Mrs. ascherer was searching for some High School information (we first met then) and came upon a photo that was taken in May 1972 by the Albany, NY Knickerbocker News at the class I took that taught me bike riding riding and mechanics. The fellow in striped shorts is the science teacher that ran the class, the one who gave me his Peugeot PX10 in 2012. At the time, it was not quire a year old. I'm the person in the middle facing away from the camera. I'd never seen this photo until last week.

The course ran daily for two weeks to make up for lost snow days. Each day we rode in the morning and wrenched in the afternoon. He started us with front hubs and made it through everything else. I don't recall if everyone did this, but by the end of the course he had me take apart my front wheel and relace it. Been building my wheels ever since. We pulled cottered cranks, headsets, the whole kit and kiboodle.

Thanks for sharing such a nice bicycle related memory with us. At the time we tended to take such opportunities for granted, but with hindsight we can certainly see how such seemingly ordinary things guided us to be the person we are in our senior years.

Man what a great handup to get at such a great point in time.

I got to figure it out on my own in about 7th grade. BB on my Sears special Krate clone came apart. Dad had given me a tool box with a pretty good assortment of mostly crappy tools but they were good enough to get it apart and eventually get it back together with a bit of help from an older neighbor kid and a tool or two.

We went on an overnight school bike trip about the time I was working on my bike that I borrowed my cousins Huffy 10 speed for, also rode it on a trip in the Gorge too so I was ready to ride a lot more than I already had been doing at a pivotal time.

Dad was a pretty good wrench and I had been mostly watching and "helping" since I was two, he wasn't around much at the time above but between brakes and wheel bearings on cars before the above times I had a foundation to work with and apparently the DNA to go with it.

Been wrenching, hacking and crudely fabbing things ever since.

Up to this class, I thought I was all thumbs. Turned out I had a knack for both parts of this class. It gave me great confidence that even if I couldn't figure something out, I'd be able to put it back together. A simple but powerful gift.

Yep, amen, same here pretty much.

Turned out, Mom and Dad splitting up forced me to fend for myself which paid off in the long run but man was it a bumpy ride for quite awhile.

Very cool stuff, thanks for sharing.

I was particularly grateful for the opportunity to reacquaint myself with my old teacher and thank him for the lifelong gifts he gave me, which is how it came to pass that he gave me the very bike that skinny kid admired. It doesn't fit me but it's as precious as a possession can be.

How lucky to come upon this and reinforce this memory of yours!

He resembles a little like Egon

Great to hear the back story on your interest in bikes and that part of you life came full circle. Thanks for sharing!

My favorite part of your beautiful story is you met your wife in high school. ❤️

Thanks for that. We dated only briefly (long story) but came together again after going our own ways and not seeing each other for 36 years. Coming up on our 15th anniversary in a few months.