This was one of two identical bikes I kept during that period. Went through a lot of tires, tubes and brake pads, and meticulously cleaned and re-greased all of the bearings every few months. They were real troopers, given how cheaply they were constructed. These were not the original classic Schwinns, this line are all now made very cheaply in a factory in China and sold by places like Kmart and WalMart.
That bike's twin eventually was equipped with collapsible wire-mesh saddlebags and a top-basket above the rear tire. A very capable grocery-hauler.
The black Schwinn has just been acquired in this photo, and as you can see I haven't yet installed MTB style handlebars on it. This was back during the first year when I lived in Hoboken, so the black bike was the one I left chained up overnight outside the 33rd st PATH station in Manhattan, while the red bike stayed on the Jersey side of the river.
The e-bike which I brought with me from San Diego is at top-right. It didn't get used much after I left CA, and I sold it shortly after. Too nice of a bike to risk parking outside in Manhattan.
A lot of us NYC commuter cyclists were of the same ilk. Our machines looked like rusted dog-shit on the outside, but contained high-quality bearings, cables, chains, brake pads, etc, and were very well-tuned.
