I messed up the teal Schwinn (1988 Traveler) on a ride two weeks ago. I was paying too much attention to traffic and not enough to my position at a crossing, and hit a very tall curb instead of the crossing exit. I managed to stay off the ground, but I hit so hard it bent the fork
and the frame. I could still ride it home after adjusting the brakes, but it handles weird and looks shameful with the forks bent back. After tens of thousands of miles on bikes over the years, I'd never actually destroyed a bike before. I won't be hitting 10,000 miles with this bike after all.
I couldn't find what I wanted locally, so I found a replacement frameset on eBay, another Schwinn by coincidence. It's a 1986 Prelude, which was much higher up the product line than the Traveler, with a frame built from Columbus tubing, from Italy. It came on Monday. Each day after work, I've been gutting the Traveler and getting all the pieces cleaned, polished, and lubed for the "new" bike.
Obviously no shortage of transportation options in the meantime, but that was really my favorite bike.