Foo - When did it hit you?

Tell us about when you realized that riding on two wheeled objects with pedals (nooooooooooo this is not *ahem* cycling related.....) was something that you'd really get into. :)

I wrote an essay about it somewhere here on Foo but I can't find it now. :(

edit: It was in the essay contest but that thread has disappeared, even though I searched. Perhaps a mod will be able to pull it out of the archives for me? I should have kept a copy.

Rode alot of BMX bikes as a kid, did a bit of racing, nothing serious. Gave up bikes in highschool years. Bought a MTB at the the start of college and found I really enjoyed riding. A roadie soon followed and I have never been bikeless since.

So to answer your question, it was around 1984 that I discovered that I enjoyed the solitude and challenge of solo road riding. I really enjoy just getting out on the road where the only sound is the slight sound of the drivetrain, and the wind in your ears. I just space out, get into a rythym and crank out the miles.

Or at least I used to. Work and family has reduced by riding time drastically and my fitness level has suffered greatly due to that. The days of getting up, getting on teh bike and riding for hours on end may be gone for me.

1.5 years ago.

tried different "things" for exercise (e.g. weightlifting), but had to give them up for various medical reasons. tried cycling. rode every day for a couple of weeks. took a day or two off and all i could think about was getting back on the bike.

now, its just a part of who i am. when i meet new people, cycling doesn't take long to come up. it's probably in the top 3 or 4 things i mention about myself (my kids being #1).

My best friend for much of my childhood, (who has gone by miataspeed a couple times on BF and now for some reason unknown to me wants nothing to do with me) got me into MTBing when I was in 7th grade.

Summer of '06, when I knew that I was eventually going to need a very physical outlet for my inevitable grief. I remembered how much I'd loved road-riding 20 years earlier, and knew that cycling would become my healing therapy. And it has been that. *nodding* :)

It hit me right about the same time the windshield of my car did.

Just kidding. It hit about 7 months after that, when I was commuting in during a blizzard, after that I was finally totally sold.

When I was about 40 I relearned my joy of cycling. I love exploring and I could explore off road so much with a mountain bike. I still do - but in the tropics. In fact, one of my motivations to move here was so that I could explore year round without discomfort.

I think it was a combination of things that all came together a few years ago.

It *started* in December of 2003 just after my mom died. A friend of mine, both of us big and out of shape pretty bad, decided to do something "active" that weekend. She came up with the idea of renting bikes and riding "on the trail".

So that's what we did....all my love from riding my bike as a kid came back. She was riding soooo slow that I could hardly ride slow enough to stay with her....riding that slow I was falling over. After a few miles she said, "go on...I know you want to tear off" or something like that. After making sure she really meant it, I bolted and rode. I was quite surprised at how far I rode. I didn't realize at the time that the trail had mile markers, but we calculated when I got back that I must have gone about 14 miles (7 miles out and then back). In fact, I only stopped because the trail ended (later found it it picked up again on other side of road, but I didn't see it).

Anyway....that got me started. We both ended up buying a bike (same bike in fact, though we shopped separately, LOL). A comfort bike, - Trek Navigator 300. Which is what I was still riding when I started on bike forums and met my "Navigator Sister" (guess who that is...can anybody say O.P.?).

The lady that I rode with quickly fizzled out, but I kept going, even if it was only "weekend warrior" style. I did find some friends from work to ride with, but it was only one ride a week on Sunday mornings.

The miracle came about a year later, ironically, from that same friend that I had started with and had since quit. She was going on a vacation with a friend to California. Her friend was into bike riding and wanted to do this 18 mile California wine country thing. My friend asked me to help her "get in bike shape" enough to do an 18 mile bike ride. I said, "sure".

Also at that time, I had something happen at work such that I was going to be working evenings for a while (few months). So I had EVERY MORNING free. She was a professor and had most mornings free too. So she came over nearly every morning for a bike ride. After a month or so, one day she couldn't make it for some reason but I wanted to jump on the bike and ride anyway. THAT was when it first hit me......I had "caught the bug". I was looking forward to going for a ride, not forcing myself to do it for the exercise.

