My dad owned a bike shop but never got around to getting me a first bike--I had been riding a tri-bike (a tricycle that had pedals and a chain drive). He had a pile of old junk bikes waiting to go to the dump and when I was five years old, I pulled an old 16" junker out of that pile and learned to ride on it. It had the hard rubber semi-pneumatic tires--the rear one was about one-fourth burned away from being next to a trash fire. I remember it being brown in color because it was so rusty and it didn't pedal well because of rusted links in the chain. It was a bumpy, rough ride. I went thru a succession of old used bikes that I fixed up myself until I was about twelve or so and my dad gave me a red 3-speed Schwinn Racer for Christmas.