How long have you been riding a bicycle?

[PDXzap]

The recent thread about riding with no hands got me to thinking about all the miles and all the hours that have been ridden by the members of this forum. I know there are some tuff ol' birds here... so... I did a search and couldn't find any thread that was similar.
If, like me, you've had a hiatus for a time go ahead and post about it if you want.


My story, I started riding a bike when I was 4 or 5.
I had older siblings riding bikes plus other kids in the neighborhood to watch and study and I didn't want to be left out. We had two old newspaper bikes from the 50's and they were way too big for me but fate intervened.

My best friend was separated from me by one house and 364 days of age, but we were inseparable and that friendship spilled over and I was accepted by the rest of his family . He had two older sisters and one summer his sister Pati got a new bike with training wheels. I seem to recall trying it with the training wheels but it was maybe only a ride or two but soon Pati's training wheels came off and Pati was a bike rider and taking turns with me was out the door. Pati was 2 years older than me, summer vacation was coming to and end and it was time for Pati to start attending school.

Pati's parents gave me permission to ride her bike when she was in school and I started using Patie's bike, sans the training wheels, much like the balance bikes that are around today and soon had taught myself to ride and I was a bike rider.

It didn't take long and I was riding the newspaper bikes and I sure wish there were pictures of that.
I can't actually remember if I rode both bikes but I know at least one of them was a step through model and when I rode that one the seat's horn would hit me in the back as I stood and pedaled. I can remember trying to climb up on the seat even though I wouldn't have been able to reach the pedals. I have a feeling it was my mom, watching me on that bike and fearing I was going to kill myself that got me my first new bike, and the first new bike in the family for that matter. A Sears knockoff stingray... heavy as he**... and more fun than any kid could have!

I rode, different bikes, well into my 20's but then had my 10 speed stolen and really didn't have the money to get a new one or much time to ride. I was also living in a condo and there was really no good place to keep a bike so for a few years, rollerblades were a good substitute. I built a couple of recumbents and that got me back into riding about 20 years later, that was about 16 years ago.

 

[JRA]

1st bike @ 1960 Red Monkey Ward 24" wheeler with the take off cross bar/on

1st MTB @ 1982 Ross Force 1

1st eBike @ 2001 Currie Drive on prototype aluminum 29"er

1st really worthwhile eBike @ 2016 eX front hub bike

 

[Stefan Mikes]

I learned riding bicycles as a young kid. Can't exactly remember when that happened and what the bike was but my Dad was helping me keep the balance with a wooden bar attached to the seat-post. At some moment, he released the bar and I discovered with joy I could ride the bike myself!

What I can, however, remember quite well was my first true bicycle. It was my 10th birthday back in 1971 when my Parents bought me the Romet Flaming, a folding bike.

Mine was navy blue.

Folding bikes were a novelty at that time. Those were popular because both a kid or a grown up could ride them. The quality (as was with all goods made in the then People's Republic of Poland) was low. The bike's frame was decidedly not straight; my Dad made it true by using a thick piece of rubber at the tubes' joint. Otherwise, the heavy steel bike was very sturdy. Already as a university student in early 1980s, I used to carry my girlfriend sitting on the rear carrier; the bike was so sturdy it could withstand the double weight! True, I was 125 lbs at that time and my gf was of similar weight. Unluckily, the Flaming was stolen in some 1984.

Then I bought Romet Gazela, a low-step trekking bike. The quality was bad. Another gf sat on the carrier and after the ride, the carrier got bent and the rear wheel became untrue.

The real breakthrough happened in early 1990's. Some friend sent me to a small LBS in Warsaw, where the mechanic sold me a CrMo steel road bike. I used the bike as a commuter, riding from 30 to 60 kilometres everyday in the warm season. When I was already in the position to buy my first brand new car, I stopped riding and got rid of the bike (and I regret that).

