chopper bicycles....at Wal-Mart? The new Stingray

http://www.schwinnstingray.com/index.html




I don't know if this has been on here before, but these things are bad...not to mention a great source of parts for you bike builders. Dig the super fat rear tire:







A very fair price at around $175.00, all things considered. I know I have at least twice that in my flatlander. I'm going to get a blue one if I can find it.



They also have some funny videos like this:

http://www.schwinnstingray.com/video/wipingout.wmv

 

What part of Red China are they made in?
And how much is OCC getting for the tie in?

 

1. Don't care, and 2. don't care...

 

Very Kool bikes.....brings back some memories!

 

I spent 12 years of my life selling "real" Schwinns. The Chinese have whored em out worse than AMF did to Harley! I feel for my friends that worked hard to remake Schwinn into a leader in the 90s before the fall.

 

that back tire is neat. but i still like the old stingrays more.

 

I hear you,Tman....been in the bike biz for about 28 years now.These are the Next,Lung Chou Chee,crap,shit version.Schwinn doesn't exist anymore.Only the spelling on the decal is the same..

 

Schwinn is screwed, no doubt about that....I was collecting muscle bikes and freestyling in the 90's before they finally went down. It was sad...and still is.

I gave my brother a nice old school early freestyle Schwinn predator complete with the rock-n-roll seat, first version 990s, and a full assortment of Yo! stuff for his birthday a few years ago....he digs it.

But....this new bike, it is pretty cool. Granted I wouldn't ride one of their new 20"s for shit, but this should rattle a few cages, and if nothing else, put them into a few thousand homes and spawn or help fuel a new trend in bicycles. I would love to have a few more choices of hot rod bike parts to play with. The website says that they will have mag wheels and other parts for sale as well. That's cool with me.

Schwinn is not who they were, but neither are we...bottom line is that the new bike just flat rocks. Whoever is making it.

 

<font color="purple"> OK, I work at Wallyworld, and will soon be a bike assembler. I hadn't seen the new line up that is available. The only halfway cool bike is the Brats bike. It's just a typical lowrider with stickers put on it. It's purple too. I may see if I can order the parts I like, or it may be cheaper for just a whole bike and strip it. </font>

 

what size are dem bikes? i doubt any adult would be able to ride it if it is in proportion to a krate. thats coming from a guy who once rode a 24" lowrider bike about 20 miles straight! yes a 24" bike, old jc pennys girls bike i lowrided.

and them ain't CHOPPERS. those are CUSTOM bikes. you don't buy choppers, you build them. just as now, when i was young, i would have laughed at any dork who showed up on a stor bought bike like that. we built our own from a well stocked pile of parts.


chew on this: WAL MART

What does the squeeze look like at Wal-Mart? It is usually thoroughly rational, sometimes devastatingly so.

John Mariotti is a veteran of the consumer-products world--he spent nine years as president of Huffy Bicycle Co., a division of Huffy Corp., and is now chairman of World Kitchen, the company that sells Oxo, Revere, Corning, and Ekco brand housewares.

He could not be clearer on his opinion about Wal-Mart: It's a great company, and a great company to do business with. "Wal-Mart has done more good for America by several thousand orders of magnitude than they've done bad," Mariotti says. "They have raised the bar, and raised the bar for everybody."

Mariotti describes one episode from Huffy's relationship with Wal-Mart. It's a tale he tells to illustrate an admiring point he makes about the retailer. "They demand you do what you say you are going to do." But it's also a classic example of the damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't Wal-Mart squeeze. When Mariotti was at Huffy throughout the 1980s, the company sold a range of bikes to Wal-Mart, 20 or so models, in a spread of prices and profitability. It was a leading manufacturer of bikes in the United States, in places like Ponca City, Oklahoma; Celina, Ohio; and Farmington, Missouri.

One year, Huffy had committed to supply Wal-Mart with an entry-level, thin-margin bike--as many as Wal-Mart needed. Sales of the low-end bike took off. "I woke up May 1"--the heart of the bike production cycle for the summer--"and I needed 900,000 bikes," he says. "My factories could only run 450,000." As it happened, that same year, Huffy's fancier, more-profitable bikes were doing well, too, at Wal-Mart and other places. Huffy found itself in a bind.

