Do you remember your first bicycle?

[chief38]

Believe it or not I STILL have my first Bike! It's a red and white Schwinn with coaster brakes, a light on the front fender, a rack over the rear fender and a a fake tank. My old man converted it into an exercise bike after I left for College, and now that he is gone I was actually toying with the idea of restoring it back into a standard Bike again.

I rode that sucker from the time I was about 6 'till I got my Junior drivers license. I can't even imagine how many miles I put on it.

 

[model70hunter]

Christmas early 50's. Mine was a 26" Western Auto balloon tired Red with white stripes. It had a electric horn. One D cell battery and a push button on the enclosed tank. It was a Western Flyer. I was too small and young to reach the pedals. We lived on a gravel road. I ate so much gravel I gave up. That summer when we went to Iowa to visit my grandparents dad brought it in the trunk.

Paved city streets and concrete sidewalks, hmm. Dad kept pushing me until I got it. From then on I could fly like the wind and honk at slow pokes. Heck one could put playing cards on it held in place with wooden clothes pins and sound like a real motor bike.

Worst memory, a bicycle race through another kiids yard and catching the clothesline in my throat. Double back flip and I did not know if I would ever again breath.

Worst scare. We moved to town for 1 year between the little farm Dad rented and the big one he bought. We lived close to a military base, Fort Lost in the Woods or perhaps Little Korea if you ever spent time there. A Solder was grabbing young boys for perversion. It was always in the dark. I was 12, the neighbor boy was 12, we got permission one nice summer eve to go to a night movie. We rode our bikes. We lived on top of the mountain. The town and theater was at the bottom. The hill we lived on had one stretch that no one had rode all the way to the top with a single speed bike.

My Mom's last words were watch out for "that guy". We coasted down the mountain at warp speed, watched the movie and headed home in the dark. We were quiet, we made the first section and headed towards the bad section, 1/4 mile almost vertical. We were reaching the bad spot, my buddy screamed "THERE HE IS". We crested the unbeatable hill pretty close to top speed and did not slow down till we dropped the bikes in our respective yards and sprinted into the house.

Dad, a pretty fearless individual, put me in the car and we drove down the road, did not see anything. On the way back Dad slowed where I said my friend saw the guy. In the moonlight there was a dead limb casting a shadow from the ditch to the road. I felt better. My friend was never convinced that it was a limb.

There are many memories in my little brain, but cresting that hill knowing it was a long flat road and one small hill to my house is still as fresh today as it was in 1959. Perhaps, just maybe I may have been comforted by the fact that I had pulled way out in front of my friend. It is the stragglers that get caught first.......

 

[Rgoodwin]

WJ- you need to write a book!

 

[Marshwheeling]

I barely remember my first bike. It had solid rubber tires and no freewheel, so if it was moving, the pedals were going around. Today, I guess they would call it a "fixie", and hipsters would teach their kids to ride on it. It wasn't much of a bike, and I didn't ride it much.

My dad had a 3-speed Hercules that he used to ride into town to work. After a couple of years, he moved up to a Raleigh and passed the Herc on to me, so that is what I think of as my first real bike.

When we moved into town a couple of years later, most of the kids in the neighborhood rode Raleighs. There were a few Schwinns and other balloon-tire bikes, but for some reason, this neighborhood preferred the Raleighs, with an occasional Dunelt or Robin Hood. Mine was the only Herc. I rode it everywhere, and could outrun all the kids in the neighborhood.

I was an indifferent athlete, so I have to give credit to the 17-tooth cog on the Herc-o-Matic planetary hub. The Raleighs all had Sturmey-Archer hubs, which typically came with 18 or 19-tooth cogs. Of course, I didn't know any of this at the time, I just knew my Hercules was the fastest bike in the neighborhood, until kids started getting 10-speeds.

