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It depends on what the bike will be used for. I would ride a 20"er around the block, maybe even a mile or two for kicks. But if I'm going to ride across town, I need something with a bit more room and comfort (though that may still include a 20", depends on what it is). But I've also got four kids, and at some point, they will all have custom 20" bikes to ride. I've been known to jump on my boy's 16" and cruise the yard with it... LOL

But to bring it back around, I'm not about restoring them unless there's real money in it. I'm the same with cars. They were made to be enjoyed, and I enjoy them by fixing them and riding them. Doesn't matter what kind.
 
Ok B607 I have been to two worlds fairs and an axle greasing and I have never seen a Stingray with a tank. If it wasnt done so well I would think it was a home concoction that was made just to throw off younger people.....Kinda like that rabbit head with deer horns. Jackalope :shock: :shock: :shock:
 
Hey man, I am from texas I can tell you the jackalope is real.

B607, well said sir. Everytime I see a grown man on a stingray or 20" Bmx, I can't help but think " That dude really wants everybody to know he owns that thing" Sure you can ride it, heck I can sit on a kids trike and get it to move, but then my knees hurt and I look like a pig trying to fly ( no swine flu jokes please!) In a lot of ways this site has kind of become 50/50 rats, customs, restores and then on the other side 20" Bmx? It's kind of a weird mix. Kind of sticks out like a turd in a punch bowl . That being said I guess I just never got into the whole Bmx or krate thing and I am 27. I am definetly more into tank bikes. When I get around to having a kid believe me he is getting a krate, but at some point he will out grow it. I guess I just don't see the point of having a bicycle sized trophy. rant over. 8)
 
B607- very cool bike. I like the mix of the two bike genres.

20" bikes are for our kids. Mine loved his until he was corrupted with a Mountain bike.
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Well at least this post got some discussion going . I really had hoped to stir some enthusiam for a full restore corner,but rats are here where it is totally acceptable to weld something strange on a vintage bike without a second thought...so lighten up on me when I blow the paint off of every frame I own. If they would have had rattle cans in the late 1800s we wouldnt have to be sanding house paint off of everything we find.
Oh and I'm from Texas too and I'm not totally sure about the jackalope. Strange things happen here with the gene pool at times so I guess its possible . I knew this girl one time.....ok thats another story :roll:
 
ill back you up in the full restore corner UncleStretch, i just have fun playing with bikes, Im not really all that creative so back to stock is fine with me. just as long as its fun :mrgreen:
 
To be honest I really have no use for ridding a bike. I build them for the fact that trying to come up with with cool ideas keeps my mind going. If God had of wanted me to ride a bike he would have either not invented a motor or made my but smaller to fit a bike seat. Kinda like when I was a cop...if they had wanted me to run after people they would have bought my shoes instead of a car. I love to come up with the best that my limited talents will produce. Sometimes I really like what I have built and sometimes they turn out just so so. I see those guys build stuff with the wheel only hooked on one side and I think how is that really done and can that be safe. It still blows me away. There is talent here in alot of forms. Some metal work and some paint techniques. I dont have the patients for a perfect paintjob ,but I can weld my but off and nothing I have ever welded has ever broke. I really miss building my own frames . Its dirty nasty smokey work but man its fun. I have learned alot here and I hope I have contributed a few ideas to others. Its been a hoot.
 
I see where Uncle Stretch is coming from, I'm only a scrawny 19 year old and it's sort of hard to ride a 20 incher. That's why I'm gradually clearing them out of my collection, and moving vintage 26ers in.

One more thing while on the topic of ranting. I really don't get why people strip the original paint of bikes, just to paint them flat black or any other color for that matter. The number of rattle canned flat black bikes grows at a steady rate making you less and less unique, but the number of original bikes grows smaller by the day. I just don't get it, in my mind a slightly rodded original looking bike is WAY cooler than a flat black cruiser with apes and a banana seat.

I also don't get why people put apehangers on vintage 26" bikes! Argh!

Rant over.
 