When I was a kid we were, well, not poor, but we were not well off enough for my parents to buy me a new bicycle. I learned to ride on a raggedy-assed old hand-me-down bike from my cousins. I think I was probably about five. I rode that pile of junk for several years.

I got into selling cards(Christmas, birthday, etc) from an ad on the back of Boys Life magazine. I sold enough cards to get a tape recorder and a couple of other smaller items. One day I was looking and decided I was going to sell enough cards to get a new bike. It was a three speed stick shift banana seat beauty. I sold cards 'til I was sick of it(and my parents were even more sick of it) but I finally got enough sold. Seems like it took FOREVER but I finally received my new bike. We lived in the country and I rode that thing all over the place. I rode the 4 or 5 miles to my friends house several times a week.

Grew up, started driving a car and that was pretty much the end of the biking for years. Got back into it a few years ago after a friend gave me an old ten speed. I liked it so much I bought a new road bike, then got my wife a new hybrid, then got a MTB. So basically it was another hand-me-down that got me back into riding after all these years...LOL. :)

The year was 1961. I was about two years old, and able to remember things and have aspirations. About once a month or so, I'd get to go into the city (Rochester, NY) to visit my Grandparents. The front of their house was my Uncle's bicycle shop. It wasn't that large at the time, but I always came in through the front door and walked past all those neat bikes. That was fun. Walking out... saying good bye to all that neat stuff was just the opposite.

When I was three or four, my Uncle put me on a seat he had rigged on the back of his bike. We didn't travel far, but it was fun. About a year after that, I got my first bike - a used, red, ordinary 20" single speed bike with coaster brakes that someone had traded in. I learned to ride it without training wheels in one or two sessions. The first day the training wheels came off, I must have ridden the length of the block 40 or 50 times.

I try to do as much of my own maintenance work as possible. This goes back to those formative years as well. My lasting memories of my Grandfather (who spoke very little, and never very loudly, and who died before I was ten) was of him bouncing me on his knee, and of him building wheels in the evening while smoking his pipe.

I've been riding since I could walk. I grew up in a small town so a bicycle was my primary mode of transportation. I started off riding BMX style bikes. When I was 12 my dad bought me a Nishiki 15 speed (triple crank). He enjoyed riding quite a lot. He bought a Bianchi (I still have it) at the same time he bought me the Nishiki. Once I starting riding road bikes with him I was hooked. I kept riding road bikes all the way through highschool. During my college years I rode a MTB to get around campus, but that was about it. After I graduated a gentleman I worked with race road bikes and got me back into road bikes.

i realized it was a good way to spend more time with my hetrosexual life mate and best friend of 10 years...

and then i just kinda took off from there...but, look at my avatar..if it's got two wheels i am all over it and have ridden allot since i was a kid.

2001. When I moved to Colorado. I already had a mountain bike but didn't use it too much. Having the Front Range and so many great trails at my door step changed that. Just got into road biking this past year after buying a "spur of the moment" bike during one of REI's year end sales. I've since put 1700 miles on the road bike in addition to completing two century rides and a week long tour of the Rocky Mountains. Yeah it "hit" me pretty hard. :D

Wow!! These are wonderful stories!! Keep them coming!!

Dang... I'm hoping maybe Donna or Snowy can help me find that essay.......:(

I think I was cresting a hill westbound on 303 somewhere between Penninsula and Richfield. The sun was low in the sky, I was on an endorphin high, and the rest is history.

Mar 30, 2005.

I was diagnosed with diabetes about 6 weeks earlier. My doctor wanted to try and control it with diet and exercise. Biking became my exercise. At first it was riding a few miles after work and on weekends. In June I started riding to work. I've been riding on weekends and commuting to work ever since. I honestly feel biking saved my life.

