Cycling when you were young

Bradders87

How much time did you all spend on a bike back in the day? Do you think it contributed much to your current speeds/ability?

I used to be out most weekends around the local roads, as well as cycling to school - something that I'd never really realised must've given me a fairly decent base level of fitness to work from now.

balthazar

I used to do hilly 30 mile round trips to nearby towns on my scaffold-pole catalogue bike ("Grand Prix", in Lotus black and gold), in usual jeans-and-trainers kid clothes, on quasi racer gearing, and don't remember walking up any hills. I guess I'd have been about 12. I thought nothing of it, interested only in where I was going, what I was seeing, and belting down hills.

It took me a decade or so of dogged preoccupation with bikes, "training" and so on, to relearn that lovely mindset of discovery, and simple enjoyment.

deptfordmarmoset

balthazar wrote:

It took me a decade or so of dogged preoccupation with bikes, "training" and so on, to relearn that lovely mindset of discovery, and simple enjoyment.

+1 Though I never really did the ''training'' thing. As kids, 15-ish, we'd think nothing of getting onto our bikes (I had a rather nice Youngs frame with a ''double clanger'') and cycling down to the coast and back to London as a way of passing the day. It was all very simple - I probably rode on my own most of the time because I tended to do it on impulse - ''It's Saturday, it's sunny, where shall I go?'' - and off I'd go. There was always a sense of achievement and pleasure when I first saw the sea and, then, job done, I'd buy myself a bottle of pop or fish and chips and point the bike back towards London. And then, more often than not, I'd bonk on the way back up Polhill.

Frank the tank

Never really did any cycling as such as a youngster as bikes were just another "toy" in a collection of toys.

I spent most of my childhood ( I was born 1961) playing with my numerous mates on the local rec, up the woods and fields and on the streets. Football, cricket, war, many and various types of "ticky" based games and cycling was just part of the very rich tapestry of a full and varied childhood. A lot of my mates dads couldn't afford them bikes, I was lucky, and mine was nowt to write home about. Very,very happy days.

DIESELDOG

Cycling as a kid got me in trouble with the law! Two up on a Raleigh Chopper, wrong way down a one way street, and Mr Clarke, the local bobby pulled us up. (He always had stickers in his saddle bag). Duly told off but my mum got the stuff she needed from the shop!

Love n hugs

DD

craker

In the heady early days of BMXing we'd spend day after day bombing around the Common. We built ramps and bigger ramps and I remember a few times landing badly and being winded.

When the Raleigh Burner was traded up to a Releigh Sun (5 gears, drop handlebars) we started exploring our neighbourhood - probably never more than 10 miles at a time.

break for University and car ownership...

Got a rigid MTB in '94. I thought my BMX jumping skills would scale themselves up to mountain biking; I never have quite worked out why it doesn't. I frigging hate big drops on my MTB now, it's hard to keep the bike level in the air.

I believe I got back into road biking because I wanted to do more exploring - I'd grown up in the same place and there was a mind boggling array of roads and hills a few miles from my house that I had to discover.

MaxwellBygraves

I think it did.
I had a paper round and there was one big house on top of a hill to go to. When I started I had to get off and walk, but soon began cycling it. Used to love bombing back down! I think has contributed to why I feel so comfortable on a bike now - have been cycling about since I was very young.

random man

I got my first bike for Christmas 1962 when I was 7. It was a BSA with 3 gears!
It snowed on Boxing Day and froze til March but I used it all the time after that with my mates and rode to school regularly, only about a mile each way, on it when I was 10.
Got my first 'racer' when I was 12 or 13, a hand me down from a cousin. Didn't ride it much cos the gears were always playing up.

W e started building our own bikes from scrap ones we found, my first single speed, and put cowhorn bars on them.
My weekend paper rounds covered a few miles cos I delivered to big houses on the edge of Windsor Great Park. A heavy delivery bike with a big bag of heavy papers and no gears must have been good preparation for touring!

a_n_t

About 10 of us got turfed off the M56 in the early 80's trying to ride to manchester airport!

