Cycling in the 50's Article
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In the mid 50's I was 10. I believe that I spent about every waking minute on the bike. It didn't look a lot different from this.
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That's great stuff... inspiration for sure!
Thanks for posting it.
Ramius
Thanks for posting it.
Ramius
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That's a super collection of photo's! During those years I was in the Boy Scouts and our troop #788 in Southern California of early 50's was a similar group of boys.
We rode our bikes everywhere but did our campouts with the aid of the automobile.
One of my friend's father had a dry cleaning business and we would pile all our gear into and on top of his delivery van, then stuff 8-10 boys inside & head for the hills.
We did a lot of backpacking in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and used those same Primus stoves. Its fortunate the author was into photography & recorded the history of that time so well. I have no photographs of those happy times, just memories.
We rode our bikes everywhere but did our campouts with the aid of the automobile.
One of my friend's father had a dry cleaning business and we would pile all our gear into and on top of his delivery van, then stuff 8-10 boys inside & head for the hills.
We did a lot of backpacking in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and used those same Primus stoves. Its fortunate the author was into photography & recorded the history of that time so well. I have no photographs of those happy times, just memories.
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I wasn't quite 10 yet in the 50's, but that's when I first graduated from a tricycle to my first 2 wheeler, and I've never looked back. In those days, kids, boys especially, pretty much lived on their bikes. For me, it became a lifelong passion, but unlike many of today's speed, weight and race obsessed people, it was tied in with a love for the sights, smells and sounds of nature, with freedom and with a kind of meditative contemplation of life. Most of the other kids I rode my bike with probably long ago became suburban car people. Why most do, and a very few of us stick with cycling as a passion into advancing age is something I don't know. I guess that among other things, it may make some people more interested in remaining as fit as possible throughout life, and because a bicycle, even a racing bicycle, is a relatively simple mechanism, it gives us an appreciation of simplicity in all things.
I enjoyed looking at those pics. Thanks for posting the link.
I enjoyed looking at those pics. Thanks for posting the link.
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Very interesting, thanks for posting. I wish we would have had better bikes on this side of the pond during that time. We were stuck with those 50 pound ballooners.
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Most excellent.
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