My dad put my 1st one together. I went riding, hit a curb and the handlebars went flying off. I fell and cried, but I thought it was funny. I survived, too. Can you imagine that happening these days?

Hiya, posted my memories of this one elsewhere on the site here: http://www.inthe70s.com/toys/sissybars0.shtml

I got my sparkling purple banana seat bike for Christmas when I was 5. It was wonderful...so wonderful that it was stolen from my front porch by Easter. I didn't get another bike until I was 14 when I bought one for myself.

i had a lime green one with white flowers and the seat was reverse (white w/green)... SO cool! me and my sis were riding around and i decided to go off a curb that was a lil' steep, and i crotched myself. whoever says girls gettin whacked down there doesn't hurt just doesn't know :S my poor dad was the only one home when i got there, so he had to deal with that... awkward. sorry dad :b

my brother had one that was yellow/green in color and very sparkly-back then it was cool-now it would seem,well,kind of girly. i think they rocked and would buy one in a heartbeat at triple the price! i love u guys.

I had one made by Firestone. It had a cool slick on the back. Every time the asphalt on the road got a little wet, I ended up picking myself off of the road. Still, the best bikes I ever owned.

i had a yellow banana seat bike in, around, 1975(i think). the seat vinyl was infused with silver glitter & it had yellow streamers on the handlebars. it was a boy bike, too. i think it was a schwinn or huffy (?).

I got a sparkly blue one for my 9th birthday in 69. It had streamers and glittery handlebar grips too. Loved that bike!

I had a mettalic goldy yellow banana seat bike that had a vinyl seat with happy faces all over it. I love that thing. I would park it proudly up against the wall in our carport. I would ride that thing all over town all day long, feet up on the ape hanger handle bars, no hands you name it.

My neighbor had the most unusual bike, it was called the breakfast bike. It had toast for pedels a piece of bacon for the chain cover, and somewhere on the bike was fried eggs. Wish I had pictures.

had a bike in the 70's that had a banana seat and it was kinda light purple with handle bars that were two seperate pieces they were in a L shape can anyone tell me who made it and what it was called? Mine was stolen whenh i was a teen at the kamrt store . loved that bike!

My sister and I had a pink and purple one with the streamers and the cool handle bars. Loved them! I think my mamma sold them in one of her garage sales.

On my 10th birthday i recieved a green and white bannana seat bike with chopper handle bars loved it wish i could find a bike like that again.I have a pic of me on it.

late 60s? red and white checker banana seat Sissy bar 3 speed shift High bars. Can not find a picture of one. Love that bike

I had a chartruese one. The best bike I ever rode.

The Schwinn Bicycle Company was the first to sell us the banana seat bike, as a feature of its new Stingray line in 1963. They weren't all yellow, but color-coordinated to look slick with whatever color the frame was. The cheapest were around $55, with the five-speed closer to $80. Competitors like Huffy and AMF came out with their own versions of banana seats, but without naming as such. Banana seats were falling out of favor toward 1980 because they weren't adjustable. Bike companies wanted new types of seats for off-road, competitive and trick riding.

While gazing through the Racine Journal-Times microfilms of 1969, I came across an ad for a Dog N Suds Drive-in. It was a contest in which you guess how many beans were in a jar. The correct guesser won a Schwinn 5-speed Sting Ray bike (retail value: $88) with all-orange frame and banana seat named "Orange Crate." There should be a Dog N Suds page in the food blog, because that restaurant chain was quite popular through the 1970s. We had two in Racine, WI, but they were closed by 1978. The north side building is still up, as a bar and grill. South side one demolished in '79. Dog N Suds goes back to 1962, had over 150 stores at peak (1968). Today, about 15 still exist, all in Illinois and Indiana. I still patronize the one in Richmond, IL (near Lake Geneva, WI), which opened in 1963. The prices are much higher than 40 years ago, but the food and car-hop service are still top-notch. Anyone from the Midwest who longs for Dog N Suds should look them up online.

Found a bicycle in an antique store which had a near-oval seat, sort of a prototype of Schwinn's banana seat, preceding the banana by about seven years. The company was Monark King, which ran a plant on Chicago's far west side (1935 to 1957). Plant was at 6501 W. Grand Av. (area of Nagle and Fullerton Av.). Monark (Swedish in origin) competed, with modest success, against Schwinn, AMF and Columbia. The bike was from about 1956, shortly before production ended. Found one ad for Monark in a 1952 comic book (publisher: American Comics Group).

Another edition of Lambert's Local Line. Found a TV commercial from March, 1971, on Chicago's WGN. It was for a Huffy Dragster 20" bike with banana seat similar to Schwinn's. Price was $29, at Children's Bargain Town, which became Toys R Us in 1972. Huffy was not in Chicago, but from Dayton, Ohio. The cheapest new Schwinn bikes were around $45 then, and 3-speeds started at $60.