In 1990, the year of the German reunification, I was working scientifically at a German chemical plant Rütgerswerke AG in Duisburg, Nordrhein-Westalen. The R&D director, Prof. Dr. Gerd Collin lent me his family treasure: a 1953 German bike. It had the gear-shifting lever on the frame tube and I think it was an IGH bike. It was kept in mint condition and I returned it in the same shape to the Collins at the end of my stay. I travelled the Ruhr area all over in spare time and I was commuting to work daily.

Me (holding the bike) and Claus Collin.

I bought the next bike (Romet Wagant) only in 2013 for health reasons. After only couple of years, my health sadly deteriorated, sick legs, and I could not ride until I discovered e-bikes in August 2019.

 

[PaD]

My first two-wheel bike is in my avatar. Picture probably taken in 1956. Wooden saddle and a hand brake actuated by a lever to the front wheel.
In spring 1957 ( I was 5 years old, turning 6 in July that year) I got my first ”real” bicycle. It was bigger than the avatar bike but not much - I think it had 20” wheels. It was a dream come true, I could hardly believe it was true when I got it. It was a real bike with a chain and a coaster brake. It was blue with gold stripes and the name of the bike was Guld ( that’s gold in Swedish) It was manufactured by Monark. A quality product.
I remember I preferred mounting from the sidewalk. Still do that sometimes. I mean you gain 4-5 inches

My mother managed to get in to a traffic education for children that spring. It was called Traffic play-school. Preschool in Sweden at that time was called play school. You should be 6 to enter this traffic school but my mother wanted me to do this to learn about traffic before going to the real preschool in autumn same year. The teachers were two policemen in uniform. This was a great time for a 5-year old. We all got diplomas and my mother had it framed and it’s on display in my apartment so visitors can see I’m an educated man.
This traffic school was invited to the Monark bicycle factory for a royal visit to the factory. It was Prince Bertil known for his interest in motors sports ( he had Bugatti 35c)
I guess we children were to show our excellent traffic manners after our education. The Prince was also asked to participate by putting a road sign on a model with roads and a railway crossing. He picked the wrong sign for the railway crossing but no adult corrected him and I was to shy to protest but coming home I immediately told my parent about the Prince’s mistake.

Anything else you’d like to know?

 

[6zfshdb]

I started riding friends bikes when I was 5 or 6 but didn't get one of my own until 1956 when I was 10. It was a Schwinn Hornet from the early 1950's and looked very much like this one:


It was second hand and not in the best of shape but to me, it was pure gold! With 26" wheels, it was too big and I had to stand up to pedal most of the time. I remember the feeling of being really free for the first time in my young life as I rode it around the neighborhood. The feeling was short lived though when, less than a year later, I stupidly left the bike in my friends driveway and his father backed over it. I was as crushed as the bike as I dragged it's remains back home. My father was quite angry and said if I wanted another bike, I would have to buy it myself. For a kid with a 25 cent per week allowance, that wasn't going to happen anytime soon.

When I was 12, I was hiking in the nearby woods and found an old bike buried in the leaves. I dragged it home and decided to fix it up. My father wanted to throw it out but when he saw how much time and effort I put into restoring the old bike, he relented. He even contributed some money for the much needed parts. The bike was an old Rudge 3 speed from the late 1940's and looked exactly like this one:



I kept that bike in perfect condition and rode it on & off for the next 35 years until I donated it to charity in 1993. It was then my wife and I got interested in mountain biking and bought our Diamond Back Sorrento's which we still have today:



In 2012, we added a pair of Trek Shift 4's to our fleet:



Although we still ride our Trek's, in 2017, we began to feel the effects of aging. To keep biking comfortably, we bought a pair of Pedego Platinum Interceptor's
Which we are currently riding.



We have our eyes open however and are checking out some newer models including e-trikes.

