My Motivation

My first bike came from a second hand store in 1963. Our country was reeling from the loss of our president, JFK, and no one felt secure. My family had moved three times that year and for me each time meant being the new kid at school routine all over again. My father had known I wanted a bike for a long time. He worked in sawmills and had four kids to support, and with three moves for the family that year, the possibility of owning a bike was the furthest thing from my mind. One day I came home from school and there it sat, an old used bike. He had paid five dollars for this bike which had huge tires and chipped-up rusted paint. The frame was red and fenders white with decent tread, and I couldn't believe my eyes. In those days five bucks for anything as frivolous as an old used bike was monumental, especially for an Oregon mill worker who had just moved his family and had started a new job in a different mill.

That was a tough year and it was about to get tougher because we suddenly up-rooted and moved again. This time we headed north to the Portland area where we had finally settled in long enough for me to finish the school year. As luck would have it, my folks bought a house in the same school district, and I got to begin the next year with the same kids I had finished the prior year with. By the time that summer was finished I had somehow traded my way into a Stingray looking knock-off wanna-be that was quite cheaply made. The biggest issue my second bike had was that the frame was weak. At that age it was all about jumps, wheelies, and down right hard riding. It wasn't long and I had busted the frame at the top tube right where it welded into the head tube. My neighbor had a welding torch and helped me out. He welded it with a coat hanger for welding rod. The weld held for a while, but soon after I made a hard landing after setting yet another neighborhood world record for the longest wheelie, and I found myself busted down again. I ask my neighbor for another fix, but the torch tank was empty.

The biggest problem wasn't that I had just broken my bike, I had broken my transportation, my work horse. I used this bike like a beast of burden. I had taken on a paper route delivering the Oregon Journal Newspaper every afternoon. I had these huge paper bags that held my papers strapped across the handle bars, and come hell or high water, I had a responsibility to my customers. They needed the weather report, and they also wanted to know the direction our country and the rest of the world was going. I was doomed! It was do or die. These people depended on me. There was no such thing as the Internet or text messaging. The TV stations were no where near as trustworthy as that all-mighty written word found in that greatest of publications, which I brought daily right to their door steps.

The day after my tragic failure I had gone to school and was haunted all day by the thought of doing my paper route without my rolling stock to assist in carrying that mass of news print. In sympathy my friend Rodger accompanied me to the house after the school bus brought us home, and I had taken him into the garage to see the damage. Upon circling around my mom's huge Oldsmobile station wagon with it's sharp jet plane like tail fins, I caught a glimpse of something shinny and different. We raised the garage door to let light in for a better look, and there stood a brand new metallic purple and chrome Schwinn Stingray bicycle. The tags were still dangling from the bars. I was stunned. Instantly I knew it was mine. It had to be mine. Who else could it have been for? I recall taking hold of it and jumping up and down screaming over and over, “I got a new bike!” I was saved. My customers would not have to go without knowledge of where and who they were in the world, and most of all, I was back on track to becoming the greatest wheelie rider in history.

What I didn't know at the time was that my mom had taken the money I had saved from my paper route to Ed's Bicycle Shop in Milwaukie, Oregon that day and used it for a down payment. I was suddenly stuck with making a two dollar a month payment to Ed for the rest of my life, or at least until the fifty nine dollars, minus the down payment, was paid off. It was my first introduction to the ways of American capitalism. Just when I thought I had a nice nest egg saved up, I found myself broke and enslaved to the credit system, and at such an early age. But at least I had a new Stingray, and it was purple. All I could think of was, way to go mom.

The one thing I have carried with me from that time is that I will never forget that sinking feeling when I was out for a ride, setting world records, and suddenly the unexpected happened. I will never forget the sound my frame made when it broke that day, and as a frame builder I vowed no one riding one of my frames will ever have to hear it either.