Who wouldn't want a bike like that?

Images from Mr. Columbia's bike site

Mr. Columbia has a page on his site with post-war baby boomer comic book advertising that is absolutely and totally delightful.  My darling husband was a child in the '50's and '60's and well remembers when Columbia bikes were the bike to have.

Actually, my Father-in-law mentioned to me that he also had a Columbia bike of his own about 70 years ago!

But, really, those post war Columbias are something else--don't you just love the optimism and the crazy jet-powered look of these mid-century bikes?

Come on, a bike with rocket-jet inspired form--how cool is that?

I love to think of my husband and kids like him roving the streets in packs of kids playing outdoors till the street-lights came on and peddling off to the ball fields, the lake, the store for treats--all summer long (and sure, it wasn't true for everyone, but my husband remembers this vividly and I can't believe he was the only one).

But, here we are in 2011 and I'm thinking about a "tween" who really, super-duper wants to peddle off on a 35 year-old Columbia bike (love that girl!). 

I'm long past being a middle-school girl myself, obviously, but I remember it in my life as a time when image was everything and having the wrong brand (or in my case, not having Calvin Klein jeans and Nike sneakers) was social suicide.  And that's before we even look at my embarrassing banana-seat bike (early '80's was not their hay-day!) that had had the handle bars stolen and replaced with rusty black BMX style bars since my dad found them free.

And I'm wondering how this Columbia Sport III fits 2011 in the suburbs.  It's 100% clear that A loves the bike and wants the bike.  Badly.  And I trust A to make that determination for herself.

Will the bike be a choice that will be the envy of all her friends (the way the "Jet Rider" was advertised to do--"Want to make the gang's eyes pop?")?  Maybe, or maybe not--but that's probably not really the point here, is it?  Plus, I have absolutely no idea whatsoever what tweeners in our area think of vintage 3-speeds, that's the honest truth.

I love that A saw something she could have and personally loves and that's all she needs to make a decision, rather than holding a tribal council of others to tell her what she should like or do.  Don't know if that's just her, her generation, or actually something we accidentally did right in raising her, but I'll take it.

The town we live is, on average, quite a bit above our income level, so I also wonder if that alters the meaning--is vintage cool?  or is old even more un-cool in a town where many kids have lots of privilege?

Totally flying in the dark here!
 
Interesting note, and possible hint to myself--when we were driving the Columbia home through the neighboring town, we stopped at a crosswalk to let 3 young teen-ish girls, walking a bike, cross the street.  The bike looked new but was a cruiser and obviously vintage styled.

So, do I have a point?  Well, not a major one, just some musing and wondering about what it means to middle-school girls to ride a vintage 3-speed.  I'm not worried about A, I support her choice of awesomeness, she can hold her own (and I personally think the bike is excessively awesome), but I am a little bit curious.

So how old are you, anyway?

With this bike, good question.

Now that this bike is ours, I've been doing a lot of Googling, trying to learn as much as I can about the bike and what to do with it.  Lots and lots of information out there, but there are lots and lots of bikes in this world and info specific to the early 1970's Raleigh Sport III is not complete enough to make this easy!

The first letter and number on the serial number are either rusted up or gunked up (guess we'll find out which in time) but it appears to start with P8 or P9, which, going by Mr. Columbia's excellent site would seem to make it after 1972.

The Old Roads website here has a picture of the same bike:

from OldRoads.com

labeled as 1975--only problem is that I was there when the bike was purchased and used and it couldn't have been 1975 for our bike!

Basically, it had to have been sometime after 1971 when we moved to the location where we bought the bike, sometime before 1975 when my little brother was born, and most likely some time when I was still small enough to fit in the little tartan child seat that I distinctly remember sitting in on the back of that bike--most likely by 1973 or earlier in 1974.  I was never a tall kid, but still I'm pretty sure I was out of the child seat by the time I hit kindergarten.

Just today I read that the Sturmey-Archer hubs used on these bikes (see how much I learned--laugh if you must, but when we first dug the bike out of the garage was the first time I noticed that the bike didn't have visible gears and it was a distinctly "what the heck?" moment), but anyway, the hubs used on these bikes may have their own stamp indicating the date--not able to go take a look now, but my inner Nancy Drew is itching!

The Grey Beginning

So it's summer and hot and sticky and nasty and my 11 year old, A, and I decided it was high time to get her a bike she could ride.

The piece of purple Schwinn loveliness she was so happy to get passed down when she was 7 years old and less than 4' tall just doesn't cut it now that she's 11 and visibly taller than her mom.

But my mother has several older bikes in her garage--mine from high school, mine after college, my brother's from high school...you get the picture, right?

So, off we went to reclaim my "after-college bike" and see if one of the high school bikes is in good enough shape for A to ride.  And we get there and start gingerly shifting through piles of who-knows-what that fill up my mom's garage and... stops short, "I want that one!" (remember, she's 11, not 3, "I want that one!" is much more serious at her age) and she stops and stares at the 1973 or 74 (or there abouts) Columbia Sports III that my mom used to tool about on with me in a child carrier on the back.

To the best of my knowledge, this bike hasn't seen daylight, much less good use, since approximately 1977 (and yes, I am referring to this 1977:

Pic from 15 Minute Lunch which is
perhaps the single most stupidly funny blog post ever.

enough said, right?)

But the thing is, the bike is actually a thing of beauty, isn't it? and in all its early '70's wonder, it is a whole lot more Trixie Belden meets Sandra Dee than it is the polyester-3-piece-pant-suit vision up there...and suddenly I can't imagine anything more perfect for A.

Which is good, because A had instantly decided that there couldn't be anything more perfect for her already.

So now we have a bike.  And a project.  And a whole big adventure awaits!