![]() ![]() Though Schwinn won't say how many have been ordered, the company has "drastically increased" the number of Krates it will make, he said. That doesn't matter to several thousand people who Mundy says have ordered the Krates. "It was like they were saying, `We know what you are going to do so we make it so you can't,' " said Crittenden. Not only that, but because the Krates are single-speed bikes with coaster brakes instead of hand brakes, turning one into a multispeed bike with a stick shift would be a lot of work. So, gone are the stick shifts, and with them the five gears. One of the reasons the memories about the Krates remain vivid for so many 40ish men is because they have all heard about riders who have come in unexepected and painful contact with the stick shift. (In the early 1970s, some of the Krates did not have the stick shift.) When Schwinn was thinking about reintroducing the Krates, one thing they were told by the Consumer Product Safety Commission was they would have to do it without the stick shift, said Schwinn's Mundy, who added that sky-blue and lemon yellow Stingrays also are on their way back in time for Christmas. "And when I say it is not going to have a stick shift, they say, `Oh,' and they frump out the door." "I've had 30 people come in the door with money in hand," he said. At the Village Pedaler, Crittenden said he has not had one customer order a bike. "Most of my customers (stores) do have some on deposit." It is the same with other dealers," said Wonicker-Cook. Hajduk, who has an original Orange Krate hanging from a pole in the middle of his store, said several customers have put down deposits on the bikes. Schwinn made a few Krates and doled them out to sales representatives such as Wonicker-Cook, who took them to bike shops to put them on display. What really made the bike stand out was the stick shift mounted on the top bar, or tube as it's called, between the seat and the handlebars. And with a 20-inch slick back tire and a 16-inch front wheel, they looked like a bicycle version of chopped motorcycles. Krates not only had the banana seats and ape hanger handlebars, they also came with front and rear suspension systems. In fact, according to Schwinn marketing manager Cache Mundy, the Krate name was borrowed from a California dragster popular in 1968. These were to the Sting-Ray what dragsters were to automobiles. It was the bike others were measured against.įive years later, came the Krate series of bikes-the Apple Krate and Orange Krate. Unlike anything on the road, the Sting-Ray, with its banana seat and ape hanger handlebars, was immensely popular. That is when Schwinn, then based in Chicago, introduced the Sting-Ray. This can also make identification of a Hawthorne bicycle difficult if it is missing it’s badge or other unique identifying components, such as the sprocket.To understand why the Boulder, Colo.-based company hopes the Krates will not only be popular among today's kids but also will interest yesterday's, it is necessary to go back to 1963. Most parts are interchangeable, so restorations are a lot easier than if you were dealing with something exclusive. Many Hawthorne bicycles share a lot in common with other bicycles built by the two primary companies, Cleveland Welding, and H.P. ![]() These are very sought after by collectors today. The Hawthorne versions were dubbed the Duralium, and differed only slightly. In the 1930’s, Montgomery Ward commissioned the Monark Battery Company (later Monark Silver King) to build a line of aluminum bicycles based on Monark’s own line of aluminum bikes. They were so proud of this that they even used his name to advertise the bike. From 1940-1941, they sold the American, a bike designed by famous industrial designer Walter Dorwin Teague. One of t he most desirable of these is the 1936-1939 Hawthorne ZEP. While Montgomery Ward did not actually manufacture the bicycles that they sold, they did commission some unique designs that were exclusive to their stores. Most Hawthorne bicycles were manufactured by the Cleveland Welding Company or H.P. Hawthorne was a brand of Montgomery Ward stores. ![]()
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