I remember mine. It was a Star Wars Big Wheel. The body was yellow and the wheels were blue with a huge decal of Luke Skywalker and Darth Varder on the front. Those were the days!!

Yes, it was a piece meal bike, red with 20 inch front tire from one bike and the 24 inch rear wheel with coaster brake. Probably formed from my brothers discards since he got a new bike when I got my first bike. His had a light, a horn between the double crossbars, confy seat, streamers in the handlebar grips, boy was his nice and mine was salvage. Still it was great. HAD a red tricycle before that, but you asked about bikes.

Stingray with a spring.First one to get one with a spring.

Wouldn't a Big Wheel be considered a tricycle instead of a bicycle? |8^)

I remember my first bike. It was a blue Columbia cruiser that got stolen a couple of years later when I let my brother ride it to the corner drugstore. It wasn't a great bike but it was the one I got to take the training wheels off of myself.

Ohmygosh!

That was so long ago! I had a no-brand name, Marsha Brady bike with a white straw basket that had a big flower on the front. All you had to do to stop was pedal backwards. It had those high handlebars that were really wide too.

I remember my dad had a Ross bike with a baby seat on it. It was your basic ten-speed bike. When I outgrew my Brady bike, I started riding his. I had no idea about how to change the gears.

Ha!

Koffee

sure do... seems like it was just over a year ago.. wait it was!
first bike ever. about 16 months ago now.. beautiful matt black shiny silver and whoooeeeeee i was so fast.. errr when i wasn't falling of course.
had to ride my beauty home in the middle of rush hour traffic.. on clipless pedals? did i ever mention i live right downtown..?
lucky for me the traffic was slow and since i hadn't mastered unclipping yet, i just held onto a few cars..lol

my first bike that i have a clear memory of was a sears 10 speed (i think those were made by Schwinn) all the other kids had heavy ass bmx bikes it was great because we all rode on streets or gravel roads anyway so i could go way faster than most of the kids! i went everywhere on that it was light blue and i remember when i got it we weighed some other kids bmx bike and then mine. at 34 whopping lbs it was a whole 15 lbs lighter than his LOL. I learned to patch tires with no help, learned to put a worn out tire inside the new one to stop stickers from getting thru so easy, I learned to adjust gears and brakes with out any manuals or anything. I wish I could find a bike that is so comfortable again so far no luck.

Boy do I remember it was a bright orange Royal Enfield bmx bike that the salesman told my dad was INDESTRUCTIBLE.I guess he hadn't sold to many to rambunctious 6yr olds I think it might have lasted 8months.At that point my dad took the bike back and got me a green raleigh friction shift ten speed.The rest shall we say is history and a true love of ther sport.

Keepem Spinning
Jeff

Mine was an original Apple Krate stingray, wish I had it now I guess they're worth a small fortune. I loved that bike, I had my first off road adventures on it....tom

It was blue with 16" wheels and very fast.Thats all I can remember.

Little red Huffy tricycle. I still have it in my garage.

Huffy, of course. With a black banana seat.

Mine was nothing special but this got me to thinking about my brothers first bike. It was in about 1980 when we got our bicycles and my brother had this full suspension (just springs), 20" tire bmx bike. Looks like a little motorcycle only without the motor and probably weighs as much as one. Even had both front and rear fenders.

I was searching Google and came across this picture
Looks similar but I havent found a better picture or any description of what the bike is. Anybody know of any good web pages where I might find pics of older full-suspensiln bikes?

Mine was an old stupid looking BMX with training wheels. I was about 4 or 5 at the time, and I never took the training wheels off because my balance was pathetic and I was worried I'd fall. For years after that, I didn't ride at all (can you imagine a bike-less childhood?). Then, in the finest traditions of Aussie mateship, some of my friends at Werris Creek took it upon themselves to teach me how to ride (I was 12 at the time!).

I wonder if they ever realised the monster they were about to create.

My first bike was a hand-me-down from my elder brothers and sister. It was a black Hercules pre-WW II, and had brakes worked by rods and bell cranks. I couldnt reach the ground and started with one foot on the sidewalk.

