General Cycling Discussion - Can you remember your very first bike?

I had a cruiser type bike... I honestly don't know what it was called. My parents got it for me at Canadian Tire. It was blue and had a banana seat, single speed with coaster brakes. We'd ride around the neighbourhood, to the park, we'd store it in the back of the van with my brother's bike so we could bring it camping. I got caught by the cops double riding with my cousin on it. I thought I was in serious trouble and thought I got away with murder when he just took my name down and told me and my cousin not to do it again. I loved that bike, just for all the memories.

I don't see bikes with banana seats anymore. :(

My dad got me an oooold schwinn cruiser, spraypainted red white and blue, per request. That thing weighed a ton. Probably cut from a block of solid steel. <3

All I remember is it was black and had training wheels. I also remember wanting to be like the grown-ups and park in the driveway. Let's just say the bike didn't last too long...

Mine was a "curb special" as in my dad will have found it along the curb on trash day:p It was painted white and gold with 20" wheels. Ought to be some pictures of it floating around somewhere at my parents house. Life went up hill from there. Still have some "curb specials" and a couple of dump rescues, and about a dozen others that I have accumulated:o

Aaron:)

Black Schwinn bike... nothing special. It was used. My parents had a rule that none of us kids were allowed to ride a bike until we were 9.

I honestly don't remember any of the other kids in my family getting a bike.

I do remember later adding a double basket setup to the back. I rode that thing everywhere.

Yep ... there's a photo of me on my first cycle on my "About Me" page: http://www.machka.net/aboutme/aboutme.htm

And my first two-wheeler was a gold convertible bicycle.

1957 German 3 speed, wish I knew what brand it was. (wish I still had it)

Christmas 1967. A used rental blue Schwinn Stingray, serial # A23817. The Stingray lasted until junior high, being converted into a BMX bike. The frame broke riding off a curb. My uncle brazed it together. It broke again. He promised to re-weld it, but he threw it away when he moved. I still mourn.

Last Christmas, I took a ride to my grandparent's old house. It's where we celebrated Christmas. I struck me that I was standing in the same spot that I was 40 years ago to the hour. Did I just make a huge circle for the last 40 years, only to end where I started? Riding my Rockhopper instead of the Stingray.......

I remember being 8 yrs old, musta been either my birthday or Christmas of 1961.:eek: A brand new, honest-to-gosh Schwinn with 24" wheels & tires, black with white trim & white pinstripes on the black fenders. :) Don't remember the model name for sure, might have been a Spitfire. That's the bike I learned to ride on. We never heard of the term "Cruiser" back then, there were regular bikes & "English Racers", that was it. :D

It was some sort of kids BMX bike... I think it was like Auburn or something? It had black pads with red lettering on them... I really cant remember. The next bike my folks bought me was 15 years ago, my Trek Antelope 800 Mountain bike which i still use to this day. Best birthday present EVER....

EDIT: It said "Ambush" on it, not Auburn, now I remember. Wonder who made it or where it was from...

Yes! See my avatar!

Schwinn, ape hanger bars, banana seat with sissy bar, drag slick on the rear, 5 speed T-handle shifter on the top tube.

I got a used bike from Santa.

I thin it was a Mickey Mouse branded bike, I can't remember anymore than that.

This was mine. What a thrill! Alas, I have no pictures of it, but it was green and came with fenders, a generator set and a black saddlebag.

http://www.geocities.com/cyqlist/Burch.JPG

http://www.geocities.com/cyqlist/receipt.JPG

No pictures either, but my first bicycle was a late 50s Malvern Star '2 Star' 24" Youth cycle, which had been rescued from a junk heap and lovingly cleaned up, renovated, and painted with royal blue house paint. Like most kids of my era and place, I not only picked out the two stars on the head tube with white paint, I also painted in the other three and added handlebar tape, so like the other kids I could dream of it being one of the coveted '5 Star racers' made famous by Hubert Oppenheim.

http://canberrabicyclemuseum.com.au/MalvernStar/five_star_history.htm


Never did end up getting one of those, of course. Times were tough and money was tight, and when I outgrew the youth bike my next one was my Grandad's recycled late 50s 'Gent's Roadster' bike, which was heavy as hell. It was in pretty good nick though, and sported 3-speed internal hub gears with coaster brake, and I had many an enjoyable jaunt around the nearby countryside on it.

A blue Western Flyer Buzz Bike Eliminator. My dad took a Sunday morning rural motor paper route so he could afford to build a 2-car garage. I got a new bike for helping.

I walked in my sleep some in my youth. The day I got my new bicycle my dad said he stopped me in the middle of the night from walking out the back door toward the garage which was at the end of the yard by the alley. He said I was muttering something and all he could make out was "bicycle".

My first was what they would now call a fixed gear. Back then I called it a bike with no brakes that I had to pedal all the time. But it had neat saddle bags just like those on the Lone Ranger's horse.

I was six in 1956 when I got a solid tire red bike my dad called a sidewalk bike. I was so excited! It took me a week of going in circles in the back yard until I actually tried it on the sidewalk. I have had a bike continuously since then.