 

[Browneye]

As a teenager I did my paper route on a unicycle. We also spent most weekends boating in the San Juan Islands of the PNW, and that unicycle went down the docks, up the ramps, and all over town. I could ride it frontwards, backwards, even sideways by hopping. Never did lose it in the 'drink'. LOL

My best friend at the time had a 6' seat-height uni with a chain-drive crank to wheel - fell off that, was my first back injury of a string of nearly a dozen over my lifetime.

That same friend's Dad was the Schwinn dealer in Seattle near Greenlake. We would go to work with him on Saturdays. He taught us how to assemble bikes out of the crate, wrap 10-speed drop bars and tune gears.
After lunch we would rummage thru the old parts bins and build bikes from scratch. So sometime around mid-sixties we had created a predecessor to the mountain bike - a 20" frame with a 24" fork, standard seat - all those 20" bikes had banana seats but for what we were doing the standard seat was better. We rode them through the forested trails and setup lots of jumps. This predates the 'mountain

I got my first motorized bike, a TrailHorse minibike when I was about 11. That would be about 1968. We rode EVERYWHERE. All over the islands, up into Canada. Not once ever did anyone ever tell me we couldn't ride them somewhere. Not once!!

I finally had to give up the motorized ones last year. Which makes the ebike thing all the more desirable.

Wife ver 2.0 and I have been together thirty years. One of our very first adventures together was to buy a pair of derailleur highbrid bikes and rode them to the local winery, had a picnic on the lawn. For a picnic a 'split' (half-bottle) is enough for lunch and then you had to ride home. LOL

Bicycles have always been a part of our lives. It's much like walking, only you get to see twice as much so it's twice as fun. And on ebikes it's three-times as much fun!!

 

[AHicks]

I started riding in the 50's! First bike I remember was a red Schwinn. It was a 26" bike, so there may have been one before that one that I don't remember.

 

[christob]

I chose to answer "More than 1, less than 5 years" rather than "40 to 50" which would technically cover the timespan between my first-ever bike ride, and today...
I vaguely recall having a bike for some part of my childhood -- I remember a banana seat, and maybe handlebar tassels, and spoke "clickers" to make noise -- maybe keeping that up until 11 or 12 years of age? But honestly don't have many memories of riding a bike much at all in childhood, so it was probably infrequent over 2 or 3 summers at most...
Then in my early 20's / early 1990's, I bought a beautiful purple 21-speed hybrid Bianchi to try riding again; it was miserable (primarily because I'd overdo it every time, end up very sore and unhappy, and put the bike away for months until I forgot the most recent misery, thereby never building stamina for riding.) That cycle (no pun intended!) continued for probably 2 years, maybe amounting to under a dozen total rides made on that Bianchi.
I then gave up on bikes entirely for 25 years or so, until I bought the ebike in March 2018. (Think I had two bike rentals, for 1-day rides, during that 25 year gap, that I can recall.)
In summer, 2019, I began to ponder buying another bike (pedal-powered) as a backup for times when my ebike was out of commission. (The ebike had then recently suffered 2 significant issues, taking it out of riding for about 40 lost days, total.) Much by chance, I visited my apartment storage locker during this 2nd-bike-research period, and there was my 1990's Bianchi, completely forgotten about for all these years. (I'd have bet good money I sold it in a yard sale years back!) New tires, brakes, some cable work, and it was up and running! (Though I did just break a rear spoke on it this week, which was repaired last night.)
So---40-ish years since the first bike ride. But honestly for the poll, only 25 months of active, dedicated riding.

 

[PDXzap]

@christob your story is probably the same as many of the members here.

