If your parents couldn't afford a Schwinn, you got a Sears Spyder.

I think they were made by Schwinn.

Mine looked like this, and it was a hand-me-down from my brother. The handle on the back of the seat support was used to tow your friends on roller skates.

Can't go wrong with banana seat bikes.

I love that it was page 393 of what was probably over 1000 pages of consumer goods. Time was, you could even buy entire houses through the Sears catalog.

wow that's pretty crazy, not every day you run into a childhood bike. I had the single speed magenta one in bottom left. spyder free spirit.
I out grew it but liked it at the time.

Excelent wheelie bikes! There was a guy in our neighbourhod pretty much rode around on the back tire.

The cheapest model is equivalent to about $344 today.

Bonus found while looking around. The PDF for Popular Mechanics July 1969 can be found here: https://archive.org/details/PopularMechanics1969/Popular Mechanics-01-1969/mode/2up

An article about Those Wild New Bikes (Johnny Carson saying "That's wild!"):

Those handlebars are ... imaginative!

I love this kind of info that fleshes out the historical situation. Thanks for sharing!