I think I know which essay contest you're talking about. Was it the contest where one or two of the mods were going to grant a member with a red star? If so, I wrote an essay for that contest. I'll try looking for it too.

I have never actually been all that far from a bicycle there has always been one in the house, whether it was my dad's old falcon or some random mountain bike of mine.

For a bit I ignored my pedal powered friends for the free and easy speed of motorcycles. But for a bit during a backpacking trip in Ireland I was on foot and walking everywhere so I learned to appreciate things a bit differently.

Here I was one morning waiting for the rest of my friends to wake up so I went for a walk around the small coastal village we were staying in. leaning next to a pub I found a bicycle with a note that read "please take me"

http://stupidhurts.org/gallery/albums/untitled%20folder/Ireland/IMGP2780.jpg

Feeling a bit like alice in front of the rabbit hole, I took it. and I rode it. Granted every bearing that could be busted was and every cable was loose. but for a moment there I was free. the fog was just coming in off the ocean, and the streets where still empty.

I knew in that moment I needed my own bike.

When I got done I returned the bike to the spot where i found it and replaced the note in the hopes that someone else would throw a leg over it and maybe fall in love much the same way i just had.
then I walked off into the fog grinning from ear to ear.

Got a Pacific mountain bike for my first communion. So whenever that was, and since.

I'm not sure that it has, yet!

I really like cycling to work, but I think it's that I feel proud of myself (and a bit self righteous) for having cycled instead of taking the car.
I love riding with my wife and son, but it that cycling or is that being outdoors with my family, we never go very far or fast but it's great to be out together?
I also loved the long (for me) solo rides in France this year, but maybe it was achieving a goal that I enjoyed.
I loved doing the charity rides I did this year, but was that cycling or was that the challenge I enjoyed?

I've often wondered about this, do I really enjoy cycling? I don't seem to have the passion others have for it. But, if I don't ride my bike for a few days I feel like somethings missing and I'm itching to get back on it.

Would I get excited about a 20 mile ride tomorrow in the warm sun, maybe.
Would I get excited about a 5 mile ride with family and friends to a park, absolutely.
If it was cycling I loved, wouldn't I prefer the first?

Maybe it's the thought of cycling home on the country roads in the pitch black and cold that's making me so melancholy.
Nuts, I've just remembered I need to charge my lights. Looks like it might be a little darker and a little colder when I finally get going.

I think I know which essay contest you're talking about. Was it the contest where one or two of the mods were going to grant a member with a red star? If so, I wrote an essay for that contest. I'll try looking for it too.

Yes, that's it!! I have to leave for work soon but if you find it, will you post it for me? I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks in advance! :o

blimey I'm boring

No you are not. You got the bug, admit it! :D

When Dad took the training wheels off my first bike when I was 4...and I didn't fall over (at first). ;)

c0urt, you write some of the best stuff.


Okay, here's mine. For my birthday back in 1977, I got a new Raleigh ten-speed. It was a limited edition bike, all steel frame and silver paint and dubbed a "Jubilee"--a name to commemorate Queen Elizabeth's silver jubilee that year. It was just about the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. For the next few years, I rode nearly every day I could over the cobblestones of Edinburgh, dodging the traffic and the pedestrians. I just about rode that bike into the ground. When my family moved to the U.S., of course, my Jubilee came with me. While the other kids took the bus to school or caught rides with their folks, I commuted on that bike.

Finally, I outgrew my Jubilee and by then, I'd moved on to high school where it wasn't "cool" to ride a bike to school. My Jubilee sat in the garage and rusted.

Fast forward about 20 years. I'd been through brief bouts of nostalgia for my riding days and bought a hybrid after college. But even though the riding was fun and I liked being able to run errands on the bike, it just wasn't the same as the old days.