Ahh, the innocence of youth

markos1963

Spent most of my childhood on two wheels. Paper round along Eastbourne seafront with a butchers bike loaded up with 100 papers or more for the Grand Hotel at the other end, riding against the wind! Various Choppers and 'tracker' bikes as well as racers as I got older. Like others we just set off and rode across the South Downs to Brighton just for the fun of it with nothing more than a Mars bar to keep us going.

markmod

I too spent many many of the endless warm school holidays, riding around on my Raleigh Chopper. I can never once remember asking my Mum or Dad to take me somewhere (mates house, girlfriends, shops, town etc) by car. The bike was how I, we (my brother) got about no matter how far it seemed.... Boy how times have changed for kids now (I know there is a lot more traffic nowadays)

brin

Hah! the Chopper mine was red, tassles on the handlebars, a flag flying from rear of seat, battery operated indicators, and harley davison type mirrors (or so i was told) he he he, bit similar to what i'm riding now actually

markmod

Mine was purple, hand sprayed by my mate with a rattle can... Lovely

Allez Mark

I had a Budjie then upgraded to a Grifter (Three gears man). Then a Peugeot racer.
You know what. I can't ever remember fannying about with the saddle height, fore aft position and saddle angle Or worrying about stem length, frame size and crank arm length. We just got on our bikes and rode for miles.

mingmong

Spent a lot of time on my Team Murray. Grifter before that. Bikes were everything, and still are 8)

BigLee1

Again, I was a kid that went everywhere on my bike, it was a red lazer custom lol! great until my mates dad reversed his Rover SD1 over it

Nuggs

BigLee1 wrote:

Again, I was a kid that went everywhere on my bike, it was a red lazer custom lol! great until my mates dad reversed his Rover SD1 over it

I'm surprised that the bike came off worst TBH.

Homer J

Allez Mark wrote:

I had a Budjie then upgraded to a Grifter (Three gears man). Then a Peugeot racer.
You know what. I can't ever remember fannying about with the saddle height, fore aft position and saddle angle Or worrying about stem length, frame size and crank arm length. We just got on our bikes and rode for miles.

Snap! Apart from the peugeot. Grifter-the only bike heavier than the person riding it!

cycladianpirate

First bike was a Raleigh Chipper - that's not a typo - it was a scaled down version of the Chopper in bright yellow as I recall. After that a series of second hand stuff until I acquired my (then) dream bike - a Raleigh Record Ace!!

Rode everywhere - even in the freezing winters of Toronto - and didn't think anything of it. As for maintenance - a liberal dose of All-In-One when the chain got rusty and that was your lot.

Come to think of it, isn't it time that modern bikes and components MTFU'd?????

OffTheBackAdam

Ride to school & back (20 mins each way)
Ride to mate's houses, up to 10 miles each way.
Out probably 3 times on weekkdays in the evenings
Out Saturday, clubrun/race Sunday.
Started going out with the other ex-Mansfield Road Club (& Others) lads last November, still dropped on most hills, still shagged after 45 miles!

beverick

I used to set off from East Leeds around 8:30am and regularly not get back until 7pm. 120-130 milles per day were not unusual - and possibly on 3-4 days per week.

Any effect on current cycling? Well, sunday morning's start around 6am and I've usually done 60 miles by the time the wife's dragging her carcase out of bed at 9:30!

Bob

pilot_pete

Tough times back in the 70's. We couldn't afford bikes, so we used to go round the scrap yards and local dump acquiring parts......frame here, wheel there, handlebars, brakes etc.

Out of that lot you could put together a bike that worked....we would strip the frame with wire brushes and wet' n' dry and spray them with car paint. I would then use Humbrol Enamel to detail the lugs! Somehow you would get a bottom bracket to fit and tighten it up with loads of dad's Castrol Grease in there for good measure. The holy grail was to find cranks with a 32 chainwheel....ideal for our 'cycle speedway' style bikes. Get a freewheel on the back with something like 18 teeth and bob was your uncle. If you were really cool you'd have a rear wheel that could take a fixie sprocket on the other side - we used to wheelie all the way around the estate!!!

