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“I'll bet you think you're hot (expletive), don’t you, Davich?” he asked.

He was right. I did.

It was the early 1970s, and I felt like I was riding a Harley-Davidson motorcycle around my childhood neighborhood in Gary, Indiana. I even used two clothespins to attach Bicycle playing cards to both wheels, making my bike sound like a modified chopper that the Invaders motorcycle gang rode down my street.

Lewis, who was a year or two younger than me, wasn’t impressed.

“It looks chicken-(expletive) to me,” he said with venom in his voice.

Man, I hated that kid. But I loved that bike.

The frame was candy-apple red with a banana-styled seat and high-rise handlebars. I felt cool, like Billy or Wyatt in the classic film “Easy Rider,” with the wind blowing through my long blond hair. I felt the freedom to roam my neighborhood and beyond, all the way to the shores of Lake Michigan on occasion with my friends.

The world was complex, but my world was pretty simple, sort of like the old TV show “Wonder Years.” And my bicycles were a major part of that world.

Sting-Rays were the precursor to all the BMX bicycles that became mega-popular later that decade. By the late 1970s, I already owned my first motorcycle, a 400-cc Honda, and my first car, a 1974 Chevy Vega. But neither of their rusted memories have stayed with me like my first bikes and that old Sting-Ray.

I felt cool riding it, even though I was fat, pimply and awkward as a young teenage boy. Those youthful days were likely good times for most of us, even though we didn't realize it at the time. Maybe not glory days. But possibly glorified days.

If smartphones and social media existed back then, I would have taken endless photos of my Sting-Ray and posted them on every platform. Instead, I rode my bike everywhere to show it off.

Tim Hendrix knows exactly what I’m talking about. He occasionally posts such photos on his Facebook page. The one that caught my attention shows him with a red Sting-Ray from my youth.

“I've always loved bicycles, since I was old enough to ride one,” he told me. “In my eyes, they're the perfect machine — fun, efficient and good for your health.”

Hendrix, who’s older than me, describes himself as an “old hippie stuck in the '70s.”

“I still have bikes that I've had for probably 40 years. I guess if I was wealthy I'd be considered eccentric. But since I'm not, I guess I'm just crazy,” he joked. “It's a long story but they are therapeutic for me.”

He especially loves Schwinn bikes, including vintage Sting-Rays.

“Probably because that's what I grew up with,” he said.

The year after I was born, Schwinn introduced the original Sting-Ray after the company realized that California kids had been customizing their bikes to look like motorcycles. Those bikes were fitted with 20-inch wheels, elongated seats, rear "sissy bars" and ape-hanger handlebars.

It didn’t get any sweeter than that. My used bike gave me some street cred, or so I thought.

On Saturday mornings back then, I couldn’t wait to wake up early, hop on my Schwinn and rev up my playing-card engines like my infamous heroes sporting Invaders gang colors. But only after my favorite cartoons were over. Life has priorities at any age, you know.

Similar priorities still exist with today’s kids who ride bicycles to explore their world. The sight of one of them riding past me on a sidewalk near my home is what prompted this column. If that boy wasn’t holding a smartphone, it looked like any kid in any generation.

Spring has blossomed into our lives again, but I’ve already noticed the first true harbinger of the season — kids riding bikes with joyful abandon. Someday they too will look back at those days while taking a ride down Memory Lane and whispering to themselves, “Rosebud.”

Yes, it’s a reference to the final scene of one of my favorite movies, "Citizen Kane," when Charles Foster Kane recalled his life of immense success, victories and accomplishments. His final word was “Rosebud," the name of his beloved sled as a child, symbolizing his yearning for a simpler past.

His first sled is my first bike. His Rosebud is my Sting-Ray. What’s yours?