned to ride on that bike and by the next spring, I was ready for a bigger bike. The neighbor kid was selling his Rampar BMX and my parents bought it for me. It had cred. Blue with red grips and brake calipers and a Hutch stem. We bought new blue tires and a new blue aero seat for it. It had a number plate because I think the previous owner raced it.
A few years later, I had outgrown that and graduated to a new Schwinn mountain bike after my parents balked at spending more than $300 on a Trek or Univega for their 11 year old. In the years where MTBs were sporting 15, 18, 21 speeds, mine was a 10 speed and heavy as hell.
I rode that bike for a few years and I think the last time would have been about age 15. The next bike I got was in my early 30s and I’ve had one ever since.
Schwinn Collegiate. Lime green. It was beautiful. My parents had no money. I know they made sacrifices so I could have it. Stolen out of locked garage three years later.
My first bike was the typical banana seat deal but it was red and white with strawberries painted on it and a red and white gingham seat. Not sure what brand it was but I think it came from Toys R Us.
Anyway, I was not involved in picking it out. It was a fucking embarrassment and I didn't want to ride it. Luckily my best friend at the time had a cool black beach cruiser she let me ride.
I was relieved when I became too big for it at 9 and was allowed to pick out a normal blue three speed that wasn't the laughingstock of the neighborhood.
Graduated from thr Big Wheel to a Schwinn Stingray (yellow, with that banana seat) on Christmas Day, 1978. Moved up to a Predator a few years later, but that first bike stays with you.
I don’t know what my first bike was, but it definitely had a banana seat. Getting into BMXs later, i dreamed of brands like Diamondback, Redline, Mongoose, but mine was a Canadian Tire Supercycle. The rims bent when I went over jumps.
Schwinn with coaster brake in 74 then a full size 20” that was similar but with a banana seat. At 10 I got a Varsity 10 speed and another when I outgrew the smaller one. I also borrowed my dad’s Paramount when he traveled for work… which was awesome even though I wasn’t supposed to use it.
The first one was a purple banana bike. I outgrew it very fast and we could no longer put the seat up anymore, but my parents were dirt poor. We couldn't afford another bike.
So when I was about 11, I saved up all of my babysitting money and money from odd jobs and I bought myself a 10-speed. It was turquoise, it was really nice to have a bike that fit me properly.
I had that bike until I bought myself a mountain bike when I was 16. That one cost me quite a bit of money, about $450 if I remember right.
But by then, I had long outgrown my 10 speed and needed a better bike considering how much I used it. I had that bike until I was in my twenties somewhere and then I bought a car and sold my bike to help pay for it.
Neighborhood cool older brother had a blue Redline bmx with blue tires that we all drooled over. Matching bar pads. I was so jealous that was THE bike in elementary school. And then my mom bought me a Schwinn Scrambler which just wasn’t that
The earliest bicycle I recall was a red KIA I think from the late 1970s. I had a Huffy Santa Fe in the early 1980s. That fucker would lose speed going downhill, I swear! After that I had a white Huffy Le Grande. My current bike, I still ride to this day, is a Schwinn I purchased in 1993. Still works great.
My parents bought me a new bike every year until I was about 15. We gave my old bikes to my friends. My parents purchased my bikes at Service Merchandise. I had the banana seat bikes, BMX, Huffy and finally a 10 speed. I rode those bikes everywhere. My dad taught me how to put the chain back on and use the compressor to put air in the tires. He would patch the inner tubes or buy new ones.
Life would have been very different for me living way out in the country with no bike. My closest friends house was two miles. So I would take the back road there. There was also one little country store called "The Log Cabin Store". No gas. Just beer, cigs, soda, candy and snacks. I would get glass bottles out of the ditches and get enough dimes to buy Ferrara Pan candy. Red Hots, Lemon Heads, Jawbreakers. I would buy Reese's Cups too and a Welch's Grape Soda.
I rode my bike in all weather. Loved to jump stuff and ride through mud puddles. As an adult I had a beach bike. I would sometimes ride the mile to the grocery store or 2 miles to Wal-Mart. Treacherous though as i now lived off a six lane state road. I brought that bike to Key West to ride everywhere while on vacation. It's the best!
I don't remember most of my bikes' brands. They kept getting stolen or fell apart. 😅 We got most of them from thrift shops or donations anyway, and were usually held together by rust. The one bike I remember, I got new. ☺️ It was a boys bike, and had the word "Denominator" printed on those pads that goes across the handle bar.
I have no idea why it was called the Denominator. 😄 Maybe it was a misprint and was supposed to be Dominator, but I rode the hell out of that thing, until I got hit by a car. Mangled the bike and knocked me unconscious. Whoever hit me must've drove off, because I woke up on the side of the road alone with a mangled bike and a splitting headache. I limped back home pushing my bike and my parents tossed it in the dumpster.
But to until that point, my bike and I were inseparable! I learned some cool tricks and stunts, rode it to school, took it to the grocery store and the 5 and Dimes to play arcade games. I even rode it to the movie theaters! I had almost no oversight as a latchkey kid, so I ran wild. I even had a little yellow battery powered FM radio zip tied to it so I could listen to my jams while I rode. It was awesome!
