Conference noted::bicycle

        I have such a beast!  It was made by Schwinn and is
        called the Cruiser 5 because of the five speed freewheel.
        I bought it about 10 years ago and think the cost was a
        bit over $200.  The frame is the same HEAVY one that is
        used in their "heavy duty" paperboy model.  Tires are
        2-3/8 inch knobbies.  Color is fire engine red, of
        course.  I don't know how much it weighs, but would guess
        around 50 lb.  
        
        I made a few ECOs to the original design, including
        replacing the chainring with a much smaller one and
        adding a thumb shift lever.  I also installed puncture
        proof tubes (the ones with 1/2 inch thick rubber.)  The
        tires have seen lots of thorns but never had a flat.
        
        I don't know whether it is still being made or not.  It's
        worth looking at if you can find one.
        
        -Wil

    Yeah, boy, that's quality for ya, ya run into a Honda and the
    Honda gets totalled!
    
    Enjoy it, it's unique.
    
    ed

    Thinking about it, $200 isn't expensive. Especially if the bike
    was quality made. You can't get much that money these days. I'm
    assuming the purpose of these horses is the same as summer stroll
    through the woods. You don't want to induce cardiac arrest, just
    relax and soak up the great outdoors. 
    
    In years gone by, (I remember riding them) they were THE thing
    around (U.S.) because serious riding was a minute interest and
    cycling was not something the American public wanted to sink
    their money into. The fitness craze was less than an obscurity
    too. 

    
    	This must be where the term "Bullet Proof" originated :-)
    I remember suffering on one of these as a kid growing up in
    a very hilly city....not much has changed....but now it's
    Freewheels or Death.  I'll stick with my Old Schwinn 10 Speed
    with the indented down tube.  It weighs about the same as a
    California Bomber but it has stem mounted shifters (castraters?)
    to ease the up hill pain, and yes, it comes complete with an
    official Schwinn Headlight and Generator set.  What a great
    beater its been this winter....I'll never part with it.
    
    						Jerry

Columbia currently makes one.  It's over $300 (I think)...They claim that 
it's manufactured using some of the original dies from the '50s.  We're 
talking flared fenders, white-walls, two large coil springs beneath the 
saddle...

Definitely a sweet-looking bit of nostalgia...If I lived on or near a 
boardwalk, that would be a fine Sunday-morning ride...

							Mike

    Every time I go to a place that rents bikes, they have more of these
    bikes than any other kind.  I always wonder where they all came
    from.  Do they collect everyone's cast offs, like my department
    collects VT125's?
    
    I most recently saw these in Vermont and on Martha's Vineyard. 
    Veritable Sherman tanks of the biking business.
    
    :-)
    
    Elaine

    Such an outpouring of support for such a prehistoric machine.
    I bet you all drive '57 Chevy's too (or at least think about 
    buying one now and then) 
    
    Pee Wee Herman would be proud of you guys !
    
    (8-)           

    The last time I rode one of those bikes I was visiting some people on a
    farm in the DelMarVa penninsula (Delaware). I had just completed a tour
    and was, I thought, in good shape. A 10 year old kid pulled out two of
    these bikes and said "let's race". I was game and said "what the heck",
    thinking I'd have no problem blowing this kid off. Well, ... it turns
    out *his* bike had new tires, properly inflated to 45-50 psi and *my*
    bike had maybe 10 psi in those 26x2.25's on those sturdy steel rims. To
    make a long story short, I didn't win the race. 
    
    If you *must* ride one of those things, do it on level ground with the
    tires *HARD* and don't race any "smart" 10 year olds.
    
    So far as nostalgia in concerned, I don't have any fond memories of
    those bikes (or the kid either).
    
    Roger

    All it takes to make somebody a believer in these behemoths is to
    ride on the wet sand between the waves at sunset.
    
    MATT

    
    So let me see if I can summarize what I've found:
    
    Advantages of bicycles (regardless of #speeds) vs other modes of
    transport:
    	* Fresh air, getting out into the environment
    	* Good exercise
    	* Neat way to talk to people
    	* Fun to be out on the open road, watching your spokes gleam in the
    		sunlight.
    	* Cheap, clean transportation
    	* An uncomplicated way of getting back to basics
    	* A good way to beat the urban rush hour auto traffic
    
    Based upon these reasons, it can be seen that cruisers are as good as
    or superior to your multi-speed exotic-componented computer-designed space
    bikes with peculiar geometries:
    	* You can get fresh air on cruisers.
    	* You get more of a workout on cruisers than upon gearbusters.
    	* You are more approachable as a person than as a biker on a cruiser.
    		On a cruiser you wear normal clothes and are much more
    		sedate and normal.
    	* Cruisers will get you out on the open road.  You can ride across
    		the world without a lot of spare parts on a cruiser.
    	* Cruisers are much cheaper than expensive bikes.  You needn't be so
    		afraid they'll get stolen, or get wet.  You don't have to
                worry about using up the world's titanium or aluminum or 
    		graphite supply on a cruiser.
    	* Nothing is more uncomplicated than riding a cruiser.  Instead of
    		worrying about the proper gear, or what ratios overlap, or
    		fussing about your cables, you just get up and go.  You can
    		be much more aware of the world around you, and less on
    		bicycling for biking's sake.
    	*  You can beat the rush hour traffic on a cruiser.  In much more 
    		comfort and with much fewer flat tires.  And though cruiser
    		acceleration isn't so hot, the flywheel affect keeps me
    		travelling easy once I'm up to speed.
    
