Schwinn Sting-Ray Designer Dies

[groveChuck]

If you were a kid in the 60's or 70's, you had, or wanted, a Sting-Ray. The banana seat and butterfly handlebars...
I had the Apple Crate, sigh... (seen below) 5 speed stick on the bar = bad a$$!!! :happy:
Some had a springer fork up front, true chopper style.

They were the precursor to the BMX bike.

Mine (locked) was stolen. I learned the world was not fair.
Then I got a 3 speed that I chopped with a hacksaw and 3 foot long tubes up front for forks (plus, of course, banana seat and butterfly handlebars), then I graduated to a 10 speed.

Al Fritz created stylish roadsters that were yearned for by young hot-rodders in the 1960s and ’70s. But his rolled on two wheels, not four.

Mr. Fritz, who died on Tuesday at 88 in Barrington, Ill., designed the Sting-Ray, the rugged, compact bicycle — instantly recognizable by its banana seat and high handlebars that curved like longhorns — that Schwinn sold in the millions, initially to baby boomers increasingly obsessed with souped-up vehicles of all kinds.

Mr. Fritz was Schwinn’s vice president for engineering, research and development in 1962 when he flew to Southern California to investigate an interesting new fad: children were buying used 20-inch bicycle frames and refitting them with long handlebars and banana seats. Mr. Fritz recognized the design’s appeal and built a mass-market prototype. Many Schwinn employees were skeptical, but Mr. Fritz prevailed and the first run of Sting-Rays was produced in 1963.
The Sting-Ray was a child’s chopper, available in brilliant colors like Flamboyant Lime and Radiant Coppertone.

The low-slung cruisers gave the unlicensed access to a children’s version of 1960s car culture: some bicycles came equipped with automobile accents like stick shifts and drum brakes. More than 25 different versions were made, including the Krate, which was styled like a dragster with a smaller front wheel, and the Slik Chik, a girl’s model.

Sting-Ray frames were often modified into precursors of modern BMX racing bikes. (Mr. Fritz was inducted into the BMX Hall of Fame in 2010 for his unintended contribution to the sport.) More than two million were sold before the model was discontinued in the late 1970s. Vintage models now sell for thousands of dollars.

http://wap.nytimes.com/2013/05/11/b...ting-ray-bike-dies-at-88.html?from=obituaries

 

[j1clark@ucsd.edu]

If you were a kid in the 60's or 70's, you had, or wanted, a Sting-Ray. The banana seat and butterfly handlebars...
I had the Apple Crate, sigh... (seen below) 5 speed stick on the bar = bad a$$!!! :happy:
Some had a springer fork up front, true chopper style.

They were the precursor to the BMX bike.

Never did own a storebought 'sting-ray' bike... while I did buy the handle bars... I made the seat from a 2x4 covered with padding...

Same story for my skateboard... old pair of roller skates... and the trusty 2x4...