My first bicycle was used, painted a dull, flat blue. It was purchased after my father had a good night at poker. And it had, for reasons no one knew, a small metal elephant sitting on the back fender. I loved that elephant. I thought it gave my bike distinction. That bike started with training wheels, but I soon shed them in the traditional way — father running alongside, then letting go, so I was on my own.
There was the honey-gold Schwinn with the wicker basket; it showed up Christmas morning, a copy of “The Lost Princess of Oz” in the basket. I would huff and puff up the long hill to the church, where I would go ’round and ’round in circles on the little sidewalk. The neighborhood was small, but the streets beyond it weren’t bike-friendly, so I learned to make do with traversing the same route over and over again.
When I was in college, a guy pulling out of McDonald’s drive-through lane struck me as I came down the sidewalk on my 10-speed. The bike was never really the same. At the age of 29, I had another 10-speed and the chain slipped and I went flying off of it, landing on my face. That was my last bike. But under certain conditions, I still like to go round and round. I visit my parents in St. Simon’s Island every spring and I rent a bike for four hours. The island is a) flat and b) full of bike paths, so I feel relatively safe. Plus, I’ve learned my lesson: If you’re going to fall, sacrifice the arm to the face.
On a spring-like day, why is riding a bike to nowhere so utterly pleasurable? Where did your bike take you? What did it look like? Who got a banana seat? I never did.
I got a banana seat once.
But then I got some ointment and it went away.
My first bike was a purple Huffy bought at KMart with money I saved from doing chores. It had high rise handle bars and, yes, a banana seat. I loved that bike as I rode around and around my folks’ driveway. The road in front of our house was too heavily traveled by tractor trailers for biking. But every summer my bike and I went to stay with my cousin and I got to ride all the streets of a small town. It was heaven. I still ride. Now it’s a Trek, but that Huffy is still a fond memory.
I didn’t have my own bike, but we shared a few in our family of six girls and four boys. My favorite was my brother Jim’s bike. I can’t tell you what kind it was. Reading the word “Schwinn” above makes me think that’s what kind of bike it was. It was FAST. My friend Mary and I used to peddle up this hill just so we could zoom down the other side, feeling the wind in our faces and laughing so hard the whole time! I used to disappear with that bike, making Jimmy mad at me all the time.
Congratulations, Guyot. ;o)
My first bike was a tricycle that got stolen from the driveway. Then I had a hand-me-down from my cousin that I learned to ride without training wheels. For my 5th birthday I got my own and then not too long after that I got the bannana seat bike…my pride and joy. I went everywhere on it and even did a face dive when I tried to pick a leaf off of a tree like the kids in some commercial (I still have dental issues to this day from that). I had a “roar power” thing on the handle bar that made it rev up like a motorcycle.. I used to wash it with the hose and windex every week. I don’t even keep my car as clean as I kept that bike.
Gosh,looking back on it, my bike riding days were some of my best. I had a “coaster” bike but can’t remember the color. I do remember the basket on the front, the streamers on the handle bars, and when every kid in my neighborhood would put the playing cards in the spokes so they would make all that noise!
My favorite memory was going to the corner store and buying a Yoo-Hoo and TastyKakes (Butterscotch Krimpets and Peanut Butter TandyCakes yummmmm!)and a bag of penny candy, riding up to the field at Jos. Lee Rec Center and sitting under this huge Oak or Maple tree and reading for hours. Sometimes with a friend or just by myself. It seemed that about 1:00 to about 3:00 in the afternoons in the summer were sooooo quiet, all you heard was the wind through the leaves of the tree and the birds.
Butterscotch Krimpets . . . I’m having a Homer Simpson drool moment.
Virginia Beach, where I grew up, was flatter than flat — my neighborhood had a “hill” that we would ride our bikes down no-handed, and we’d feel like daredevils. I recently went back to the old neighborhood, and what we thought of as a “hill” had less of a slope than most driveways do.
Being able to ride no-handed was a big deal, and since none of us wore helmets back then, I’m a little surprised my small motor skills are all still intact.
I learned to ride on a small, blue “sidewalk” bike but no training wheels. We had a large but not too steep, grassy hill in the backyard and we went to the top of that, I got on the bike and my parents gave it a push! We lived in a very small town and I could ride just about anywhere. My idea of the perfect summer day was riding down to the library, checking out enough books to fill up the basket and then stopping at the Tastee Freeze on the way home. The only thing better than that was sitting outside on the big covered porch actually reading all of the books and knowing that as soon as I finished them, I could go back to the library and do it all over again.
Never got a banana seat. My first bike was German and was purchased with proceeds from an American movie which I dubbed into German for the German distributers in Frankfort. I was an American girl speaking German in the movie, so I guess that worked out okay.
The bike had a bell, a front basket and was painted blue. I rode it all over my neighborhood in Frankfort 56 years ago, especially to go to the main street for refills for my Pez dispenser. Does anyone else remember Pez dispensers?
Barbara, in Austin today
I learned on an old bike with hard rubber tires (at least they never went flat). Graduated to other hand-me-downs and loved riding around with friends and alone in our small town, out in the country, wherever I wanted to go, like Zelda. Never had a banana seat but my brother did so I “borrowed” it any chance I got.
Just got my first nice, new, expensive bike last summer compliments of a former boyfriend who ended up being good at gifts and that’s about it. It is still a little hard to ride it, remembering our rides together, where it came from, but it will be my bike this summer. I just feel it.
