I was living in Athens, GA and working at the EPA facility in town. There
were showers available and I noticed that my commute took unreasonably long
to get around the UGA campus. I got a bike and my commute time did not
really change much. Sometimes it was slower, sometimes it was faster.
I'll echo: Great thread, Joe! And, it brings back some wonderful memories.
As a kid, I was never far from my sparkly, orange Huffy after I learned to
ride. Later I inherited my older brother's lovingly abused 10-speed and
spent time with my Dad tearing it apart, stripping the paint, choosing
Good thread, Joe. For me, bikes were a key part of my life from the moment
I learned to ride a bike (which was age 6, so much later than typical
especially these days). I lived directly adjacent to a huge forest with an
impressive trail network, and my family would often vacation at various
I love these stories! They're bringing back stuff I probably haven't
thought of since the days when they happened, the welder one was wa
back there in the recesses.
Your "going over the guardrail" reminds me of the time my uncle - about 5
years older, we were both still kids - took me to
There has never been a lag for me, it started on S.O.S Drive in Walnut
Creek, less than a mile from where Rivendell currently resides
At under 3 years old I would push my tricycle up the hill and put my knee
on the seat to race down (tricycles are fixed gear)
One day I came racing into the
Several entries have reminded me that there actually wasn't a huge gulf
between my 'kid on a bike' days and 'being a bikey' but in those days I
didn't understand there was a thing called cycling, we just rode our bikes.
Leah's story reminded me of the welder guy on our block, which is where
My re-immersion in cycling followed a fairly rapid progression of
graduation, commission, service in the military and a month and a half at
Walter Reed.
I had a rough recovery and did lots of reading and talking to folks about
mountain bikes and their riding in the kinds of places I risked
All the neighborhood kids had bikes. Pretty sure mine was a Sears model
with solid rubber tires. So I could always lay down a skid on the hill and
not worry about blowing out. Then by the time I was in high school,
Breaking Away was big. So I got more serious. Bought a 10 speed and over
the
My parents were mot rich, they got me a Columbia fat tired bike from S
green stamps when I was 13 or so and I was in heaven. The bike got put
away when in HS but in my Sr. year of college I bought a Giro D’Italia. I
was in heaven. It took me 2 more years to really ride it, why, well I quit
Oh, this'll be a fun one!
I was 'made' a bikey by a combination of things. It was mostly my time as
an undergrad at UC Davis in a town that appreciated and supported bicycles
as a major mode of transportation that showed it was possible to live a car
free life.
The other was dating a girl on
Being newly unemployed and poor, newly single and heartbroken during the
great recession. Set up a freecycled, cheap aluminum rear rack on my Surly
Cross Check, bungee corded a car camping sleeping bag, pad, and tent to it,
and rode up to a spot I knew in Tilden where I figured nobody would
I got the Cycling Merit Badge when I was in the Boy Scouts. Had to do 6 @
25 mile rides and 1 @ 50 mile ride. Did them on a Schwinn Stingray with 20"
wheels and a 2 speed kickback Bendix hub in 1969 (13 years old). Then I
bought a 10 speed Schwinn Suburban (upright handlebars, kind of
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