Schwinn Sting-Ray: History Of The Chopper-Inspired Bike Every Kid Wanted

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With its banana seat and "ape hanger" handlebars, Schwinn's Sting-Ray bicycle looks a bit dorky today, but if you were a kid in the '60s and '70s it was the bike to have. The sales figures don't lie -- this was a product that exploded onto the market, becoming not just successful the year it launched, but dominant. The Sting-Ray, with its slight resemblance to a motorcycle, was a step toward the bikes kids would really want a decade later -- BMX bikes. Unfortunately for Schwinn, the clairvoyance that guided their development of the Sting-Ray deserted them when BMX began to trend.