My Third Bike

My third bike was a Schwinn with a banana seat. It wasn't a Stingray, though. I believe the Stingrays were the first Schwinn bikes to have the banana seats and the high handlebars. Later Schwinn came out with a series of similar bikes that were 5 speeds. The tire in the back was about 20" and the one in the front may 12" in diameter. These models had names like Pea Picker, Orange Crate and Apple Crate. Those models were replaced with the bike I eventually got, the name of which I cannot recall. It was similar since it had 5 speeds but the front and back wheels were the same size. It was a blast riding that bike.

It eventually got stolen off the side porch on our house. We kept it there unlocked at night and one day when I went to ride it, it wasn't there. We never found out who stole it.

My father and I spent some time driving around looking for it, though. This was about 1970 and oddly enough, I still remember the serial number – CD11802. Isn’t that bizarre?

One day after swimming at the public pool in Lombard with my friend Kevin, we called my mother to come and get us and had a little time to kill. There was always a zillion bikes at the park so we went to check them out – looking for that serial number. Much to my surprise, we found it! When my mother got there, we told her and the police were called. They showed up and cut the lock off the bike and put it in the trunk of my mother’s car.

Meanwhile, the kid who had the bike had also been swimming in the pool and he came out to get "his" bike while it was being put in the trunk. This was quite traumatic for him and he started bawling.

He was not the one who had stolen the bike, however. It had a sticker on it indicating where he had bought it – a store that is still there (I checked on the internet). Whoever had stolen it had sold it to this store and of course they had no record of who that had been. The bike store that we always patronized kept records of who sold and bought what at their store and we thought this other store was disreputable.

Well, the kid who had the bike ended up getting a brand new bike as a replacement. I wonder who had to pay for that – his parents or that bike store.

I had already replaced my bike with a new one as well so the recovered bike was surplus and I no longer wanted it anyway since the kid who had it had put a "sissy bar" on it. That was a fad at the time to extend the rear seat support up about 3 feet. It was hideous looking. Besides that, it had been beat up somewhat so we got rid of it.