Where is your earliest Bike Memory?

[rcannon100]

Hah! That’s easy: learning / falling off my bike right here. A street block filled with kids, where every evening the kids would pour out on the street to play kick the can. And excellent block to be outside and on a bike.

In ~1986 for some mental reason I decided to take my valuable BA and become a bicycle courier. Wandered down to Griffin Cycle and bought a steel Fuji Hybrid (that was too small for me). Rode that bike till about 3 years ago when a car down on Memorial Circle persuaded me that it was time to get a new bicycle.

Added: I was a courier for several months, which made for many great stories. The Georgetown Waterfront was far from complete back then. For some reason I was cutting through – I probably had finished a run in Georgetown and was returning to downtown and probably didnt have a run so I was goofing off. So I am biking down the waterfront boardwalk and not paying attention …. and unbeknownst to me…. it was not finished. It just… ended. All of a sudden, without warning, I was mid air! I went flying through the air – landed solid on both tires and kept going – but blew out both tires.

It was as a courier that I learned what a U lock is for (hint: its not for locking your bike)

[Tim Kelley]

My first 5 mile transportation ride when I was 12 or 13 years old on a dumpster BMX bike: http://goo.gl/maps/VXMgs

Otherwise, I was taking it off some sweet jumps.

[Bilsko]

@rcannon100 39896 wrote:

Hah! That’s easy: learning / falling off my bike right here. A street block filled with kids, where every evening the kids would pour out on the street to play kick the can. And excellent block to be outside and on a bike.

Ha! I think Kenhowe is part of the Downtown Breakaway route that the Potomac Peddlers use during the summer months! It is, indeed, a great one for riding!

[TwoWheelsDC]

I remember riding in my basement with training wheels and taking a turn too sharp and they made me fall over. Next memory was my dad bringing home my first “real” bike (he probably traded some car parts for it), building a jump for it, and popping the tire before I had a chance to ride it.

[acc]

Ha! I had a little red metal tricycle with black rubber blocks attached to the pedals because my legs were too short to make the entire revolution. I rode that trike far past the age I should have been on a big girl bike because I was used to it. I’d stand on the back and push with one foot and race up and down the sidewalk pretending to be a firetruck.

[txgoonie]

Does a Big Wheel count?

If not, it’s my Dad spray-painting my brother’s metallic blue hand-me-down bike to metallic purple for me. I was 5. That bike was followed by a Huffy Sweet Thunder – pink banana seat, streamers, oh, she was a beaut.

[consularrider]

Mine is learning to ride the bike I shared with my older brother on the streets of our subdivision in Columbia, MO. This was in the late 50s and the bike had 20 inch wheels and coaster brakes and we started with training wheels. I used it for about three or four years until we moved to the Chicago suburbs and my parents bought us each our first three speeds from Sears (I believe the bikes were made for Sears by Puch).

[crysb]

Racing with the other neighborhood kids around the cul-se-sac growing up. It was fun to see how far you could lean into the center without falling (we did fall a lot).

[lordofthemark]

biking, on training wheels, on the sidewalk in front of this building

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Webster+Avenue,+Brooklyn,+NY&hl=en&ll=40.629247,-73.97816&spn=0.000001,0.0006&sll=37.6,-95.665&sspn=47.829093,78.662109&oq=webster+av&t=h&hnear=Webster+Ave,+Brooklyn,+Kings,+New+York+11230&z=21&layer=c&cbll=40.629301,-73.978198&panoid=A_LqrGwZxmcl3AG2q90L6A&cbp=12,187.62,,0,0

while the retirees and SAHM’s sat on lawn chairs in front of the building, brooklyn style.

And yes, I am DELIGHTED to see a bike locked up in front of the building, over 45 years later.

My first transportation ride was on this still heavily used facility

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Ocean+Parkway,+Brooklyn,+NY&hl=en&ll=40.614127,-73.96886&spn=0.000001,0.0006&sll=37.6,-95.665&sspn=47.829093,78.662109&oq=ocean+parkway&t=h&hnear=Ocean+Pkwy&z=21&layer=c&cbll=40.614127,-73.96886&panoid=RjBinJpXqzp4796YjQ65zw&cbp=12,97.97,,0,0

[jwetzel]

My earliest bike memory is also the first time I got hit by a car. I was 6 and riding on the sidewalk at the bulb end of a cup-de-sac chasing another friend as fast as I could go. A car backing out of a driveway clipped me and threw me into their mailbox. As far as I know I was fine, though my parents did buy me a new helmet. They had bought it the *day* before.

[creadinger]

Mine is right here…
https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=217827166977157443859.0004d2c85ed7c07de4485&msa=0&ll=40.799378,-77.906429&spn=0.001972,0.004128

I was riding my black with yellow BMX bike on the dirt paths in the woods next to our house. I somehow wiped out, (blue label) which wasn’t so bad but the handlebar somehow jabbed me in the lower abdomen groin area. I hadn’t felt pain like that ever before. MAN that hurt!

I don’t remember as far back as when I was learning how to ride. Based on my nephews, that must have been when I was 4ish years old.

[ejwillis62]

I don’t even remember learning to ride, it seems like I have always known and always ridden a bike. I was a what was in those days called a “Tom Boy” my mom was awesome though we use to go to the dump and pick out bike parts and build our bikes. We didn’t have a lot of money but boy did we have some cool bikes. I used to build ramps and was always jumping my bike over things. Breaking bikes but thankfully never body parts.

[Amalitza]

I don’t remember learning to ride. I remember having a trike or big wheels or something when I was about 4, and there may have been some other riding-type things in the interim. But I do remember when I was probably about 7, I wanted a bike. My parents wouldn’t buy it but said I could (birthday money?) but I didn’t have enough money, so my 1 year younger brother and I split it. Then, I guess, my parents decided that it wasn’t fair that my 2-1/2 years younger (and smaller, so our bike was too big for him) brother couldn’t ride with us, and bought another, smaller bike for him. So, the two of us who spent our own money had to share, and the one who got his bought for him got his to himself. How fair is that?:confused:

Oh, and we were living out in the boonies in these fields http://goo.gl/maps/tfaFZ maybe 40 miles or so south (and 20 years later) than consularrider.

@consularrider 39906 wrote:

on the streets of our subdivision in Columbia, MO. This was in the late 50s

[eminva]

My earliest two wheeler memory is getting the first bike for Christmas — it probably came from Sears because my dad worked for Allstate and we got a discount. I don’t remember where we lived then, because I was way too small and the bike was way too big for me. I didn’t learn how to ride until first or second grade, and I learned right here. The inspiration was that my best friend and next door neighbor, Sally, had just learned and I had to keep up with her.

With our brothers and other kids in the neighborhood, we tore all over this park, BMX style, although our bikes were certainly not purpose built for that; we rode whatever we happened to have. I was back there a few years ago and there are no longer any signs of the trails we blazed. I don’t know if kids have found a better place to ride, or if they (sadly), just don’t ride any more.

Liz

[Bilsko]

I’m having lots of fun just clicking on the links (without knowing where people are from) and zooming out, one step at a time, trying to figure out where in the world the map is located.

[Author]

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