I remember having several Wiennman brakes which we would strip down and rebuild after highly polishing them with Solvol from dad's workbench. Hammering cotter pins in and over tightening the nut and stripping the thread!!!! 'Canadian Bend' bars were the order of the day, which you often found on ladies bikes....we'd strip them of all grips etc and then have them tilted up rather than flat or down. Sticky black cloth tape would be used as bar tape. If you could find the old postie's bike wheels (Westwood rims seems to ring a bell?) then these were the mutts as they were so tough. Solid black plastic saddles on steel rails from an old racer (tough bum in them days, riding in Levi's!)

The only thing we used to buy were knobbly tyres, which lasted no time at all with all the sideways skidding we used to do! And a punture kit, which was used to death - a tube was good until the holes were just too big to patch...........

I went everywhere on bikes like that as a kid - 10 miles to school and back through London streets, mates houses, over the park, local 'trails' in the woods by the golf course. I'd be out all day in the summer and don't remember eating or drinking anything! It was absolute bliss....

When I started a Saturday job I saved up for 2 years and bought a Raleigh Rapide in white....How good did that feel!? I bought one short sleeve cycling jersey (itchy wool) and a pair of shorts with chamois leather in them, along with a pair of cycling shoes, all in the sale at Geoffrey Butlers' in Croydon. I can't believe that I used to wear them whatever the weather, freezing my nuts off in winter! Ohh, and a water bottle.....cause I'd seen them on pictures of racing cyclists.....

Then I left home and the bike stayed in the garage for years and years........

Memories...........

beverick

Pilot Pete wrote:

............we would strip the frame with wire brushes and wet' n' dry and spray them with car paint.

My first road bike was painted Ford Saluki Bronze with Humbrol lining (Egyption gold I seem to remember - the pot's probably still in my mother's garage).

Pilot Pete wrote:

Then I left home and the bike stayed in the garage for years and years........

Mike's still in there, just in bits!

Bob

Tom Butcher

Sometimes used to cycle a couple of miles to school but more often than not got a lift seeing as my mum was one of the teachers. Mainly used the bike to go up the rec to play football or just cycle around calling on mates to ask if they could come out. Remember doing the odd ride with my brothers - probably 20-30 milers - think the furthest we got was Matlock. Summer I'd probably wear shorts for the longer rides but most of it would be in jeans and a T shirt.

First bike that I can remember was a hand me down Gresham Flyer - must have been about 6 or 7, then a no name single speed flat handlebar handpainted job that must have been pretty old - used to go "scrambling" in the local woods on it. Remember when I was 11 getting a 3 speed hub geared "racer" and then a few years after that a Raleigh Olympus that I can remember racing my older brother JIm on, and finally a Peugeot 10 speed (5 speed block) from Samways when I was about 15. Think it cost around £90 back then. That seemed super light - tyres couldn't have been more than 21mm tops. I was just getting into the idea of "training" - doing rides to get faster - when I sold it to my brother and added the money to some I'd saved up and got a Vespa 50 Special and that was that until I was well into my 30s.

Drysuitdiver

used to ride to school everyday.

and then go out on bike for 50 miles every night. if i didn't go cycling i went swimming.

then i discovered cars and girls and beer and it all stopped.

dizzydane

I used to ride 7kms to and from school from the age of 8 with my siblings and cousins. Weekends were spent in the skate park on my BMX. Then in my teens I got involved in adventure racing doing 75 -100km MTB races at night.

When I moved to the UK I bought a road bike and noticed that after having not ridden for a few years in my early twenties, I'd lost the speed, but the foundation has given me my endurance.