My most memorable bike- a Kent 3 speed with hand brakes(not just pushing the pedal back!)purchased from Pep Boys on Stenton Avenue in Philly in 1970. I bought it with my salary from my summer job with the PA dept of Welfare. I have no particular memory of using it during college but had it with me here in DC when I came in 74 for grad school. I remember riding it from my apt on Connecticut Avenue across from the zoo through Rock Creek Park- to the Mall. It was used less and less and moved with me to Silver Spring in 1984- and I think – may still live in the basement of a friend. Now I think about buying a recumbent or a three wheeler- or not.
Pez dispensers- of course, I remember, and right now there are huge Pez dispensers available for $19.99- I am thinking about the Bert and Ernie for my desk- although I never liked the Pez candy.
I collect “strong women” Pez dispensers — Wonder Woman, Lisa Simpson, Lucy Van Pelt, the 9/11 female emergency workers, Peppermint Patty, Princess Leia.
Okay, I’ve got Pebbles Flintsone and Minnie Mouse tucked in with them, but I don’t think they really qualify.
My second bike had the banana seat, high handle bars, a sissy bar and three speeds. I wasn’t able to pop a decent wheely, but I did teach myself to swing one leg to the other side and jump off the bike running without letting it fall over. I rode that bike hard, and eventually wore out the bracket holding the handle bars to the frame. I always kept a wrench in my pocket so I could keep the bracket tight. My father later welded the handle bars directly to the frame, but he warned me that if ever hit something head one, the handle bars wouldn’t give, and I would go flying over the top. Fortunately, I never had to test that possibility during those pre-mandatory helmet days.
In high school I moved up to a 10 speed. Actually, two 10 speeds, the first being stolen from our garage one warm beautiful Easter Sunday. The second was some sort of modified racing bike from Montgomery Wards. In the spirit of the 70′s, it was painted a kind of avacado green, was very light, and had extremely thin tires. I kept that bike for almost 20 years. I used it often in high school to ride to my part-time job, which was 7 miles from our house. One part of the ride was along a very straight, flat little-used highway, and I was able to teach myself to ride, and even turn, without touching the handle bars.
The bike I ride now is for both street and off-road riding, so it is heavier and has wider tires. I’m not sure it’s because of the bike, or that my own center of gravity has shifted, but I no longer have as much success riding without using my hands.
I remember one bike – a Schwinn five-speed, honey-gold like yours, Laura. No banana seat. Loved that thing, and rode it all over my small town. I never used it to get from point A to point B, only for recreation. I can’t quite remember whatever happened to it.
Nowadays, I wouldn’t dream of trying to ride a bike – too many bicyclists get hit by the wacky drivers in the Bay Area.
I had an ugly red BMX, which survived the later years of its long service to me with only three brake blocks, and those not so good, which made it very hard to slow down in the hills around here, and for a long, long time, a near-bald back tyre.
Happy days.
Ah, no-hands riding. Perfecting that skill on my ten-speed (Peugot, white, beautiful) was a highlight, so much so that Greg and I rode that way to the candy store every day. One day side-by-side, no hands, talking to each other and ignoring the road ahead, we rode directly into the back of a parked car, and slid simultaneously over the trunk, roof and hood of the car. We ended up on the street in front of the car, completely unhurt–and more importantly, our bikes were unhurt, too.
Some day I’ll tell you the much less fun story of The Rock In The Road.
Now I ride my three-speed retro cruiser up and down the river bluffs of Minnesota, still no hands. It’s as much fun now as it was thirty years ago.
A bike has been promised to me and it’s my plan to use it to do the grocery shopping, one of the few chores I can’t do on foot. Luckily, there’s a path around the harbor, so I can do it largely without entering traffic. Baltimore drivers seem ambivalent-verging-on-hostile toward cyclists and pedestrians.
Krimpets- I once had a boyfriend who proved he loved me(he didn’t really)by peeling the butterscotch icing off of the butterscotch krimpets and putting the icing on jelly krimpets. Now for a terrible confession: sometimes I still buy a “french apple” tastykake pie and eat it with some skim milk. I only do this sitting in the parking lot of a WAWA in Delaware.
My first bike was a skinny tired English bike, compared to the fat-tired, chrome and streamered American behemoths of the day. I lived in a small, Jimmy Stewart kind of town and rode that bike everywhere. I went to the pool in the summer, Saturday matinees, everywhere and never once did I own, or need, a bike lock.
My older brother stole the nuts off the front wheel and every time I went over a curb the tire would come off and I’d go flying into the asphalt. I think my father fixed the bike a month or two later, after the brain damage.
Oh, and helmets? Hahahaha. This was back in the day when pregnant moms smoked menthols and drank whiskey sours, there were no seatbelts to protect you from smacking into that hard steel dashboard, and the only sun protection was a light basting with baby oil.
In other words, the good old days.
I have a flat-tired mountain bike in my garage now, and I keep promising myself I’ll take it out. Spring, I tell myself. This spring.
I got my bike for my birthday in 3rd grade. Don’t remember much from that year except the time I crashed head-on into the curb because I turned too wide, but the next year a group of us rode our bikes to school every day except for rain, when the moms took turns driving us. We had to go a few blocks down Lockhill-Selma (the street that runs in front of Patsy Asher’s Remember the Alibi, only about 5 blocks away) Traffic was obviously different back then – I can’t imagine a group riding on that street now as there’s so much traffic, and way too fast.