Schwinn Stingray

Schwinn is once again producing, after 25 years, the Sting-Ray bicycle, with a version for kids, and also one for adults.

My first bike when I was a kid was a red Stingray, very similar to this one, and my older brother’s was blue. I had the V-back handle bars and banana seat. We thought they were really cool until 10-speeds and BMX bikes came out, and then the Sting-Rays were dweeby and uncool.

A year or two ago, I took the two Sting-Rays, along with a bunch of other old bikes from my mom’s garage, to the Bicycle Action Project [link deprecated: no longer in business] in downtown, Indianapolis, which is a no-for-profit group that helps kids repair bikes they can then keep. When we wheeled the Sting-Rays in the building, the kids were nuts about the banana seats, and everybody wanted to use those on their bikes.

Pretty funny how everything comes around again.