I don't have any interest in 20" bikes for my self, so what? I don't mind looking at them. What got me participating in this forum was people doing something with older and custom bikes other than letting them rot in the basement, throwing them in the trash, or nitpickity concours restorations, followed by auctioning them off at Sotheby's like they were the Mona Lisa. Secondly, but no less important, there's very little of the snarky and insulting snobbery so common in many forums devoted to usable collectible items, both in print and online. You know, your brand/type/age/treatment is not like mine, therefore it is crap and you are stupid. I think it's great when old bikes can be kept whole, when old paint is still there, and I respect the efforts of those who try to restore them "authentically", but these things are not George Washington's wooden teeth or the cure for cancer. Mass produced bicycles were made to be used, and to make money for sellers and manufacturers, they exist for no other reasons. "Restoration" seems to always come with "Original '53 Whackdoodles have cadmium reflector brackets, yours are chrome, you are a hack, your efforts are a complete abomination! SNORT!!" Rebuilding and customizing come with "yeah, I'm a hack, here's my hacksaw, my hack knife, my hack license, what about it?" We're also fortunate to have actual builders here, who start with pieces of tube and flat metal and make their entire bike. They, AND the 20" crowd are both preferable to bike elitists, whether antique or performance based, and always a source of new ideas and technical information. 8)
 
I quit riding my twenty inchers last year when I caught myself in the reflection of a hardware store window. My wife would complain when going on rides when I'd grab one of my old bmx bikes that I really looked more like a circus bear than a cyclist. Room is another issue so I put all of the little guys up into the attic and have been giving them away to deserving kids ever since. My buddy is a cop and lets me know when a family has had a bike stolen and can't afford another one.
Big bikes from now on here, I just need to start making them a bit more comfortable, seems like the cooler the build the harder the ride sometimes.

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A big puffy seat and 24 x 3'' tires on a 26'' frame should make it about as comfy as you can get plus it will look cool too.
 
mastronaut said:
Excellent bike dripping with sarcasm! Please fill me in on that bike, I too have never seen one with a tank before... :eek:
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Dripping with sarcasm! You don't know just how well that describes my personality. 8) The "StingRay" is actually a '67 Fleet 20" frame with the original hanging tank. Got it years ago from Bob Morfey for $25. The 20" hanging tanks never had a horn. I originally wanted to build a 20" Phantom but could never find the parts I needed. This was 20 yrs ago before ebay. I had all the StingRay parts laying around so I put them on the Fleet but kept the Phantom paint job. The frame is (I think?) the same dimensions as a "shorty" StingRay. It's a suicide bike. You can do a wheelie with little effort, and if you really try to do one, you end up on your .... I can see why Schwinn did away with the shorty and lengthened the frames a bit. Gary
 
FWIW, I ride mine. I had one when I was 12 and used it for my paper route after school. Had a big basket over the front tire that would spill out all the newspapers when I'd hit an ice patch and dump the bike. Show me a kid today who'd even go outside in the cold, let alone ride a bike laden with 50 newspapers in the snow, sleet and rain.

Yeah, I may look a little stoopid riding it, but no cruiser bike is as nimble as these 'Rays. I wish I had my original Coppertone, but it's long gone. This '69 Flamboyant Red one is what got me back into biking.

Spin


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Rat Rod said:
benz said:
It's kind of a weird mix. Kind of sticks out like a turd in a punch bowl
Click to expand...

Looks like we just found our next Rat Rod Bikes shirt slogan... :lol:
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if so, royalties baby!
 
Ok, well I thought this place was open to all types of bikes, with the emphasis on personalising them for yourself and no-one else. And I suppose in the land of milk and honey (the States) you guys have the freedom to pick and choose what you want to do. But, and I've said this before, in some places it is near on impossible to find a frame with any character at all that isn't a 20. Look at Australia for example. We got the little Schwinns and that's it. Nowadays there are bigger Schwinn Sparker's and a few similar size cruiser bikes, but I'm not willing to fork out a whole pay check for one. And anyway, I thought that that was the whole idea behind the slightly overused and sometimes misunderstood idea of "rat rodding". Run what ya brung. And I don't mean to offend at all, but I would have thought someone on a beautifully restored 70 year old boardtracker had more in common with the Hawiian shirt wearing driver of an aqua-marine, billet wheeled 40 Ford, than he did with some young dude who can't afford rent but makes sure he's got the right oil and his whitewalls are clean on his banged-up old Holden (that's what we call a Chevy over here :wink: )... Please, correct me if I'm wrong...
 

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