In 1995, my wife and I got married--a life-changing experience, of course--and, the weekend of our wedding, I saw something else that would change my life. We hosted the wedding and reception at a bed & breakfast in Round Top, Texas. It was Saturday, April 22, and I looked out the front gate of the place that afternoon to see hundreds of cyclists passing by. It was the Houston to Austin MS150 ride. Something down deep wanted to be out there on the road with those riders, and I promised myself I'd do it one day.

It took another six years before I made an effort to keep that promise. My mom was managing a sporting goods store, and I asked her if her bike manager could recommend a good starter roadie for me. A few days later, I bought an inexpensive alloy frame Iron Horse. Nothing fancy. I wasn't sure if I could really do this or not. The minute I set out on that bike, I felt it. It was my Jubilee all over again. It was charging down a hill in Edinburgh, vibrating from the cobblestones under my wheels. It was dodging the cars and buses. It was not having a care in the world.

I rode my first Houston to Austin MS150 seven months later, and I'll ride my sixth one next April. I upgraded from the Iron Horse and sold it for cheap to a friend of mine who hadn't been on a bike in years. He took that bike on his first MS150 two years ago and has since upgraded, himself. My hope is that he'll pass the Iron Horse on to someone else who can use it the same way he and I did.

Anyway, now I can't imagine not calling myself a cyclist. It's part of who I am, though I suspect it always was. It just took me 20 years to re-discover it.

I had had bikes as a kid, a Schwinn Sting-Ray and then a Schwinn Varsity and I rode pretty much every daylight hour that I wasn't in school. Then in '73 as a freshman in highschool I took an electronics class and the teacher rode his bike to school. It was a black & gold Raleigh Competition. I'd never really seen a real racing bike with these tiny components and tiny little tires. And the tires glued on? Cool!! I had to have one. Started racing with that teacher, another one who also raced and a couple of other students that got interested. I never had a top ten finish but did eventually make Cat 3 just by having enough "show-up" points accumulated. That being accomplished I decided that just riding for fun was what I needed to be doing and quit racing. 34 years, 10 bikes, tons of bike stuff and way too much money later I'm riding more than ever. I'll stop when my legs won't turn the pedals anymore.

find that essay.......:(

*ahem (http://www.bikeforums.net/showpost.php?p=4190164&postcount=24)*

Back before college.....but it took a while to actually get a bike and see the light.....

It is odd how it worked out....I love cycling now...read about it all the time..blah blah blah....for me it is a fun way to stay in shape, meet people and see the world.....SLOWLY...in my opinion that is the best way for it to be seen...

While I've always biked on and off recreationally, I was forced to look for other means of getting to work one summer when our manufacturing shop guys went on strike. They were picketting the entrances so it was next to impossible to drive into the parking lot. I decided to try biking to work (10km's each way). It was a blast. My ride in the morning takes me thru 5 km's of nature trails (and 5 km's of city roads) where I get to see plenty of wildlife including the occasional deer. After work it's the best stress reliever pushing myself to go faster. I start to look forward to the ride home a couple of hours before it's quitting time. During the first year of commuting I bought my Trek 6700.

I wanted to ramp up my biking to include longer weekend rides, so this year I bought an Orbea road bike. It's a blast! We have plenty of nice country roads in our area with fantastic scenary. As I'm riding I'm also scoping out our next house to purchase out on an acreage. Haven't found it yet but it's fun looking.

The last time (not the first). Summer 04. Intensive care.

It started in April of this year... I was basically looking for an outlet, something to keep my mind off my broken heart. When I really started getting into it was after I got the road bike in July, and started going on long group rides. I've come to realize it takes me a looooong time to warm up, and after that, it becomes so much more fun for me. I absolutely love it. :D

Another thing--I REALLY started loving hills after my trip to SoCal. That was such an accomplishment for me, and it's something I'll never forget.

I got into it for the chicks. Same reason I hang out in foo.