With other retailers, perhaps, Mariotti might have sat down, renegotiated, tried to talk his way out of the corner. Not with Wal-Mart. "I made the deal up front with them," he says. "I knew how high was up. I was duty-bound to supply my customer." So he did something extraordinary. To free up production in order to make Wal-Mart's cheap bikes, he gave the designs for four of his higher-end, higher-margin products to rival manufacturers. "I conceded business to my competitors, because I just ran out of capacity," he says. Huffy didn't just relinquish profits to keep Wal-Mart happy--it handed those profits to its competition. "Wal-Mart didn't tell me what to do," Mariotti says. "They didn't have to." The retailer, he adds, "is tough as nails. But they give you a chance to compete. If you can't compete, that's your problem."

In the years since Mariotti left Huffy, the bike maker's relationship with Wal-Mart has been vital (though Huffy Corp. has lost money in three out of the last five years). It is the number-three seller of bikes in the United States. And Wal-Mart is the number-one retailer of bikes. But here's one last statistic about bicycles: Roughly 98% are now imported from places such as China, Mexico, and Taiwan. Huffy made its last bike in the United States in 1999.

end..

that last paragraph says it all to me. you'll thank us assholes when you start to care. wonder how many people huffy employED in the US? not many now. thanks wal-mart. thanks.

 

Putting alll politics aside, any "bike" bought at a department store is not a bicycle at all, it is a toy! Now am am going to to other threads and talk cars.

 

It is sad to see the downward spiral that Schwinn has taken. I worked at a Schwinn dealer from 90 to 99, and was a factory supported BMX racer throughout most of those years. The Pro Modified frames put out by Yeti were secnd to none. Now, things are different.

Hell, even the "real" sting-ray they have pictured is one of their re-pop's from a few years back.

 

fuckin garbage.

 

so who is going to be the first to cut one up and make it look nice???

-Rob "caffeine"

 

I'm thinking 3 1/2 horse Briggs and Stratton, a piece of conveyor tube, some bearings, a solid bar shaft, a Whizzer rear spoke belt pulley, a lawn mower lever throttle and a piece of steel plate welded where ther the crank is now.
There you have it, the ultimate Direct Drive Pit Bike(TM)
Jim

 

GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY

 

I've seen something like somewhere before, JimC...

 

I understand all about Wal-Mart, and it's contibution to the inevitable WWIII. All about it....it always gets rehashed as anything Wally World related comes up.

Chew on this:

http://www.jsonline.com/bym/news/dec03/195581.asp

It sucks. I care about America, but I don't care for grumpy cluckers not looking at the actual product and immediately slinging negative comments...the bike is exactly what the Krate was...different in a time of stagnant design. Period. It will inspire and fuel along a few more styles and help feed parts and customizers...

I'm aware of Schwinn's demise, Huffy's unfortunate plight, of the crappy Wal-Mart squeeze, and the inferior quality of department store bikes, (which most Krates were to begin with) and the fact that choppers are built...Like I said, it's a good source of bash parts...which I intend to use...the rear tire is pretty impressive.

I like bikes, and I like to tinker with them.
Anyone who collects bike stuff, knows that these bikes and the related literature will be worth more with time. People like Purple would be wise to squirrel away anything related to these bikes. Schwinn fanatics rival most car people in terms of dedication...the bike is pretty cool. Not for everybody, but for what it is, and what it is doing, it's not bad.

And, you can buy it at Toys R Us. Online even. And on Ebay.

With the golfcart craze going on at car shows, I'd like to see more hot rod bicycles, they hurt less when they run into you, and eventually, the drunk people will crash out instead of sailing down the aisles oblivious and wide open....

I always keep a bike handy, for when the car breaks, I call it "Plan B".

 

And here is an old "pile bike" of mine...Sears Screamer coaster mag, rat trap forks, rusty Schwinn apes, drilled Mongoose front rim, and an old mono shock frame.

Zoom zoom.

 

I might steal that seat for my triumph chop, i wonder how wide it is.

 

well like it or not they wil;l be the MOST STOLEN bike in the USA! lETS BUY EM ALL AND MOTORIZE EM AN SELL EM ON EBAY TO PREVENT THAT!

 

I know that Bratz bike you're talking aobut, Purple... it doesn't look too bad, either. Wouldn't take much but some fabric and a can of spray paint to make that a cool little cruiser. I'm too big for it, but I still like it a lot. I'd keep it out of the rain though... I'm sure that chrome doesn't come any cheaper.

