No self-respecting kid in the 60s had a wheelie bar. They were like training wheels. We freewheeled, barefoot, baseball cards in the spokes with clothespins, all summer long.
Bet wheelie bars taught a lot of kids how to do real wheelies. Just keep setting it higher and try. They cut down on the crashes and donation of skin on the road. I wasn't interested in wheelies, my thing was high speed. I needed body armor. And maybe a parachute.
@@darrellcook8253 !!!!!! Lolol I should have either killed myself or at least seriously injured myself dozens of times on my spider bike! Nothing but luck helped me get through childhood! Ramps made from almost everything imaginable. I made jumps off the roof the garage, across the highway, across the creek, over my friends bodies, over my pets, even several times over burning charcoal and lighter fluid! Seriously should have been hurt! Good times, back in the day with new found freedom on a bicycle!
Like my wife says the reason there are so many stupid people in the world is because they came out with the bicycle helmet laws and we didn’t get the thin out the herd when they were young.
Back in the day 1.5 litre coke was in a frikin giant glass Coke bottle. Someone had the idea that if you cut it in half, it would be an awesome mug. They sold this plastic gadget with a steel cutting wheel to do the trick. No safety glasses included.
Wow, me too. Most folks think the fogger was insecticide (and some may have been) but it was usually to distribute a thin layer of oil on any standing water so the mosquitoes can't breed in it. The vapor was diesel fuel or heating oil (or even waste oil) just slowly dripped into the hot exhaust of an engine. I think of it every time a diesel truck is "rolling coal".
I can still hear my Father calling my name. Calling me home. He would stand on the front steps and call in the direction he had guessed I was at the time. I am way older than he was back then! This video brings back a lot of good memories.
I never saw one either...I saw "sissy" bars, I even remember a "Swing Bike" back in the '70s, but not wheelie bars. Looks a little too much like training wheels to have been taken seriously in my neighborhood when I was a kid.
@@boataxe4605 Two brakes one for each rear wheel a little there and a little there, of course his big balls centered in the middle did most of the work...
I agree the biggest problem is today kids don't exercise like we did. My wheels were 2 wheels until I got that driver's license. In a way I miss it. No insurance, no tags, no having to pay for gas, I did landscaping for years as my bike being mode of trans. Pull mower behind with tools strapped to it. Rode to and from school. Got home. Grabbed my tools and worked until dark. Saturday out door before 8 am so I could be at hardware store to buy what I needed for next job. Spend most of day delivering stuff to job sight. Then start job. Leave at dark. Next morning back to job sight. Late 70s and early 80s most months made $5,000 . That $5k back then. :D Now I'm a fat, old, and broke man. :p
No shit .....but my fat ass did okay wheelies on ten speeds finding the right gear ratio....I wasnt that fat but my sense of balance couldn't get that wheelie sweet spot.....I could ride backwards ( sitting on handle bars....shifting my weight to steer .... pedaling )around the friggin block....
Boy, I sure do miss that kind of fun! I did so many wheelies with mine that the front axle bearing gave out, and don't forget the bald back tire with the cord showing because of all the coaster brake skids.
We bought slicks for the back tire. Oh they would lay some rubber with those coaster breaks! I wore my slick out and my Dad stopped my allowance till I had paid for the replacement.
@@boataxe4605 It's when you slammed back down on the front tire that did the damage. We had the same issue. If you did a real jump (airborne) and landed on the rear tire then the front slammed down.
I had an Orange Sting Ray and never saw a wheelie bar. We never wore a helmet, jumped homemade ramps and even sledded behind Dad driving the station wagon. Man, the Sixties and Seventies were awesome.
Yes, I lived it too. Way before America went all to crap and hell with constant laws to supposedly falsely keep you safe. All these laws for safety where and are nothing but a money grab. Freedoms disappeared slowly but surely. No seatbelt laws, no mandatory auto insurance laws, no helmet laws, no back of truck bed laws, no gestapo laws but freedom. USA TITANIC is nothing but drones, satellites, cell phones, laptops, desk computers, Smart TV etc.... constantly watching you and tracking you no matter where you are. Socialist, communist, big brother government meddling in your life is all it is now. But my 1969 Schwinn stingray with the sissy bar, banana seat, extended forks, and streamers, metal flake gold color with my 5¢ Topps baseball cards on the spokes ran great! A time 10'of millions alive then and now remember and won't ever be back. Glad I lived it. The wheely bar was alive and well back then, but few kids had them.
I had a stingray bike and on a good day I could ride a wheelie around my block twice. I never knew a wham-o wheelie bar existed. I'm so sad to hear you can't do a wheelie without one.
My uncle was a mechanical welder at Hues Corp.back in my pre-teens..he made us these wheelie bars out of Tungsten Carbide Steel..they lasted forever ..I still have mine put away
It's amazing that we survived the 70s, riding barefoot, encouraging wheelies... Now you practically have to wear bubble wrap if you want to ride a bike! Those were the days! :) And we survived...
yeah I rode down Queen Anne Hill in Seattle turned a corner and woke up 8 days later, after receiving my last rites, in the hospital...I'm still deaf in my right ear because of it...
