Is ANYONE out there totally pissed off with the bikes kids my age are riding around now? The bloody stick thin silver and yellow styled bikes that look like some kind of alien shopmobility thing (yes I was taking the piss...) all tooled up with suspension wherever you can get it? These bikes have got no character! They're nearly as commercialised as mobile bloody phones.

Now, I ride a Raleigh Firefly, a few years old with an older, more "cylindrical" frame design. I've tuned it up just right and I swear to you now, I can ride that thing like a superbike and it handles like a bloody dream I swear to you now...

What I'm saying is, these ignorant kids my age don't realize what they're riding do they? They think that because it looks good, it's a good bike! Not one of them know how to even replace a bloody wheel!

Ah, that felt good.....

Just my little fight against ignorance......

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WHAM, BAM, THANK YOU GRAN.

Maybe you're just jealouse coz you want a "pretty" new bike too :P

I couldn't agree more. Kids around my age (15) just dont know what a good bike feels like. They're in love with suspesion too, even though all the roads around here are perfectly smooth.

Guys, enjoy it.. laugh to yourself while you fly past them. eventually they might figure out that suspensions dont always make you go faster..especially on the road!

I must say i favor hardtails also, but i can understand when you'd need rear suspension like for downhill bikes

but yeah, i've noticed lots of kids who live near me will have their parents buy them really nice expensive bikes and they just ride it around the block a few times, and never do anything with it.

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beels99

Yeah, all the good looking bikes are quiet amusing. My scratched old blue diamondback looks terrible in comparision, but it never gets nicked, and I've never had bits fall off it either (as some of my classmates have had their bikes do).

First,
I am pissed off about all the cheap bikes around. All these Pacifics or Huffy knock offs with 'full suspension' (if you can even call it that), piss me off as well. The bikes way like 100 pounds. Seeing kids act like they are the **** when they look like fools

I think it's sad that kids don't know what a good bike is anymore.

But, hell, if the kid is going to ride somewhere, fine, get him out of the house. Sick of all these kids sitting around eating candy not doing anything.

Yes, if a kid has a sick ass bike, yet they suck at riding, just pass them and show off.

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I had a Sting-Ray when I was a kid growing up, geez, I loved that bike. I am glad to see that Schwinn is reintroducing them.

Schwinn backpedaling
By Jennifer Harper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES



Men of a certain age who relish the memory of their old Schwinn "banana seat" bike may want to pull a wheelie: The company has reintroduced this two-wheeled icon of the 1960s.
Schwinn introduced the reinvented Sting-Ray bicycle in Madison, Wis., yesterday, billing it "The Rebirth of Cool."
The bike is unabashedly a relic from the all-American playground.
"With its raked-out fork, knees-to-the-breeze seat position, a huge rear tire and enough bad-boy character to raise eyebrows, this is no ordinary bicycle," Schwinn says.
Schwinn received design advice from Orange County Choppers, the New York-based custom motorcycle shop whose work has been inspired by the films "Easy Rider" and "The Wild One."
The shop is busy working on a line of special edition Sting-Rays, complete with fancy logos and extreme features. There is also talk of adult-size Sting-Ray bikes as well, sure to cause a stir on the typical Sunday morning bike path.
"The new Sting-Ray is for the kid who wants a bike that offers the riding experience of a chopper," said Schwinn spokesman Joe Werwie.
"Just like the original model, every kid can customize his Sting-Ray with cool accessories coming soon like custom wheels, high-back sissy bars, over-sized chain guards and more," he said.
Ironically, the Sting-Ray, along with a few other youthful playtime icons, has lost its American roots.
Schwinn's parent company, Pacific Cycle — which also owns Flexible Flyer sleds and Murray, Roadmaster, GT and Mongoose bikes — was sold to Montreal-based Dorel Industries in February.
Nevertheless, the newfangled Sting-Ray could inspire a little old-fashioned father-son bonding.
"You react to this style bike the way you do to a muscle car. And men who had a bike like this in the late 1960s and 1970s can share their enthusiasm with their own sons," said Carl Burgwardt, curator of the Pedaling History Bicycle Museum in Orchard Park, N.Y.
The original Sting-Ray was introduced in 1963 when GTOs and Corvettes were the masculine cars of choice, though TV's mild-mannered Captain Kangaroo became an official endorser three years later, pronouncing, "Schwinn bikes are the best."
Schwinn sold about 1 million Sting-Rays a year until 1982, when young riders began answering the edgy siren call of mountain biking.
But nostalgia is part of the appeal of bikes. Everyone remembers what he or she rode as a child, creating an instant market for manufacturers who originally built a youthful dream machine.
"This isn't Schwinn's first repop, or reissue," Mr. Burgwardt said. "They came out with a reissue of their old 1950s Black Phantom model. Columbia and Roadmaster also reissued some of their old models, too."
But a reissue does not necessarily make a collectible for those who will shell out an average $2,000 for a 40-year-old child's bike with original chrome, wheelie bar and a glitter seat.
"You don't create a collectible bike. They just happen," Mr. Burgwardt said.
The new Sting-Ray will be on sale in stores such as Wal-Mart and Toys R Us by April, with prices beginning at $180.

hey you guys can make fun of my bike too. i love it, but i often get dumbass comments on the trails. thats right, the speed series has 20" WHEELS.

just remember: your bike doesn't make you a good rider, a good rider doesn't NEED a good bike.

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NO! They're all gonna laugh at you!
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