![]() I always still sorta like the bars with less sweep, but I did like the glitter banana seats. Not sure when it disappeared from my life for good- think I sold it getting ready for college. I was older then and it never saw much use. I ended up getting a 3 speed wheel for the Sting Ray, put a handbrake on, a silver glitter tuck and rolled seat and painted it metallic blue, and put some chrome short flared fenders similar to those in photos above. I once toyed with the idea of trading the Varsity for a Fastback- but glad I didn't. By then the Fastback Sting-Ray was out, with a 5 speed derailleur, as well as the Crate models. I got my first ten speed varsity in '68- (see thread Gare's Schwinn)- but I still had the old sting ray and clunker even. When I raced USCF years later, he eventualy raced in the Veterans Division into his 50's. He had built me a 26" clunker before I could fit it, so it was then that we went on a ride together at times- me on the sting ray and he riding the clunker. My "Sting Ray" stayed the same after Dad rebuilt it. I was never much of a trick rider but could do a wheelie a short bit. The tire I was in search of was a wide knobby tread rear- I loved it because I did a lot of riding through woods and it was great on dirt.īut a year or two later the "Slick" tire got more popular even- with no tread at all- Schwinn brand named "Slik" ![]() That purple Deluxe above just screams '1967" at me, because of the downward back sweep of the bars. ![]() The bars were similar- at first a simple straight perpendicular end to them, then more sweeped at times as the next few years passed. The glitter and tuck and rolled seat took a few more years to surface. The banana seat then was a simple white thing with a rear support bar only a couple of inches over the saddle- I didn't hear the term "sissy bar" for several years when they started at times getting longer and longer- even with a padded headrest sometimes- but all former models seemed still in use and for sale otherwise. When I was ten, in '64 my dad took me all over town in search of the elusive components to convert the JC Higgins to a Sting Ray- I think the bars, saddle and tire may all have been found at different places, but I recall they weren't all together in one locale anyway- It was a whole new thing sweeping the country. I got my first bike for Christmas in 1960 when I was six- a little red 20" JC Higgins middleweight I finally got to ride around with my generally older friends. I was ten years old in 1964 and sorta followed the development of the "Sting Ray" the next few years- As I always heard it- the name "Sting Ray" applied to any bike with high rise bars and a banana seat- the larger rear tire seemed part of the equation- I'm not sure if Schwinn actually coined the name or had the fortune of adopting it first.
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