Good times. Jumped my bike so many times that I broke the front axle once when landing. Bruised and hands cut up. Oh well. New axle and back at it again !
On Saturdays when Evel Knievel jumped on Wide World of sports, us kids would go outside after the TV show ended, and we jump our bikes. I had broke many frames, stretched front forks beyond fixing, completely broke many back wheels.
What nobody talking about cutting up a pair of forks and then using a hammer to beat the ends onto the forks of a stingray to make it a chopper? Mine had 3 forks on each side. My buddy had 4. That was was about the limit.
The sixties and seventies were a good time to be a kid. You could actually step outside without having to worry about being kidnapped, molested,or murdered. Decent parents today don't dare to let their kids out of their sight
This made me grin from all the nostalgia of being a kid in the 60's and 70's 😂 But then out of nowhere it made me cry because my parents, my grandparents, and a ton of my friends that I spent my childhood with are no longer here 😢 A message to all kids: Enjoy your youth while you still have it. Be a kid as long as you can and don't rush getting old. Because once your childhood is gone, it's gone forever.
I met him in 1996 clay city drag strip in Kentucky he started his wheelie in the staging lanes way before you got to the Christmas tree blew us away 2 wheels all the way down the track got autographs posters decals shirts all kinds of stuff from him a great guy he was a showman
I remember being the first kid in Rossford Ohio to have a 5 speed Shimano stick-shift banana-bike, wasn't a Schwinn. Wish I had it today. I remember my Uncle Robert paid $79.00 for it at White Auto.
That was a ton of money! When I was 10 years old I worked all winter shoveling snow and bought a twist-grip 3-speed bike from Firestone in Oskaloosa, Iowa. Cost around $50. It even had a headlight!
@@gehlen52 I was 10 in 1965 when I bought my bike. In '69 I sold a 4-H club calf and bought a Rupp Roadster minibike. No more pedaling for me! $300. Unfortunately, it was a complete pile of junk.
Goofy fashion over utility. How much protection does spandex provide? And IMO those foam helmets look stupid, like a tennis shoe worn on the head. Don't get me started on suits and military uniforms worn by the officers. North Korean hats for instance. Skyscrapers.
@@darrellcook8253 Spandex isn't for protection. It's meant to make the rider more aerodynamic. The people who wear that stuff are focused on speed. I don't personally care for it but I'm not looking for KOMs in Strava or riding in the Tour de France. And there's more going on than styrofoam in their helmets these days.
I was born in 1966. LOL I remember riding with bare feet and swimming suit all summer. The banana seat helped with wheelies. Never had a wheelie bar though. I remember on the farm riding down a dirt road hill by the barn. I looked back at my neighbor friends and hit a rock. I toppled and slid on my right side with my arm above my head. I got up and looked at my right knee and could see my kneecap through a hole in my skin about the size of my thumb. My right side was one big road rash. My older sister came out with a wheel barrow and put me in it and wheeled me to the house. When my parents got home, they took me it to get 3 stitches. I must have been about 7 years old then. LOL
Oh hell yeah! I split my jaw in half with one of those chopper bikes to this day I have limited movement when I went right over the handle bars due to the small front tire on those things. Miss those times.
@@darrellcook8253 lol. If you were lucky. Used both many times. Now I was a 70s kid. And don't remember a wheels bar for bikes. But I do remember the Evil Kinvel, hand reverse. Vroom vroom. Lol.
I remember these. And I remember thinking, "how ridiculous." You want to ride a wheelie you figured out toe get that front tire off the ground by yanking on those handle bars and pedaling hard. Once it's up you learned how to keep it up. I got to where I could ride for hundreds of yards across parking lots or down the street.
Dick Landy! Bill Golden! The Little Old Lady From Pasadena! In one ad, amazing. I remember the wheelie bars and the big "uproar" about the supposed dangers of Sting-Ray bikes. My folks would let me have one.Pretty funny. Love the barefoot riders.
I grew up with the Families of who owned WHAM-O (The Kneers and Melins)...my older brothers had their own Wheelie Bars too and their fare share of hurts too learning the curve of that Wheelie Bar....but they soon were doing Hang Tens on their Banana Seats! But that Fad wore off fast and they were back to free wheeling their way WITH scrapes!
In this new world someone would probably sue Wammo or arrest the parents or worse! Or the kid would be arrested. I saw a cop in NY pull his gun out for a kid popping a wheelie on a dirt bike. This is the new world, and I really don't care for it. Sorry everyone for throwing that in there! Great video, thank you!!
Because I was born in 70 I can relate with this: we didn’t wear shoes, shirts, or helmets. We played outdoors until the streetlights came on. It’s so different today.
