the fun seems to be talking about their bikes and showing off their upgrades and accessories to each other and passerby. They try to one-up each other, especially making noise.

“They call us derelicts, they call us noisemakers, you know when Classic is comin’,” says Benny.

Some have learned to put their horns low to the ground and pointed toward the pavement so the sound bounces and can be heard a block or two further.

They tell stories about a guy who used to be in the club who played “ridiculous music” out of eight speakers attached to his bike. It was so heavy he couldn’t keep up with the rest of the club during the Tour de Bronx.

“His bike weighed about 200 pounds. We told him, don’t take that bike,” Speedy says. “He got mad. His bike broke down.”

Goya says the noise helps him in traffic.

“This horn is a life saver. If we go into Manhattan, there’s a lot of yellow cab drivers, they drive crazy, so I hit the horn, they think its a truck coming so they stop,” he says.

The only time they don’t make any noise is if they are going to a funeral.

“You know when Classic is going to a funeral because we don’t make a sound. Not even a bell. Not a peep,” says Benny.

Puerto Rican Schwinn

By 1950, one in every four bicycles sold in the United States was a Schwinn, according to Schwinn Cruisers, a website devoted to vintage Schwinns. (www.schwinncruisers.com)

There are vintage Schwinns in the Smithsonian. As American as apple pie says The New York Times. But also as Puerto Rican as cuchifritos.

While most Schwinn histories are primarily about its impact on American culture, that influence extends to the Caribbean, where Puerto Rican children fell in love with Schwinns as much as Americans.

“The Schwinn was made famous by the Puerto Rican. It’s their preferred bike,” says Benny.

There are dozens of motorcycle clubs in Puerto Rico, but also vintage bike clubs. And clubs have started wherever there’s a large population of Puerto Ricans in the United States: Chicago, Cleveland, Boston, Brooklyn.

Who knows if the motorcycle clubs in those other places get along with the Schwinn clubs, but in the Bronx the respect the bikers have for the Classics is remarkable. As the bike population has grown in New York City over the last decade—and its last mayor painted new bike lanes all over town—the war between bicyclists and cars has gotten ugly. But the bikers—motorized and pedaling—seem to get along.

Every Saturday and especially every Sunday, Bronx Puerto Ricans party in the street under the Bruckner Expressway on 139th Street, eating fried pork and fried chicken and drinking $2 Coors Lights served out of the sides of vans. Or sipping little bottles of homemade coquito (Puerto Rican moonshine) sold out of a plastic bag slung around a guy’s shoulder. People dance to a weird mix of recorded and real-life music: drummers and trombonists play along to a DJ.

The Classics line their bikes up on the sidewalk, not far from the Harleys and Hondas.

“Those old timers got a lot of stamina,” says a member of the United Road Runner Motorcycle Club who looks fierce and doesn’t say much between sips from his styrofoam beer cup.

The Classics first earned the respect of the Latin American Riders motorcycle club, who invited them to their blessing of the bikes years ago. Now the Classics lead that annual procession of motorcycle clubs, which begins at a McDonald’s on Bruckner Boulevard.

Benny says at Orchard Beach a while back at a converging of motorcycle clubs, a biker made fun of the Classics and wanted to start a fight. But the motorcycle clubs stopped him and told him that wasn’t cool.

“Now the guy’s a loner. No club wants him,” says Benny.

At one point Benny says the Classics are a club made up of loners. But they put their vests on and come together to ride, as one big family.

And that family has a lot of Josés.

“We’ve got a lot of Josés, did he tell you? There’s so many Josés so we’ve nicknamed them all. We’ve got José bigote, which means José mustache. And José bigota which is José really bad mustache. We’ve got muscle José,” Benny says.

“José dark-skin,” adds Tony.

“José bumper,” Benny says.

“Because every time he rides, he’s always gotta hit somebody in the back!” says Speedy.

Tony the President

Tony was born on the Day of the Dead. Dia de los Muertos in Quebradillas, Puerto Rico, in 1944.

He moved to the Bronx when he was 9 years old.

“When the Schwinns came out, I couldn’t afford one,” he says.

He didn’t start getting into Schwinns until late in his life and didn’t start the Classics Bronx Club until he was 50. Of his many bikes, his favorite is his 1950 Black Phantom.

“This is the Cadillac of the Schwinn company,” he says at the Classics home base, a small park at Southern Boulevard and Tremont Avenue.

While talking about his bikes, he points to a garage nearby. Then he points to the roof of the garage.

“I’ve got about a thousand pigeons up there, that’s my pigeon coop,” he says.

Schwinns aren’t Tony’s only passion. He loves pigeons, too.

He puts yellow bands with “Old Man Tony” on his birds.

He’s the youngest old guy in the club.

“The guy’s amazing. He goes to work every day, from work he comes straight over here, feeds his birds, stays here til 8 at night, taking care of all his birds, plus he runs the bicycle club. I think he’s almost 71 years old. I’m 50 and I’m already all done,” says Benny, who met Tony when he joined the club 13 years ago.

He’s so close to Tony now that his daughters call Tony grandpa and Tony’s wife, Margie Tosado, grandma. To get to the spot he stores his bikes, he has to lug his bikes up a two-story ramp and up a staircase.

One of his sayings: ”The day I can’t put it up here myself, I stop riding.”

In the garage, he shows off some of his bikes and talks about each one.

“This is a ‘43.” he says.

“Yea, but the parts aren’t from ‘43!” Benny jabs.

“Oh shut the hell up,” Tony fires back.

Along with his thousand or so pigeons, he has a bolo, a rooster with no tail that he says was raised to fight, but he doesn’t fight it.

He doesn’t fight anymore either, but he says he had to growing up.

“When I got to the Bronx it was all white, Italian, German, Jews, Irish. We had to fight. My family, we were fighters,” he says.

Nobody in the Classics messes with Tony. If they do, he gives ‘em a $10 fine.

“Some people say I’m too strict, but you gotta be,” he says.