Yeah, the chics are pretty hot, too. :D

In all honesty, it happened like this...
I grew up in a neighborhood that was particularly bike friendly. Growing up, a bike was my way to get around. Eventually, I started driving, though, and stopped riding a bike. About 3 or 4 years back some friends convinced me to come mountain biking. I quickly found that I loved the sport. I bought a bike, broke up with a girl, and rode a lot. One day when my mountain bike was having some maintenance done at the LBS, I borrowed the owner's road bike. Me and a buddy went out on the road and I found that I enjoyed more than just trail riding. I broke up with another girl, bought a road bike and have been splitting what little free time I have between trail and road ever since.

I used to take my cheapie wal-mart MTB out in the construction and woods all the time. Things started breaking and I started fixing them. Started riding to school and putting together my own bikes that suit me. The rest is history.

*ahem (http://www.bikeforums.net/showpost.php?p=4190164&postcount=24)*

OMG!! I searched and searched!! How did you find that, X?? Thanks soooo much!! *goes to save essay*

it's the only thing that keeps me alive right now...started two years ago...I'd ride that old Huffy if I had to now...

We need to meet for a ride, Dauphin. Seriously.

we need to meet, period. :)

c0urt, you write some of the best stuff.
.

thanks, i try

OMG!! I searched and searched!! How did you find that, X?? Thanks soooo much!! *goes to save essay*Simple formula:

Google > Typing in random URLs > Bikeforums' built-in search.

:)

thanks, i try

You succeed. :)

Google > Typing in random URLs > Bikeforums' built-in search.

I'm with you there... I use Google to search on BF as much as I use BF's search to search on BF.

Yeah. You can do about five searches on Google while you're waiting for that maddening 30 second search limit to time out. :rolleyes:

I had crap bikes as a kid, but i think i probably discovered the appeal way back then, even though i didn't know it. I used to love to wander around town on my bike for hours on end, just daydreaming and taking in the sights.

It proved to be very relaxing and sort of a Zen thing for me. The appeal today, 30 years later is still the same. Time on the bike, is incomparable to any other time.

In all honesty, it happened like this...
I grew up in a neighborhood that was particularly bike friendly. Growing up, a bike was my way to get around. Eventually, I started driving, though, and stopped riding a bike. About 3 or 4 years back some friends convinced me to come mountain biking. I quickly found that I loved the sport. I bought a bike, broke up with a girl, and rode a lot. One day when my mountain bike was having some maintenance done at the LBS, I borrowed the owner's road bike. Me and a buddy went out on the road and I found that I enjoyed more than just trail riding. I broke up with another girl, bought a road bike and have been splitting what little free time I have between trail and road ever since.

You must date expensive girls.....seems you have to break up with one every time you need to buy a bike.

When Dad took the training wheels off my first bike when I was 4...and I didn't fall over (at first). ;)

I did.

Had a bike as a kid but stopped riding a while back. Grew up playing soccer and became a runner. Fast forward a couple decades and I notice ankle and knee twinges when I run. Figuring running might not be the best long term concept for a guy in his mid 40's, I look into cycling and break out the hybrid I bought when I lived in Alaska. It's okay, but I want to go faster. The wife buys me the road bike and I've been an addict for 3 years now.

From a "what got you into cycling?" thread in 2004. I guess it hit me that cycling is a lifestyle for me when I started cycling to work in 2004. I would do anything to avoid driving anywhere.


I can't remember when biking hasn't been part of my life.

Growing up in Stockton, CA I used to race my neighborhood play pals around the block with my first yellow K-Mart bike when I was 5. It had a standard saddle but I always envied my neighbor's Schwinn with it's banana seat.

Then I got a Monkey Wards "Open Road" 24" wheeled ten-speed at about 8 and man could I get some long tire skids with that baby. I remember once trying to make a championship distance skid and hit the front brake... I was like superman!