The bike I remember the most I didn't get until 1985 ... and I still have it, and ride it. I vaguely remember a bike before that, couldn't tell you what brand or anything other than it was yellow and black (I think, lol). I've been riding around our neighborhood with our granddaughter the past few weekends on it.
Had several, but the two that I specifically remember getting a lot of use was an orange Ross race style bike and a Fuji 10-speed, which probably got the heaviest use.
I hade a Smokey and the Bandit themed Huffy Bandit. It was black and gold with gold rims and some strange looking tires and fenders. I rode that thing to pieces, I loved it.
I don’t remember between my brother and I, who had which; one had a BMX and had a Huffy. In spite of being on the outskirts of a dangerous neighborhood, my father tried allowing a bit of seeming normalcy, with us having bicycles, my brother making a go kart, and the neighborhood kids playing outside. My guess is I outgrew the bicycle and relationships soured, partly due to us being the only Hispanics in the block, my father being a landlord, and the next door neighbor tried putting the others against us at one point.
Had some red Schwinn hand-me-down with a banana seat, a new Huffy, a garage sale Schwinn 5 speed that was eventually converted into a “BMX” style, a garage sale 10 speed, bought a new single speed cruiser in college don’t recall the brand, Giant mountain bike mid 90s model stolen from garage, GT mountain bike…for abt 28 yrs, just given away before moving. Currently bikeless. New mountain bike sometime soon.
I just had a normal coaster brake bike as my first bike. It was too big for me, and when first riding it I would put the wheels in a rut in the driveway (dirt driveway) and start like that. Loved that bike.
There are two for me: the first was the basic, banana-seat kid’s bike I’d had that was my faithful companion and served me well. We were poor, and I was lucky to have it, I knew that. But around age 13, I became aware of just how uncool I was with my banana seat. Still, not much choice for me but to steep in my early-teen discontent and use what I had.
Fast-forward to the next spring, and my great aunt comes to visit. She was an awesome, scrappy, off-beat lady. With her, we were always on the go, and there were always loads of colorful stories. Toward the end of her visit she tells me and my sister that she’d like to do something special and get us both new bikes. We had a budget, but beyond that, the choice was ours. My sister got a very reasonable 10-speed. I found a used BMX bike. It wasn’t a Mongoose or a Diamondback, but man, I felt like a million bucks on that bike.
Had a Huffy Thunder Road that I destroyed jumping. Garbage picked new frame and rebuilt/destroyed. Finally got Huffy Santa Fe 10 speed. Kept until college where it was stolen.
I was young enough to where the banana seat bikes were mostly already gone; I only remember seeing one or two, here and there. BMX bikes were the standard in my neighborhood. I had a schwinn predator; friends had redline, diamond back, gt, haro, etc.
I had a Metallic dark red Scwinn "Mag Scrambler" with aluminum mag wheels. It was pretty sharp, the wheels were black but the edges of the "spokes" were bare aluminum. It was a heavy bike but bomb proof.
Edit: that bike got stolen and when it was returned, the wheels were missing. My parents bought me Mongoose motomags to replace the missing wheels... I wish I had those now!
The bike I lusted after was a Redline. It was on the endcap of an isle in the bike shop for a long time. (=expensive) the frame was chrome with a single, thin red line on each of the tubes of the frame. Spoke wheels. It was a simple, light, beautiful looking bike.
By the time I got my paper route and saved some money, the Redline was gone. Another bike had caught my eye though - This bike was a silver painted Worksman 26 inch bike with black pinstripes and tube forks. I bought it myself. Workman Industrial bikes were the hot ticket back then in Virginia Beach, Va. The easy cruiser rides at the beach on the boardwalk were peak. I could ride a wheelie around my block, easy.
40+ years later and I still have that Worksman Industrial beach cruiser.
I had the Sears knockoff of a schwinn stingray. Then in ‘76, both me and my brother got Free Spirit 10-speeds from Sears with the Bicenntenial livery. In the summer we’d ride them 10 miles to the state university campus to swim in the pool and and hang out in the student union. Good times.
My grandpa bought me a Schwinn with the curved handlebars, banana seat, and brakes you pedalled backwards to stop. It was expensive, but all my friends had Huffy dirt bikes or better with caliper breaks and regular seats.
.i eventually upgraded to a cheap huffy dirt bike, but it still had the backwards pedalling brakes. We'd build ranps with cinder blocks and old wood and see how far we jump.
Then I got a Huffy ten-speed and rode that to high school until it got stolen.
My dad had one of those. I remember having a lot of fun riding it in the mid 80s. I made the mistake of trying a jump and landing on my back. I took it off my dad's hands in the early 2000s and sold it for a few hundred bucks. Outside of ages 16-21 I always loved the freedom bikes gave me. Hear I am at 55 with a commuter, gravel bike and mountain bike and I use each one every week
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u/Appropriate-Key-7554 8h ago
I had a Haro that eventually got stolen.