Early ’70’s BMX bike
1970 Schwinn Stingray BMX conversion
In the early 1970’s a new sport came to life. Bicycle Moto Cross (BMX) became a thing when kids started racing each other around dirt tracks, emulating the off-road motorcycle racing they had seen locally or in the film On Any Sunday.
Old School BMX racing began before anyone was producing dedicated off-road machines. An extremely popular bike at the time, the Schwinn Stingray was the natural choice for early BMX. Some modifications were needed, of course. The fenders had to come off. Smooth street tires were replaced with knobby tires. Banana seats and their sissy bars had to go. Frame failures from crashes and jumps meant gussets had to be welded in place, otherwise a kid was going to be going through a bike every month.
This bike look familiar to you? If you were a kid in the ’70’s, it should. I never had a Stingray myself, but my 1960 Rollfast got transformed into a similar machine after my friends and I got our first taste of BMX.
Dad must have welded this frame gusset
Rat trap pedals
Early BMX grips
Our friend Jay Elhardt found this old school machine near the original “BUMS” track in Long Beach, California. It was originally a 1970 Stingray, and it had all of the modifications a young racer would have needed to race.