Schwinn's first purpose built mtb was the Sidewinder, which was basically a balloon-tired Varsity. It had a kickstand, too... and some fairly useless sidepull brakes. Keep in mind, mountain bikers had been removing kickstands and adding cantilever brakes to much older Schwinns for years by the time the Sidewinder came out. Maybe Schwinn could've paid attention?
there was one of these that was almost identical on my local Craigslist but ti was a 1973Just picked this little 83 Schwinn BMX from a friend of mine pretty cheap.. I mainly bought it for the wheels and tire set but I'd figure I fix it up and leave the wheel on it.. Has the wrong stem so I'm the hunt for one that belongs to it and also going to straighten out the forks cuz as you can see they a bit bent.. Just do a complete resto.. should be fun..
'73? Nope. The bike in the OP looks to be a Thrasher, which is not a Chicago Schwinn. The closest Schwinn to that from the 70s was the Scrambler; they first came out in '75 but these earliest Scramblers were canti-framed--- basically a reinforced/stronger version of the Stingray frame. By 76 or 77, Scramblers were available with the diamond frame; some had curved sting-ray style rear triangles; others had straight rear-ends. The rear-entry track-ends and frame gussets appeared in the late 70s. I'm willing to bet your local Craigs had a late 70s Scrambler on offer, which at $35 would be a nice score..
Absolutely. I find that CL ppl listing a bike that's kinda old will exaggerate to make it seem older, and bikes that are kinda new are exaggerated to seem newer. Hence, a '79 becomes a "73", and a 2006 becomes a "2012"...
There's also tons of ppl who just don't know, although there's no excuse with most Schwinns, with the serial number cheat sheets and catalogs online....
Yes it is.. I have been trying to really find out what it realy is and come a cross some info to ID it as a Thrasher..
You should have bought it for that price and turned around and flip it and make some extra $$$ or keeped it and restored it..
No need to apologize.. Actually I'm learning alot here as you explain the deatails on all the different years, styles, and info that I didin't know about them.. So please continue and educate us all.. I'm sure we will all come back to read this post and study the different things that might help in case we come across another killer score on old school Schwinn bmx 20" 24" or 26" cruiser..Hey, Chattymatty.... I could never forget about the KingSting, although that thing rides the fence between mtb and BMX cruiser even more than the Sidewinder does. Both the King Sting and the Sidewinder, though, were severely lacking in the brakes dept, and were geared pretty high... I wonder if the Sidewinder would've done better just by having cantilevers.....Actually, with as many as there are still out there, I guess they sold fine.... but the guys who'd just bought a Spesh or any of the Japanese bikes probably showed up all the Schwinn guys on the trail, so there weren't as many repeat-buyers of early Schwinn mtbs as they would've liked.
Excellent point re: the California Cruiser/ Klunker 5.... Of course, by then, California Cruiser was an incorporated business or whatever, and Schwinn should've known better... but the "Klunker 5" debacle seems unfair, looking back at how the majority of the original klunkers were repurposed Chi-town Schwinns.
In other news, I put a 2.125" Kenda k80 mounted to a 7x knockoff into the rear of my collegiate. It was a bit tight, but it fit.... slightly more room than the same set-up had in my '79 Varsity frame. (I rode some light trails with the k80 in the Varsity.... no rubbing, but had there been even the tiniest hop in the rear rim, it would've....) The Collegiates seem to have the same basic front triangle as the 27"-wheel lightweights, but the rear triangle is slacker and longer, so I guess there's more wiggle-room if you run the rear wheel pretty far back in the drop-outs. NBD, though.... that particular Collegiate has a different fate than the faux-Sidewinder build. I'll PM you re: the frame you have, soonish.
Aray51, sorry for the thread hijacking; again, your Thrasher rules, nice score, I'm serious even if this probably reads as me just trying to do some CMA-work!
i tried to but it was sold before i could reply to it
