5 Speed

As most surely know the 1960’s were the heyday of the American muscle car. As a young boy I can remember dreaming about what it would be like to drive one of those beautiful shiny rockets that Detroit was producing at the time. Unfortunately for many of us who were too young yet to drive it was only a dream.

But the consolation was that it was also the age of the Muscle Bicycle. Those creations of chrome and steel would make any young boy drool every time he went into a department or bicycle store. A couple of the more prominent names were Schwinn and Huffy. My uncle who was a few years older than me had a Schwinn Orange Crate. That was a really cool bike with the banana seat and bright orange paint job. But what distinguished the Crate bikes was the tiny front wheel that reminded you of a chopper motorcycle.

While my first bike that I received as a Christmas present wasn’t anything like what we would eventually see, it still represented freedom to a young boy. It was really a pretty basic bike from the Western Auto that was red and white. Unfortunately my first memory of riding that bike wasn’t a great one. You see the bike had training wheels, and the first thing I did was turn it over into a mud puddle. Not a pretty memory, but one I’ll never forget. Even still once the training wheels came off I was free with the wind blowing through my hair. Actually not, since most young boys including me wore burr haircuts at the time, but you get the point.

What I’ll never forget is on my 9th birthday, my dad took me to a store at the time called Jubilee City. There he bought me the most beautiful muscle bicycle you had ever seen. It was a Huffy 5 speed with a real gear shift mounted right in the center of the frame. This bike was bright blue with a white banana seat, chrome fenders, wide cheater slick on the back, hand brakes and what was called a sissy bar, and it was mine. I now had a bike that would keep up with the best of them and boy was I proud.

This bike would become my best friend, there was no place I couldn’t go, no stunt I couldn’t perform, and nobody could beat me, at least in my mind. You see when we were kids a bike wasn’t a sometime thing you rode, they were a part of everyday life. Whether it was going to a friends, to the local store, or riding across the back roads at my grandparents farms, we went everywhere on our bikes. Even during school I couldn’t wait to get home and get on that amazing two wheeled machine.

Later there would be other bikes that were even faster. Eventually I would have and get to drive fast cars. But I’ll never forget the world that was opened up to me with that beautiful blue 5 speed.