We used to spend a lot of time down at the railroad tracks. That was where the kids with the American bikes had the edge. There was a lot of traprock along the tracks. The big balloon tires handled the rock and the gravel service roads a lot better then the skinny-tire 3-speeds.

 

[Alnamvet68]

Columbia Three Star Deluxe with light and horn.

 

[Old TexMex]

A brand new Huffy was the bike I bought, after working at the local grocery store, sacking groceries for seven dollars a week the summer of 1962. A four day week, six hour day (which included a hamburger at lunch) job. I wanted a Schwinn, but the Huffy was less expensive. The owner of the grocery store got me a discount. He also got me discounts on shotgun shells.
I ordered, and installed, a J.C. Whitney siren. The Constable told me I could only use it when riding to the fire station, where all us kids were members of the volunteer fire department. We fought grass fires, and rode our bikes, and carried our shotguns across the handlebars to the edge of town to shoot mourning dove, pintail ducks (we called them sprigs) and green wing teal. We were the wild bunch on our bikes. Fightin' fires, carryin' our guns, and bringing home game.what a childhood.I was raised in the circus, and ran away to the orphanage.
That bike got me around for about four years, until Honda started selling motorcycles in my world.

 

[MK]

Yep.. 2nd grade in I think 1964-65. Was a Firestone 24 incher cruiser
with pseudo gas tank. Had dual headlights in the front of the
tank, and had a luggage rack on the back with three pseudo rocket
exhaust ports on the back. They don't make em like that anymore..

 

[labworm]

My Uncle loved his tea and loved playing illegal numbers with the local bookies. One day his number came in and he won roughly $2,000 (In 1957 that was a huge chunk of change).

I always dreamed of having a brand new bike and realized it just was never going to happen.

Until my Uncle and I walked to the Schwinn store roughly 1 1/2 miles and he purchased this for me at the age of 11.
I had a corvette

 

[Marshwheeling]

That's nice. Three speeds, plus the beauty of the Schwinn cantilever frame.

 

[brucev]

My first bicycle was a little red and white starter bicycle w/ training wheels that I got when I was maybe 6 yrs. old. I learned to ride it down the gravel driveway. It was left behind when we moved. I was about to turn 8 yrs. old. That following Christmas at our new home I got a new bicycle... green w/ banana seat, high rise handle bars, etc. I wore it out. Broke my left wrist the first time on that bicycle. Then... with money I made cutting grass, I bought a three-speed Schwinn... red. Beautiful bicycle. Rode it everywhere! Then... I started buying cars. That of course is another story.

 

[labworm]

That's nice. Three speeds, plus the beauty of the Schwinn cantilever frame.

I believe it was an Archer 3 speed, a really heavy bike compared to today, mostly rode it in Neutral. I'm thinking it cost something like $79.99, somewhere in that area.

Put a lot of mileage on that bike and went everywhere.

The Beach Boys Song "I Get Around" sort of sums it up.

 

[charlie sherrill]

Six years old. A 20" J.C. Higgins with balloon tires. When I was old enough for a larger bike my first one had no fenders, no handlebar grips, worn out seat, slick tires, and steel bolts for pedals.

 

[gm272gs]

Remember it? Sure! I still have it.

Apple green Schwinn Stingray. Christmas, 1967.

 

[Jyezahn]

This bicycle was my first two-wheeler. The picture is one I found on the 'net. Mine had stupid tassles on it. (yes, it was a boy's bike)

 

[SW_shooter]

Yep, I not only remember my first bike, I remember the second one too. The first was a big red monster that had the wide bar in the middle because it had two lights at the front. The second was a version of the one sipowicz has pictured but mine had the flat bars and a 3 speed shifter witha wide handle. Banana seat with high handle bars.

Back in the late 80's me and the wife were in Washington D.C. on a vacation and we were touring the Smithsonian. We walked around a corner and into an area that had bicycles on display. My heart sank when I saw that BOTH my bikes were on display as "antiques". Really? Come'on man, I ain't that old.