My early to mid-teens were filled with many BMX bikes that the "gang" and I rode around town with. We were your standard teenage hooligans: sidekicking garbage cans, goading people into chasing us with their cars, dropping off 5 foot walls, bunny hopping 30in walls... all in all nothing too destructive. We did ride alot, sometimes leaving in the morning and not returning till dinner time. My stable included a Redline, a Hutchinson, a Torker, a Mongoose, and the first ever Haro Freestyler. I always wanted a PK Ripper though.

At about 16 I got my first road bike, a grey Cannondale with fushia lettering. I loved that bike and put many miles on it riding around Stockton. Two years later, I came across a 15 spd white w/ red lettering Cannondale mountain bike on sale. I snapped it up and was hooked on off-road riding. Soon after I sold the road bike and later regretted it.

At 20 I started school in San Francisco and along came my second Cannondale MTB in British Racing Green. I rode at least 3 to 4 times a week doing a loop from SF State, through Golden Gate Park, up to Coit Tower, down to Fisherman's Wharf, across the GG Bridge,up to the Marin Headlands and back down the Great Highway. Those were the days... During the college years, I went through yet another Cannondale MTB in Red, and eventually ended up with a Red Trek 970 frame I built up. (The Cannondales all developed an annoying creaking from the seat tube that couldn't be fixed.) The Trek 970 was divine after having been on the Cannondales for years. At 24, my Trek 970 went up in smoke, literally. I had it at my GF's place when the apartment burned down. That sucked!

It was two more years before I got another bike, this time a Trek 7000 MTB and I had great riding partner from work. We rode consistently for a good year... mountain rides, night rides, etc... till the falling out between him and the GF. It was the girl or the riding partner. Damn! At least the girl is now my wife and mother to my two kids.

Between 1997 and 2002 I had the Trek 7000 but hardly rode it. Between home improvements, raising two small children, and everything else, cycling took a back seat in priority. Besides riding well and smoking didn't mix and I had taken up smoking during the past 8 years.

Then on April 21st 2003 my first daughter's 5th birthday, I made a vow to quit smoking and get back on the bike. I bought a used black 1997 Cannondale R200 and got on the road again, this time with another co-worker. The obsession returned and now I've sold the Trek 7000 (bad memories), upgraded the R200 with full Ultegra, built a Bianchi Strada for my commute to work, and started racing Cyclocross with my Bianchi Axis.

This year, I hope to do the STP or the AIDS Lifecycle and possibly an Olympic distance triathlon. (I have to learn to swim and run better first.)

Updates since 2004:

Now have four kids... added Luke (finally a boy) and Devany.
Built and sold a host of different bikes.
Ran my first marathon (SF Marathon) in 2007. Still haven't learned to swim :(
Got hit by a car while on my bike in 2005 and got away with scrapes and bruises.
Got hit by a car on 10/20/2007 and got fractures in my nose, left orbital floor, and three vertebrae. Haven't ridden while I recover.

February 1989.

My 1st wife and I had separated(she left) and I found myself with a full summer ahead with literally nothing to do....I remembered how happy I was riding alot when I was a kid .... so I went out and bought a brand new Schwinn World Sport....I rode it around the neighborhood but I wanted to go further....I found the local bike club and was told about the "Friday night ride" , so I went to that and there were a LOT of cyclists there! ... I show up with no helmet, no clipless pedals/shoes, no computer, just my sneakers, tall tube socks, gym shorts and a white t-shirt....I was very intimidated....I remember hearing some guy chuckle, saying something like "there's gonna be a lonnng tail tonight" ....I didn't know what he meant at the time, but now I do :).....I lasted about 7 or 8 miles going around 18-20 mph(being the new guy and trying to keep up)....I ended up bonking on a rather easy hill and barely made it back to the parking lot before dark.....

BUT, I remember saying to myself that that would NEVER happen again......I put about 3,000 miles in that summer and by the end of the summer was on the cool Proteus road bike that's in my sig.....also lost about 30lbs that summer....and became pretty fast as time went on....I was definitely bitten by the bug that summer!