 

[PDXzap]

WAY TO GO @gkgeiger !!!
70+ years and still going! AND

 

[Jaxx]

WAY TO GO @gkgeiger !!!
70+ years and still going! AND

CTC, 'Cyclists Touring Club' They put a poster up in the school hall, promoting a Sunday ride for all. This was 66' course I'd had a bike since the 50's. At the time I was on Hull City's (The Tigers) books, then in the second division, on schoolboy forms, about to sign as a Junior, leading too hopefully a Pro contract? Anyway that one Sunday ride did it for me. Fell in love with cycling and the whole social club side of it. I recall the next Wednesday after school going to training, and telling them, I was quitting football (soccer) They couldn't believe it! Every kid in England wants to be a footballer. I much preferred riding a bike with a group of like minded souls. Oh the shear enjoyment of those early riding years. Riding with your pals all over Yorkshire, up and down dale in all weather's, it was never too wet or cold. Weekends we would set out and go Youth Hostling, sleeping out Friday and Saturday night, getting back late Sunday evening worn out and still with home work to do. Within a year, I had my first Bob Jackson frame made in 531c tubing, travelling the 60 miles to Leeds to go through the custom order with him. A brand I stayed loyal too for a few decades. Never regretted missing out on a football career, I've cycled (and raced) the world over, having never come across a better bunch of folk than fellow cyclists.

 

[PDXzap]

Great stories folks! Thanks!

 

[indianajo]

Recieved my first 20" sears bike Christmas 1956. Took about a year to learn to ride it w/o training wheels, I'm not very coordinated. Had a regular seat, banana seats weren't invented until my little brother was 7. About 1958 the frame broke off the steering stem and spot weld stabbed me in the belly. Made in W. Germany, not all garbage was from the East, Stefan. Sears welded it up for free! (today there would be a lawsuit).
Christmas 1961 received a 26" Joske's (sporting goods store) "cruiser" with coaster brake and a headlight between the frame rails. Mom't taxi stopped at the point, If I couldn't walk or bike, I rode the bus. Was told to "stay between the railroad tracks" about a 30 sq mile area. Received beautiful leather "saddlebags" for Christmas 1962 but the first time I carried 6 books to the library, the cardboard back ripped & it fell on the ground. Couldn't sew leather. Didn't find Wald wire baskets for sale until 1975 at Wards. Converted that bike to a 2 speed Bendix coaster brake, for better acceleration out of traffic lights. $55 about 1964. So I left that 2 speed bike behind rich kid's high school for All District orchestra fall 1966, stolen when I came out. I'd had a wreck at noon for lunch, got up to 25 mph for the first time (flat Houston) and hit a pickup truck turning left, sailing over the bed while the bike went under. A really bad day.
Next spring bought a copy English 3 speed from White's out of lawnmowing money. AMF hercules with a real Sturmey Archer 3 speed. Hated the hand brakes and only 2 of the 3 speeds were usable in Houston, but it was light. Bought a chain & a lock, started using them. Had a little vinyl bag behind the seat for them. No lights.
Kept that until my garage was cleaned out by thieves 1986. Bought a 15 speed Schwinn MTB new that year, loved having all the gears. We have hills in S. Indiana. Wore the middle freewheel sprocket out on that one, 5 speed clusters were no longer available by that time, so hung it up on the wall. Bought a charity resale diamondback MTB 18 speed, had the baskets on the back, broke the rear axle. I weighed an enormous 180 lb then. Axle was 8 mm at the thinnest, took 18 months to find a replacement. Bought a Pacific Quantum 21 speed MTB at a flea market, still have that but don't ride it since both it and the diamond back threw me over the handlebars on my chin. Bought the yubabikes bodaboda in an attempt to stop flying over the handlebars as the seat bucked up, 1/18. Converted it to electricity winter 2018 after a 5.6 hour ordeal with a 25 mph wind in September. Had the motor on a 90's Huffy Savannah cruiser out at my summer camp for emergency exit if primary ride broke something (or my knees locked up), but never had a battery that works more than 7 miles on that conversion. that Huffy threw me on my chin, also.
Have maybe 5000 miles on the bodaboda, 2 new tires & new chain yesterday & Wednesday. No chin strikes yet.
It's been a fun ride. You see & hear so much on a bicycle.

 

[FlatSix911]

My bicycle history in brief...

