The pretender

There’s just one problem with the new Schwinn Sting-Ray: It isn’t a Sting-Ray. No banana seat. No longhorn handlebars. No treadless rear tire for burning wicked skid marks onto sidewalks.

It’s like when “Bewitched” brought in a new actor and pretended he was still Darrin. What’s next? Volkswagen coming out with a Beetle that looks like a Humvee?

That doesn’t mean the chopper-style edition of Schwinn’s pedal-powered icon isn’t eye-catching and cool. But a bona fide Sting-Ray? Schwinn honchos can call it that till they’re metallic-blue in the face, but even Al Fritz, the retired engineer who designed the original in 1963, questions the new version’s DNA. “It’s a beautiful-looking bicycle,” he says, “but it is not a Sting-Ray.”

What it is, apparently, is a stroke of marketing genius. Labeling the low-ride cruiser a Sting-Ray was bound to catch the attention of baby boomer journalists -- like this one.

Childhood cool

When Schwinn’s press release landed here, it stirred memories of my own trusty blue Sting-Ray. The first image that bubbled up from the past was the bike’s sparkly silver banana seat, which turned brown after a few months in the Arizona sun, where I grew up.

There was also the clatter of playing cards clipped against tire spokes by clothespins. And the battery-powered fake-engine roar of Mattel’s V-rroom toy, strapped to a friend’s bike frame.

But mostly, I reminisced about riding my Sting-Ray almost everywhere. In the late 1960s, before the advent of dopey helmet laws and soccer-mom chauffeurs, bicycles ruled.

And the king of bikes was the Sting-Ray.

Code name J-38

It all started with a curious phone message in 1963. Fritz was vice president of engineering at Schwinn’s Chicago headquarters when a call came in from the company’s West Coast sales manager. “Something goofy is happening in California,” said the voice on the other end. Kids were buying old bike frames and tricking them out with long seats and “Texas longhorn handlebars.”

Fritz knew about the banana seats; he had a sample in his office. But he hadn’t seen the handlebars. He asked the sales exec to send him one.

When the part arrived, company employees were in mourning. Chief executive Frank W. Schwinn had just died. Undeterred, Fritz went to the factory and jury-rigged a prototype, code-named J-38. “I built it on the day of the funeral,” he recalls. The contraption looked otherworldly, but “it was fun to ride.”

Next, he invited three of Schwinn’s top distributors to take it for a spin. All were skeptical, he says, but “they were laughing while riding it.”

Fritz sensed a hit. At that time, Schwinn had 300 different bicycles in its catalog. If a particular model sold 10,000 units a year, it was considered a blockbuster. The $50 Sting-Ray burst out of the gate with 46,000 sales in 1963. By 1968, when it peaked at 1 million sales a year, 70% of all bikes sold in the U.S. were Sting-Rays or knockoffs.

The craze sputtered in the 1970s, overtaken by BMX bikes, 10-speeds and the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which in 1974 outlawed the Stik-Shift, a soprano-inducing gear lever that Schwinn placed directly in front of the banana seat on its most popular Sting-Ray, the Krate. In 1982, Schwinn finally pulled the plug on its famous creation.

The company has tried to revive the bike twice. The first attempt, in 1998, was a straight reissue of the original. Sales languished. Then, a couple of years ago, Schwinn execs decided on another approach.

“We wanted to bring back the Sting-Ray name,” says Mo Moorman of Pacific Cycle, the Wisconsin company that rescued Schwinn from bankruptcy in 2001. “But we wanted to do it right. We wanted something that would appeal to the youth of today.”

Research made it clear the original Sting-Ray design wouldn’t do the trick. Then again, neither would a revamped BMX or mountain bike. “Kids were bored with what’s out there,” Moorman says.

The new Sting-Ray, like its 1960s predecessor, would have to be a new category of cycle.

Test ride

As a fan of the old Sting-Ray, I jumped at the chance to test drive the new one, which debuted last month. When the loaner arrived, friends pelted me with warnings. Wear a helmet, several advised. And elbow pads, said another: “Remember, you haven’t been on a Sting-Ray in 30 years.”

Yeah, I replied, but it’s not a skill you forget. It’s like riding a bike. Well, actually, it is riding a bike.

For the first test, I put the Chinese-built Sting-Ray through a few paces on our special track, a maze of office cubicles and fleeing co-workers in the newsroom. Then I took it outdoors. Equipped with a Flintstone biped engine, the bike accelerates from 0 to 60 mph in ... well, in your dreams. But it moves surprisingly well for its 50-pound curb weight (the original Sting-Rays weren’t much lighter at roughly 40 pounds).

However, any illusions I had about duplicating the Sting-Ray experience of my youth were quickly dashed. The 1960s-era foot brakes, ideal for defacing sidewalks with long skid marks, have been replaced by a skid-averse hand brake, a sad waste of the new bike’s 4-inch-wide “Boa” rear tire.

And forget about popping a wheelie on this thing. The new bike’s center of gravity is completely different from the original’s. Then again, my center of gravity at age 45 isn’t what it used to be either.

Newsroom consensus

Back in the newsroom, the Sting-Ray sequel turned a lot of heads. Several intrepid souls rode it down the hallways, wobbly at times. Others admired such flourishes as the fake dice tire-valve caps, or the Orange County Choppers logo emblazoned on the frame. The latter comes from a controversial New York-based custom motorcycle shop featured on the Discovery Channel.

Overall newsroom consensus? The bike is cool, but -- sorry Schwinn -- it doesn’t deserve the Sting-Ray appellation.

Company spokesman Moorman insists the cycle “pays homage to the original.” But when asked how, he struggles for words.

Both versions have fat rear tires, sissy bars and “lots of chrome,” he offers.

OK. What else?

Long pause. “Hmm,” he finally says. “Well, you know, lots of chrome.”

For purists, Schwinn is rolling out a small number of replicas of its 1971 Grey Ghost and 1963 Coppertone Sting-Rays. Unlike the new bike, which retails for $180 at Wal-Mart, Toys R Us and other big retailers, the classic models will go for upward of $299 at bike specialty shops.

Encouraged by early sellouts of the new Sting-Ray, Schwinn also plans to have adult, girl and tricycle versions of the bike in stores by July.

Despite the generally favorable response so far, Moorman admits it will be tough to repeat the success of the original Sting-Ray. Bicycle industry sales have been flat for years.

“With the proliferation of video games, kids have gotten more interested in what’s on TV than what’s outside,” Moorman says. “We’re hoping this will get kids interested in bikes again.”

Maybe it would help if they threw in a deck of cards, a few clothespins and a banana seat that turns brown in the sun.