Bike Rally

These classic bikes were ready for sale, as is, a few weeks back. No excuses! No regrets! No haggling! No mas! My red, Schwinn with the thin silver fenders and the old baseball cards a flappin' in the spokes would have fit nicely next to these fat-fendered numbers. To get the real strong rappin' noise, that I guess attempted to resemble a motorcycle's whine, you had to replace the cards every few days or so. No Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays or Whitey Ford ever got placed near the spokes either. This 'honor' was always reserved for the lesser named players and those you had doubles or triples of. Now, everyone in the neighborhood had their own unique bike look. Some of the girls had 'almost perfect' bikes with those plastic flowy things that hung off of their handle grips. Most of the guys all had bikes that were pretty much beat up but got the job done. Eddie got a new JC Higgins from the the guy he worked for at the candy store, but by the end of the summer the fenders were gone and it was but a shell of the bike new in May. The main job was getting from house, to house, to ball field, to the Corner, to treehouse and back home through backyard trails. Our bikes were for transportation not for show.
We truly were bikers!