• 60's Schwinn Sting-Ray
• 70's Sears 10-Speed
• 80's Raleigh for college
• 90's Trek & Specialized MTBs
• 2000's Fuji and Bottecchia road bikes
• 2010's A few custom Single speed and fixed-gear bikes
• 2020's Bianchi, Raleigh, and BH (Beistegui Hermanos) E-Bikes.
• The current stable has 9 bikes... I'll have to look for some photos of the old ones.

 

[PDXzap]

I'll have to look for some photos of the old ones.

Yep!

 

[Jaxx]

Yep!

Yep!

2 "Old ones"

 

[john peck]

1953, a red J.C. Higgins with 16¨ wheels, (& training wheels for less than a week). A month later I got hit by car, but didn´t get a scratch.
However, the bike´s frame broke at the upper stays. My mom got it welded, & I was back on it a week later, but prohibited from riding
on anything but the sidewalk...technically anyway. (trikes don´t count, right?)

 

[BET]

1960 : My first bike was a red tricycle. Loved it and rode it every day. It had a platform across the back you could stand on. When the neighbor's niece came to visit I let her ride it but I insisted on standing on the back platform. While doing that, fell off and was dragged the length of the driveway. I had to sleep on the couch on the first floor until my legs healed up. Passed my trike onto my younger brothers.

2nd bike a blue steel two wheeler with coaster brakes and training wheels. I got rid of the training wheels quickly. 3. When it got too small for me, my parents let me ride my older sister's English three speed. Quality bike with leather seat. My parents said they won it in a contest. Rode it through high school and college. My best friend in HS and I went on many bike adventures.

After graduate school I wanted a bike for exercise. Bought a cheap Huffy from Montgomery Wards Dept. Store. I rode it but was very disappointed. It was heavy and I could not go very fast. I joined a bike club. I gave the bike away and bought a nice aluminum Trek hybrid. I rode my Trek on many bike club rides and the Seagull Century. Before we got married my husband and I liked to go on long bike rides and bring a picnic lunch. On our third date I wiped out on some wet leaves and fell into a puddle of mud. We continued the ride and I think he was impressed by my tenacity. I still have my Trek.

After we adopted three children, we bought them their first bikes and I rode some with them. I taught our youngest to ride a two wheeler and he loves riding. As they got older I rarely rode. My husband was less comfortable on his bike. We bought a recumbent for him but he rarely rode it.

This Spring my youngest, now 17, wanted an e bike for his birthday. At first I told him we could not afford it. However, when I researched e bikes I found that we could get him a decent bike for about $ 1200. He had been cooped up too much in the house because of corona virus and I knew his old bike, while nice, was too small for him. We bought him a Ride1up500 that he loves. Soon after getting it he went on a bike date. All this research caused me to want an e bike too. I need to get more exercise and the e bike would help with the hills. My new bike is a beautiful colbalt blue Espin Sport. Now I am riding once again.

 

[Sifu Ben]

I rode in earnest when i was in my late 20s. Our local bike club, the Princeton Freewheelers, had numerous rides of all paces on every day of the week. I logged over 24,000 miles while with that club. I moved 35 miles away and there were less roads, no bike club worth joining. My mileage plummeted until I got my wife a Rad Rover. Now I have my own ebike, a Fuji. On my everyday commute, my last mile from the charging station to my office and back

, is on a Schwinn hybrid.

 

[FlatSix911]

1953, a red J.C. Higgins with 16¨ wheels, (& training wheels for less than a week). A month later I got hit by a car, but didn´t get a scratch.
However, the bike´s frame broke at the upper stays. My mom got it welded, & I was back on it a week later but prohibited from riding
on anything but the sidewalk...technically anyway. (trikes don´t count, right?)

Super fantastic...

J C Higgins colorflow HElP history color years Info? | Classic Balloon Tire Bicycles 1933-1965

Trying to find out some info or history the Jc Higgins colorflow bicycles. Like what years produced, color combos, years made, and Higgins accessories. There maybe a thread, but I couldn't find anything. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

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