This was mine. What a thrill! Alas, I have no pictures of it, but it was green and came with fenders, a generator set and a black saddlebag.

http://www.geocities.com/cyqlist/Burch.JPG



Wow. Your name's Rich Buck?

:p

That's an awesome prize though.

Mine was a 20" Schwinn "Henderson" hand me down. I think all my cousins and I learned to ride on that bike. After I began to get to big for it, it was passed along again. God only knows where that bike wound up and how many kids learned to ride on it.

My next bike was a brand new Birmingham made 26" Hercules. Wish I had it now.

I don't see bikes with banana seats anymore.


I saw a guy riding one just yesterday, and it immediately struck me as being a very rare anachronism.

Sadly, I never owned a bike with a banana seat, only rode my friends' on occasion. But if I had that huge garage & bike stable I often fantasize about, you can bet there'd be a 1970 Schwinn Stingray Krate in my collection!

My first bike (this would have been 1966) was a cruiser by Murray: 24" tires with white sidewalls, coaster brake, dual D Cell powered incandescent headlights built into the toptube (or rather, built into some art-deco tin housing that attached to a totally conventional topetube, as I discovered once I got old enough to start tinkering/ripping apart my bike), full chrome fenders, bright red paintjob...

It was, unfortunately, too big for me to ride when I first got it. My dad would push me along until I'd build up enough speed to stay upright, then let go, at which point I'd try frantically to reach the pedals, fail, and crash. Again & again & again. Eventually we borrowed a smaller non-name green Stingray-esque bike w/ 20" wheels & a faux-Brooks saddle from a neighbor, and I rode that for a year or two until I'd gotten good enough & tall enough to go back to the Murray.

When I was 12 I got my third bike, a Schwinn Varsity Sport...but when I was 14 I pulled the Murray out of the garage again, stripped off all the fenders & the light housing, and destroyed it within a matter of weeks while filming a Super 8 movie that was essentially a precursor to the "Jackass" show, only on bikes.

My first bike was blue, with a white and blue (glitter!) vinyl saddle. I honestly don't remember much about it, except that (a) I know it wasn't new - probably one of the neighbourhood hand-me-downs (there were a couple of bikes, several pairs of skates, and bags of clothes that just went round and round to whoever's kids fit them that year), (b) it was a "boys'" frame, because I fell on that top tube more than once learnign to brake, and (c) it never had training wheels.

Re: Banana seats(have you noticed, no one ever calls them banana *saddles*? ;))

About age 11 I got my second bike(my younger brothers were constantly using the 24 incher by then!), another black Schwinn, this time w/26" wheels,- I think it was a Typhoon. Within a year or so, the Sting Rays hit the scene, & it semed everyone I knew soon had one except for me! I was a pretty big kid for my age by then, & at about age 12 bought & installed a banana seat & set of ape-hanger handlebars on that 26" Schwinn, & rode it that way for the next ~1 1/2 yrs.:D In the summer of '67 I got my driver's license, and never seriously thought of bicycles again:eek:- until early January of this year.:)

I got a blue He-man bike with solid rubber tires from santa. It had training wheels and wheel brakes. Oh yea, rockin' the training wheels!

X-mas 1971—I had just turned five.

It was a Sears knockoff of the Schwinn Stingray. Red with chrome, ape-hangers. A white, vinyl, banana seat and a squared-off rear tire.

My mom taped a piece of paper to my headset with these stick figures on it:
http://home.swbell.net/mcpoop//MMACH_5/images/HandSigs.jpg

I rode it everywhere.

You know, when I got back into cycling a couple of years ago, I had to research those signals again on the internet. LOL.

Who'd buy their old bikes back? I may, if i found it in good condition, and fix it up for my future spawnlings. :)

NFL-licensed Dallas Cowboys BMX. chrome everywhere. blue banana seat with an NFL shield.

think it came from Sears.

weighed a mother-loving ton.

and yeah, i'd probably buy it back again.

http://www.have-you-met-ted.com/wp-content/uploads/radio-flyer-classic-red-tricycle.jpg
One

http://www.lasvegascyclery.com/images/bikeshop/cruiser/schwinn_STINGRAY.jpg
Two

It was blue, had 16 inch wheels, and had training wheels. The training wheels didn't last too long, very un-cool. Later a Mattel Vroom was added. I loved that bike, every kid wanted to ride it with the engine. It got passed down to my brother, he rode it a few years, until my mother backed over it.

Red Schwinn cruiser type bike, 20" wheel, one speed, coaster brake. No ape hangar bars, just regular cruiser bars. After having had the bike a year or so, the handlebars rusted through and my dad replaced them with a salvaged steering wheel, which made the bike iconic in the neighborhood.

Not infrequently, while going down hills, the chain would come off, which meant that I had no brakes. I distrust coaster brakes to this day.

In retrospect, I suspect that this was some sort of secret eugenics program carried out in the early 70's. I appear to have passed.

So here I am tooling along, Christmas morning, in front of my grandmother's house.

I know my mom has some other shots of the bike in one of her photo albums. It turns out this was 1970, not '71.

