Old School





Our friend J has a passion for vintage Schwinn bikes. Perhaps, one of these beautiful machines looks familiar to you. If so, it's no doubt due to J's meticulous attention to detail as he strives to restore Schwinn bikes to a form unseen since their past. He uses the local route (craigslist, ksl news' classified section), and the non-local route (EBay and bike specific forums) to find vintage parts or bikes in need of repair. I think that he has a true passion to fix these machines and to ride them. The entry here is about 3 "kids" bikes, but he also has a few competition style road bikes that he's tinkering on.

J invited us to ride his bikes to the Farmers Market one Saturday, so we rode from his 9th and 9th neighborhood to downtown.
The following are the description of his bikes in his own words:

"1967 Black 5-Speed Fastback - 67 was a really cool year for these bikes, if you notice the steep down curve on the handle bars, something not seen in all Fastbacks or any other 20 inch bike. Black is super rare, and these bikes are Bling!"




"1971 Pea Picker Coaster Krate - They called these "Krates" all sorts of things, Cotton Picker ( a white one), The Orange Krate, The Lemon Peeler ( a yellow one). As far as I can tell a "Krate" bike means, you have suspension. Some of these bad boys have the 5 speed gearing with rear disk brakes and front drum brakes!!! I mean, come on late 60's and early 70's already sporting the disk brakes and full suspension, Schwinn was definitely ahead of times."


"1973 Sunset Orange 5-Speed Fastback - A real cool bike, a one year only color for the Fastback. It should have an orange glitter seat to be proper..."



Awesome stuff J! Can't wait to ride some more of your bikes! Thanks!






Posted: Mon - July 23, 2007 at 09:25 AM          

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