This bike, my very first bike, is older than I am. It’s been hanging from a hook, then sitting in a box in my dad’s shop for 35 years.
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I learned how to ride a bike on this bike. This bike has been jumped off of homemade wooden ramps, ridden on dirt paths through the neighbor’s woods and transported me back and forth to countless baseball and soccer practices.
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In the spring of 1980 I rode this bike 25 miles in the M.S. Bike-a-Thon to raise money for multiple sclerosis. Then later that summer I rode it 86 miles in 8 hours on a 2.5 mile course in the Pepsi-Cola Bike Challenge (see how far you can ride in 8 hours). I did it in blue jeans. And a raincoat. You can do anything when you’re 12 years old.
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It’s a little worse for wear. But I think we all would be if we went through all the adventures it has and then left neglected for three decades. Well it’s not going to be neglected anymore. It will be a project but I’m looking forward to giving the machine that first stirred my passion of riding a bike some TLC. Because it deserves it. And because it is the bike started it all. #SchwinnStingRayFastback