While checking up on the current whereabouts of a rider that we photographed about 30 years ago (Michael Patrick Smith), we found his Facebook page and saw a post from another Facebook page that shared lots of photos of weird bikes. The Facebook page is called Super Cool Vintage Bikes. Here are some of the photos that we saw on the site:
The fork modification on the above bike is one of the strangest we’ve ever seen. We wonder what the effective head angle on the bike is. We also wonder how it would ride.
The handlebars on this bike look like they’re set up to provide half a steering wheel just in front of the rider. We have to wonder what the advantages of that design might be.
The fork on this Schwinn Lemon Peeler bike looks like it might offer a little bit of flex suspension on rough pavement, but we don’t know what the general handling would be like. We guess it would be a bit strange. We don’t think it would be very good going up hills.
Check out the wild saddle, the towering handlebars and the giant shift lever on this Schwinn Fastback.
Check out the fork design on this Schwinn Lemon Peeler. It looks like it has a spring attached to the stem, which was probably created to cushion the ride on bumpy sidewalks and streets. The bike also looks like it’s a “reverse mullet” design, with a smaller front wheel and a larger back wheel.
We like the large shift levers mounted on the top tubes on some of those bikes. We’re not sure if we’d want to use a shifter like that on a mountain bike, though.
The Schwinn Manta-Ray was another model with a huge saddle and giant handlebars. This bike had a front fender, too, which many of the other bikes lacked.
Check out the handlebars on this Schwinn Fastback. They’re angled almost straight down.
Besides lacking tires, this bike has one of the longest frames we’ve seen, one of the lowest saddle positions, and one of the strangest handlebar setups we’ve seen.