Headhuunter

I never did rides of more than about 10 miles at most until I was 13 or 14. Me and mates used to go out cycling a few miles here and there round the local streets. It was the 80s, we didn't have helmets and my mum didn't want us going off for miles and miles. I remember going out for a bike ride on the day Prince Charles and Diana got married - me, my dad and my best mate. I was about 8 years old. The roads were incredibly quiet, everyone was at home watching the Royal Wedding... But I remember that my mate who had some kind of Chopper/Grifter type thing with a tiddly front wheel, lost control of the bike and wiped out, gashing his hand or leg open...

pst88

I never had a bike as a kid (boohoo) and I'm really slow now so maybe that's the reason.

stevec205gti

Time for my little nostalgia trip.......

Grew up on the Isle of Wight in the 80's - and pretty much every free minute I had was spent on my bike. Lived down a nice quiet Close from the age of 5, so all my time was spent pedalling up and down that. I learnt how to ride without stabilisers simply because the wheel one side fell off and my dad refused to fix it. Not long after the wheel the otherside fell off so I learnt how to ride (and more importantly for my mates - had a set of useful pegs to stand on a give lifts). Soon got my first proper bike, and pestered my dad to take me out on more pressing adventures - as he was a keen time trialler and member of the local club I was thoroughly brutalised into going on decent distances - his reasoning being that if he was going out on a ride he was going to get some benefit from it!!! Still, it stood me in good stead and was soon climbing hills like a mountain goat. One of my earliest cycling memories was being 6/7 years old and pelting it past a couple in their 30's out touring, struggling up a hill, and the look of deflation on their faces as I piped up a cheery "Hello" in a little squeaky voice and disappeared off in the distance with my dad chuckling away.....

Anyway - all my mates had bikes, and cycling everywhere as fast as possible was the order of the day. This was also aided by my dislike for walking/running anywhere or for any reason. By the age of about 11 or 12 I could (badly) strip and rebuild a bike and was off on my own doing about 15 miles a day after school. I had a mate my age who's brother was in the same club as my dad, so we used to head out and about a couple of times a week in summer, as long as tagging along with the club on the lighter club runs.

Unfortuantely, we moved away when I was 13 up to Staffordshire, and my dad jacked in TT'ing, so my cycling just involved heading out a few times a week. Looking back now, I really regret it as I think I could have been quite a reasonable cyclist had I stayed on the Island for a couple more years and started TT'ing. However, despite a few years off the bike, I picked up the bug again 5-6 years ago and my sadistic love of pushing my body to the very limits of its pain threshold and beyond is still just as strong now as when I was a skinny, lanky 10 year old learning to climb some killer hills on my trusty old Peugeot 5 speed

sampras38

I was always on a bike as a kid. Started off on a Budgie with the big fats tyres (anyone remember those)?, then went through Raleigh Striker, Grifter, then on to my first road bike. A Raleigh Arena follwed by a Peugoet Pure Gold. Must have been around 14 or 15 at that stage. Then dabbled with a couple of mountain bikes. Moved into tennis/bodybuilding and left bikes behind for a long time, and now road biking is all I do with a smigden of tennis, just to keep my eye in. Funny how my life's come full circle.

Surfr

Lived on bikes as a kid. Mainly fat tyred variety though. Memorable bikes were Raleigh Striker, Chrome Burner, Ridgeback 600.Lived next to Crane Park in twickenham which was blessed with miles of man made earth ridges and mounds to dissipate the noise from the old shot tower and gun powder works. These were absolutely riddled with trails and jumps.


LexmarkAIOScan9.jpg by Surfrdan, on Flickr


LexmarkAIOScan3.jpg by Surfrdan, on Flickr

The ridgeback came around 1989 and brought with it trips further afield. Richmod Park and Teddington Lock was a regular haunt for off roading and sometimes we'd ride off to Virginia Waters for 'epic' days out. Not bad on fully steel MTBs.


Ridgeback jumping in Bushey Park by Surfrdan, on Flickr

I then ditched it all when I found cars and beer and women, returning only 2 years ago to the saddle and am completely hooked again, only now I live in the cycling paradise of Mid Wales. Endless amazing roads and MTBing from the front door