 

F.H. I built one of those when I was 14.
Mine was a regular frame used 26 inch Schwinn.
A neighbor worked for a local bread company as maintenance supervisor and furnished me with a section of conveyor tube and the pullys and bearings.
I had a local welder weld in a steel plate above the crank hanger and the tube about half way up on the seat down tube.
I ran a belt from the out put pully on the engine to one end of the tube pulley, then fit a Whizzer prear wheel pulley on the rear spokes with a belt from it to the other end of the pulley shaft on the down tube.
I stole a lever throuttle cable from an old lawnmower.
I had to push it to start it and hop on it quickly.
If I missed, and I did once, I had a run away until it fell over.
Finally got enough nerve to ride on my paper route.
I was right down town Webb City having a ball and throwing papers right and left.
When, to my complete surprise, one of Missouri's finist troopers pulls me over.
I really think he got a kick out of it, but when he found out it was not liscenced or nor did I have a driver's liscence, he made me push that thing home.
I lived on the west side of town and I had to push that thing nearly two miles.
Why did I not build with a low compression motor?
He followed me all the way. too.

Jim

 

In my opinion, they suck, except for the tires.

 

i'd buy my 9 year old son one of those, and give it to him after I "altered" it a little. Better than alot of shit kids are riding these days.

 

Here's one I made from an old Fuji mountain bike. Had to cut the pedal cranks down about an inch to keep my feet from slapping the ground tho'

 

Did anybody notice the OCC tie-in? I guess each bike will come complete with dings from flying tools...

Schwinn and Orange County Choppers Team to
Bring Back the Sting-Ray


January 23, 2004 -- MADISON, WI – Schwinn bicycles, one of America’s favorite and most recognized brands, has joined forces with Orange County Choppers, the company that has garnered worldwide recognition for building custom motorcycles and is featured on the popular Discovery Channel show “American Chopper,” to create customized Schwinn Sting-Ray bicycles.

The Schwinn Sting-Ray, widely regarded as the most popular bicycle ever created, is returning to stores for the first time in more than 30 years. The new Sting-Ray sports a contemporary design that takes its cues from great American motorcycles. To commemorate the redesign of this classic, Schwinn has partnered with Orange County Choppers (OCC) to use the OCC logo on all editions of the new Sting-Ray for mass retail sales, as well as use of the OCC name for Sting-Ray parts and accessories. Besides creating 10 customized versions of the Sting-Ray, OCC will also develop one Special Edition Sting-Ray that incorporates some of OCC’s unique designs.

“The original Sting-Rays of the 1960s and ‘70s were very cutting-edge and often modified by their owners,” explained Paul Silver, Schwinn’s Vice President of Marketing. “We thought it would be fun to do the same today, but as the Sting-Ray has evolved, so too has the customization of bikes. Who better than Orange County Choppers to create a line of special edition, customized Sting-Rays?”
“We’d never customized a non-motorized bike before, but when we heard Schwinn was bringing back the Sting-Ray and wanted to build some customized versions, we jumped at the opportunity,” said Paul Teutul Sr., founder and owner of Orange County Choppers. “These new Sting-Rays are the coolest bikes I’ve ever seen coming straight out of the factory. Schwinn built the cake, OCC is putting the icing on it.”

The classic Schwinn Sting-Ray was introduced in 1963 and remained on the market until 1979, concurrent with the American muscle car craze. There were essentially four models: The basic Sting-Ray; the Sting-Ray Deluxe (that added chrome fenders and white wall tires); the Sting-Ray Super-Deluxe (that added a springer fork); and the Krate series (that added a five-speed “Stik Shift,” shock struts on the rear seat and had a 16” front tire and a 20” rear tire).

Established in 1977, Pacific Cycle, LLC is the nation’s number one supplier of quality bicycles. It designs, markets and imports a full range of bicycles and recreation products under the brand names of Schwinn, GT, Mongoose, Mongoose Pro, Pacific, InSTEP, Roadmaster, Flexible Flyer, Powerlite, Murray and Dyno. Pacific Cycle is headquartered in Madison, Wisconsin with offices in Olney, Illinois and Lake Forest, California. It has distribution centers in Olney, Illinois, and Vacaville, California, and a design/test center in Longmont, Colorado.

Established in 1999, Orange County Choppers grew out of Orange County Ironworks, a steel fabrication enterprise founded nearly 30 years ago by custom chopper builder and rider Paul Teutul Sr. Today, Orange County Choppers has garnered worldwide praise and recognition for their custom motorcycles.

 

The new model is ugly. There's not even a trace left of the old model.

 

maybe I should trade in my bike , so I can get a new OCC sting ray from WAL MART....... I don't think so........... LUKESTER

 

My first non "Huffy" was a '89 Predator. Purple, with the YO! disc covers, roller seat, the works. I still have the frame, but I'm gonna rebuild it with most of an old Detour I have lying around. Which reminds me, anyone know where to get bearing cups for Haro Fusion 3 piece cranks?

Jay