Yes. Born in 68. We always found something to do. When the streetlights came on, it was time to throw rocks at the bats flying around. Now it's all Xbox and hot pockets
I don’t remember ever seeing the wheelie bar. We had sissy bars, banana seats and our parents cars had no seat belts and metal dashboards. But I do remember having to go home when the street lights came on.
Man I was riding the most epic wheelie for this new girl that just moved in our area . I had two best friends that were twins. They was 4 years older than me and they took good care of me . As I rode by them Bobby had his tongue down her throat ..... he and her was an item for years then they got married ..... I spent the rest of the day heartbroken it was nice to Be comforted. she helped me get through it ......... Bobby's gone now But Billy and I are still friends . R.I.P. BOBBY save me a place at the table in Heaven cause I'm coming someday .....
@@boataxe4605 HAHA GOOD one I think your right but I didn't see it that way. And I know that wasn't his intention. His excuse for just the act of doing a wheelie was I would wreck and ruin my bike.LOL
In late 70’s and early 80’s me and my friends rode all over the neighborhood. I learned my way around pretty well. We used to ride wheelies without anything like this. We could ride as long as we wanted on the back tire. Never saw a Wheelie Bar for a bike and don’t remember even seeing this commercial.
I'm too young to remember this but I remember the R r r r Power thing for your handle bar that made a motorcycle sound when you twisted the grip, the plastic gears inside would last a few weeks of hard twisting then start to strip.
🤠🇺🇸 Bare foot and tough as nails. I grew up in the 60s and 70s and it was an awesome time to be young in America. I don’t even recognize it now. But great memories. 👏🏼👏🏼 Thanks for great content. 🇺🇸
We did plenty of wheelies without a wheelie bar lol In my neighborhood you would have been bullied beyond belief if your bike had one of these contraptions on it.
Exactly... I'm 59 yrs old. I saw only one guy who had one (and he was still lousy at it). I practiced wheelies for a long time until I finally rode one down the street on my blue Stingray. Bike riding was never the same after that.
Found one in the dump, looked brand new. Put it on my bike and yup sure enough all the big kids made fun of it. It was returned to the dump on the next trip.
I grew up during the 70's riding my Stingray, skateboards and my Honda 50. Never wore a helmet and went all over town without so much as a bruise. Today's kids are too busy on their cell phones and watching the Kardashians to know what real fun is.
Not to mention having ‘chopped’ bikes, no fenders, no brakes! To stop, we just put our canvas running shoes(that we got from Woolco Dept Store) behind the front forks and pressed...CAREFULLY!🤣👴🏻
oh man, i havent thought about my schwinn sting ray for years! when we could ride around anywhere until dinner, and didnt need a bike lock. man i feel old. wham-o stuff, was a big fav around where i grew up.
I have a old VHS with that old lady in it...it is "THE LITTLE OLD LADY FROM PASADENA"....she did ad's for Dodge in the 60's.....she said..."we put a dodge in our garage sunny"...peeling out driving a super stock dodge Coronet
I was into my Stingray bicycle for a short period of time and quickly moved onto motorcycles at the age of 12. Everyone in the neighborhood had some kind of motorized mini bike or full size dirt bike. I was fortunate enough to live backed up against a river with plenty of paths and trails to ride.
My brothers and I went to a deal at the Iowa State Fair in around '65 or '66 called "The Joey Chitwood Thrill Show'. It featured daredevil car and motorcycle stunts. We went home and promptly destroyed our bikes trying to duplicate them. My little brother got a concussion and I sprained both wrists. Man, those were the days!
We were idiots. Just like today. It was literally survival of the fittest. We really could have used BMX bikes then, instead of those things with slicks on the back. When BMX came out, Schwinn still had a lifetime warranty. Kids would ride off the roof of the house, bend the pedals, and go get new ones. Schwinn put a no BMX/racing clause in the warranty.
I remember commercial but never saw one. I was 15 at that time I had taken Briggs and Stranton engine off dads lawn mower and put on my Stingray with jack shaft to get power to chain side! I was clocked at 42 miles an hour by friend on Yamaha 80! In 67 built mini bike in metal shop and put a Honda 50 engine on it, that thing could climb anything! My uncle invented Slip and Slide and sold patent to Wham-O The first kid on original commercial was my cousin Mike! At one time a house was for sale down the street and we would go on the roof with our sting ray type bikes ride down roof pull front up as leaving roof into the pool in back yard!!. Now that is fun. I would be lost as a kid in todays world. I also got to see Lil Red Wagon at Orange County drag strip. With Hemi under glass wheelie cars were a thing at the time. Ok, I'm done now! Lol
Good luck trying to sell that now,, all the good stuff from my youth is outlawed!!! Wood burning kits, lawn darts, Wammo wheelie bar, various "science " kits you could make random chemical stuff with, Damn it survived!! Bring back the Pocket Fisherman while we are at it!!