Don't remember first bike since I was very young - I do remember the training wheels and the driveway though! The first bike I remember was likely my next bike...a navy blue Schwinn girl's bike, white bannana seat, raised bars, tassles off the grips (which were sparkly blue). This was around 1976 or something. I loved that bike - still have a picture of it somewhere. I was wearing a multipattern poncho in the picture, signs 'o the times! LOL

I had a Mongoose BMX circa mid-80's. It was stolen in '88. ' never had a bike again until a day before thanksgiving of '05.

Yes. It was a full adult-sized Columbia in 1956. The thing was so big for me that for the first six months I was riding, i had to use a doorstep or big rock to mount it. My father taught me to ride by starting me off at the top of a steep hill and shouting encouraging things.

The bike was way ahead of its time. It had fenders; wide, puncture-resistant tires; a chainguard; and a kickstand -- all technology that we are just starting to see again in 21st century bikes. Went great in snow.

Paul

My mom taped a piece of paper to my headset with these stick figures on it:
http://home.swbell.net/mcpoop//MMACH_5/images/HandSigs.jpg



I'm kinda pleased my Mum didn't tape that diagram on my bike here in Australia, where the signal indicated there as a 'right turn' is actually a stop signal.

I'm also, by the way, quite impressed with the skills of the one-armed cyclist depicted in the diagram!


:D

My first bike is STILL at my mom & dad's house in the garage. It's nearly 30 years old.

It's an AMF Roadmaster 20" kid's bike with a red frame that has a slight arch to the top tube & seatstays. It came with apehanger bars with white tape (typical, really), fenders, and a flame yellow & red banana seat. I swapped the handlebars, seat, and pedals to make a pseudo-BMX bike.

I'm sure that there are pictures at home, but I don't know where they are and/or if Mom scanned any of them. There's probably some Super8 film of me riding it, too.

I'm kinda pleased my Mum didn't tape that diagram on my bike here in Australia, where the signal indicated there as a 'right turn' is actually a stop signal.

I'm also, by the way, quite impressed with the skills of the one-armed cyclist depicted in the diagram!


:D

LOL - Sure, but isn't everything upside-down in Australia?

Nope. Only thing upside down in Australia is the male kangaroo, which has its scrotum and testicles ABOVE its penis.


But that's OT, of course :lol:

1952 Huffy with a kisser on the back.
http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh187/10wheels/52Huffy.jpg

I got a little pink and purple Huffy (single-speed with coaster brakes...and streamers!) from my grandma for my sixth birthday.

Long time ago... red cruiser type JC Higgens (sp). Loved that bike. :) Still do.

It was the best bike. :love:

http://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u94/donnambr/donnabluebike.jpg

Would have to be around 1970, birthday present. The bike was red/gold, white seat with red piping and training wheels. It was stolen and later found minus the training wheels and (for some reason) the seat cover. I learned to ride without training wheels because of that bike.

It was a Ross Apollo. I remember I really really wanted the 5 speed version but ended up getting the single speed version. It was a great bike and I rode it everywhere including to school and back. When I first got the bike I had a horn/light combo on it. I remember sitting in class (3rd grade) and seeing other kids at lunch pushing the horn button. LOL. I removed the horn! Oh, and one more short story. Riding home from school cut across the road to go to my house. Got pulled over by DPS and given a ticket (failure to signanl or something like that). LOL! 8 years old and my first moving violation. My family still talks about that one.

While not my image I think it is ok to link to another image. I will remove if need be.
Anyway, here is 5 speed version. Mine was the single speed version.
http://www.firstflightbikes.com/_borders/RossApollo.jpg

My first bicycle was a red and white fixie(my only fixie), I don't remember the exact brand, but might have been a Western Flyer, and the most I remember about the bike was having to take my feet of the pedals while watching them spin madly as I went flying down the steep hill next to our house.

A blue Western Flyer Buzz Bike Eliminator. My dad took a Sunday morning rural motor paper route so he could afford to build a 2-car garage. I got a new bike for helping.

I walked in my sleep some in my youth. The day I got my new bicycle my dad said he stopped me in the middle of the night from walking out the back door toward the garage which was at the end of the yard by the alley. He said I was muttering something and all he could make out was "bicycle".


I had the same bike...here is a pic.




http://www.pix8.net/pro/pic/10141v59ix/552014.jpg

X-mas 1971—I had just turned five.

It was a Sears knockoff of the Schwinn Stingray. Red with chrome, ape-hangers. A white, vinyl, banana seat and a squared-off rear tire.

My mom taped a piece of paper to my headset with these stick figures on it:
http://home.swbell.net/mcpoop//MMACH_5/images/HandSigs.jpg

I rode it everywhere.

Upon seeing more images from 1970, it turns out this was not the bike with the squared off rear wheel.

That was my orange, Sears 5-speed like this one. I'm not sure what year I got it, but I'll have to look through more photo albums to see.

One thing I did discover in these photos is that my mom was rockin' the groovy hairstyle and purple jumpsuit!

Huffy BMX -> Schwinn -> Peugeot.

Isn't that the usual order for a lot of people?

Must've been 1960 or 1961. J C Higgins. Although there must have been something before that with training wheels on it.