My Schwinn Speedster has been through more than I can imagine, it was assembled sometime early in 1959 in the Chicago Schwinn factory and was eventually purchased by myself for $80 dollars (about $36 more then it originally cost) at a local bicycle swap meet. The previous owner knew nothing of the bikes personal history, but from the faded bicycle license sticker on the headtube, I was able to discover that it had been registered somewhere in Oregon in 1965. I know nothing more of the roughly 50 year past that the bike has before its faithful meeting with myself in 2009.
When I purchased the poor old girl, she was in a sad state, with a seized headset, one pedal, two flats and a chain that was rusted solid. The bike had spent a great deal of time outdoors and was feeling the ill effects of the wet winters we have. WD-40 quickly remedied the rather crunchy feeling bearings of the headset and bottom bracket, and after an hour or so in some paint thinner, the old chain was feeling pretty limber. After rebuilding the coaster brake, giving the frame a polish and replacing the tubes, I was off, cruising the sea wall, running up to the beer store, and just generally commuting around the neighbourhood in classic fashion.
The 1959 catalog lists the Speedsters shipping weight as roughly 50 pounds. I can attest that it feels closer to 60 or 70 pounds when the well worn (original) balloon tires are sluggishly ploughing along the pavement. The bike is the basic model with just a coaster brake and was listed for $54 US dollars in 1959. It was marketed towards high school and college students.
She creaks and she groans, but the classic feel of the bike once you get all that weight up to speed, cannot be beat. With the steering agility of a mid 70′s Cadillac and braking performance similar to that of a fully loaded freight train, rides around the packed Stanley Park sea wall can become dangerous quickly, but It’s all part of the character, charm and adventure of riding a bike that is more then twice my own age. I wish the bike could tell me where she has been or who has ridden her, but that I’ll never know, It’s up to me to create my own memories.