    
    	What advantage does the modern high-quality multi-speed bike have over
    	the cruiser?  Just one- you can get there faster.  This means that on
    	my 18-speed Cannondale I can ride for 4 hours and be somewhat farther
    	up the road than I would be riding a cruiser that same 4 hours.  It
    	also means that I can get a little farther up a hill on my Cannondale
    	without standing up on the pedals or getting off and walking.
    
    	Big deal.  So I give up a couple of miles per hour in exchange for
    	simplicity and comfort and cheapness and dependability.
    	And if I were in that much of a hurry to get anywhere, I'd drive my
    	car.  I'd say in terms of price/performance, a cruiser has your 
    	de Rosa beat, unless you're a professional racer.  And don't give
    	me that, because you work at DEC, and you only ride when you get a
    	free half hour in anyway.
    
    	Oh yeah, if you really want to impress other bikers, you can't do it
    	in a cruiser.  On the other hand, you can be sort of minimalist
    	counter-culture chic, disdaining the bourgeois cycling majority in
    	their brightly colored (expensive!) finery.  And you can disdain the
    	cycling magazines that pimp the latest cycling clothing, because
    	the clothing manufacturers advertise in them.  And you can always
    	claim that the cycling majority of the world, the people who use
    	cycles as their basic mode of transport and not as a mere weekend
    	hobby/status symbol, like about 100,000,000,000,000 people in 
    	China, all ride cruisers.  
     
                                 Dave

    I'll take exception with .11's taking exeception to .10.  The author's
    tongue was at least half in cheek, as evidenced by his own admission of
    owning a Cannondale.  He was just poking fun at the technology-worship
    that cycling has come to be.  I thought it was a nice piece of writing.

    
    No, I can't believe I omitted the most serious advantage of the cruiser
    over the racing bike:  The cruiser has a kick stand, and the latter, even
    if it came with a kick stand, you threw it away years ago.  Thus, over
    the long run, the cruiser ends up with fewer scratches from being leaned
    up against fire hydrants.
    
    	Dave
    

I just re-read this string.  No one has added anything to it in 
almost 7 years, so I assume the noters in here are more into the
super-tech side of bicycles, not the retro-tech side.

Am I wrong?  Are there any noters in here who own a Cruiser or a 
Sting-Ray or a Muscle Bike or a Chopper or a Lowrider? 

You don't have to be the fastest dope on the bike path 
to be the coolest...

-Vin

When shopping for a mountain bike this year, I saw (at least in the catalogs,
sometimes in person) brand new "cruiser" bikes from Specialized, Mongoose, Gary
Fisher and others. I think it was Specilized that had a few models, including
one that had shark fins and teeth.

I see a lot of *real* (old), Schwinn and the like ,cruiser bikes for sale these
days for big bucks.

-Jeff
 

RE: .15

I'm into retro bikes to some extent, but I prefer interesting European
10-speeds and English 3-speeds.  If I could find an old American baloon tire
bike from the 30's or 40's, I would probably be interested in restoring it as
well.  Right now, I am 1 1/2 weeks away from completing the 1968 Peugeot
restoration and hope to do a 1930's English 3-speed next.  Anyone have any
leads? 

For vintage American bikes, check out the WWW at:

            http://www.iea.com/~pixelboy/bikes/bikes.htm

Jim

    There is a link off of that page to a site with your 30's English
    3spd, did you see it?
    
    http://users.aol.com/Menotomy

Yes.  I have already been in touch.  They have some nice 60's English 3-speeds,
but they are not advertising anything older. I will try to go down there to
see what they have one day.

Jim

>> they are not advertising anything older.
On their 'Vintage' page:
    
1930s "The Royal London"   Men's model. Original Black paint. Blue, white and
gold pinstriping. Sturmey-Archer 3-speed with Quadrant shifter on the top tube 
(Low Neutral High) see picture. Rod brakes. Triple-spring Leather 'Olympic' 
saddle see picture. Original and Complete. Michelin Zig-Zag tires will need 
replacing if you are going to do much riding. Some rust on rims and bottom 
of fenders. 22" frame, 26" rims. $95