Hey Bull!
Me too, my bike was a pre-war black Columbia with a shock aborbing hub in the front wheel. Did you ever see any of those. My feet couldn't touch the ground, the first time I rode it. It weighed a ton. My friends all had shiny red bikes. I was jealous until we started riding off road, in sandlots and across fields. The big fat tires just motored along where they were sliding all over. This was sometime in the middle of the 50's.

A fat tire Schwinn with a no fenders, 24" wheels and a coaster brake and rear hub which only worked "most of the time". I inherited it from my brother and couldn't quite reach the pedals when I sat on the seat for the first year. I rode bare-footed most of my first couple of years in the warm weather and learned to weight the outside pedal in a turn by losing the toe-nails on my inside foot a couple of times. A lesson I remember to this day. Just less than a half-century ago.

Circa 1960ish: A hand-me-down as well. My sister's Schwinn Hollywood, less the fenders and eventually with a bolt-on top tube.

1956 Schwinn Black Phantom, new off the showroom floor. $70 Danged expensive for that year. My father promised me any bike I wanted if I brought home straight A's. Got the A's for that six weeks, got the bike, hated the bike because it was so heavy and the light was always needing batteries, got straight D's the next six weeks. Rode the bike into the ground.

Boy do I remember the first one!

It would have been about 69 or 70 and the bike was an old hand-me-down from some uncle or aunt! It was BIG and red and heavy. My brother and I couldn't even touch the pedals so we pushed it out to a hay field next to the house, climbed up on a bail of hay, pulled the bike along side, climbed on and coasted down a hill just so we could push it back up again! Who needs training wheels, we just fell over, knocked off the dust and grass and kept at it untill we where able to keep it upright to the bottom of that hill. I was the first to actually ride the big red bike because I was a year older and mannaged to grow into the pedals sooner. Then my brother got a new 20 inch bike and I kept the big red bike. We rode every where, fields roads and trails. O for those days!

I was six (1973), a light blue, coaster break, 20 inches wheels. No training wheels: my dad was grabbing the seat, keeping me from falling and then, Oh God! Nobody is there! How do I stop this thing?

It was big and really fast (according to my memories of it). Actually, it has been my faster bike ever

Oh my gosh! Frightening memory. I learned to ride on my brothers itty-bitty bike, then my parents got one I think made by the LBS guy. No name on it, but a goofy looking bannana seat with a U-loop seat back. Big U handlebars that swept back a couple of inches. Maroon of all colors. Sheet metal fenders that could be heard rattling a mile away. Man was I glad to upgrade to my Huffy (some upgrade)

Since about 7 years old, I favored road bikes. My first bike my dad got for me... A ten speed English racer... that is what I asked for. Thanks Dad.. Took me forever to master the thing.. Even with training wheels..

My first bike was a brand new J.C. Higgins, marketed by Sears. This was around 1947. It was a heavy cruiser, with front coil suspension, a front fender light, and a tank horn. My father and I walked two miles to the Sears store one night to buy it. I rode it home, and my poor dad had to walk all the way home. I lived on that bike for about ten years, until I got my drivers license. I lived in New Jersey, and even rode it to New York City one time. Even in high school, I rode it every day. My high school had a huge bike shed out back, which was typically filled with 500+ bikes on any given school day. And not one of them locked! I never heard of any thefts. Wonder where the frame is now?

I may not remember my very first bike, but I do remember my first road bike.
On my 10th birthday, my Pop loaded me into the car and took me for a drive into the city (Chicago). I had no idea where we were going but I knew it had to be something good, since it was my birthday.

We pulled up to a bike shop, went in and I'll never forget what my Dad said to me: "pick one out." I went nuts. I looked at this bike, that bike, I hopped on some but simply said "ooh" and "ah" to others. Finally, I saw the one. It was as if it had been waiting for me to notice her. I pointed and from across the shop I exclaimed, "that one, Dad, I want that one!"

It was a Flandria 4 speed road bike. Red with white tape on the handlebars. It had wing nuts for quick release on the wheels and looked like it would sprout wings if I went fast enough.

I had no idea what it cost and apparently my Pop didn't care because the next thing I was doing was sitting in the back of the station wagon gently stroking the frame while we went home. I remember dreaming about riding it around and showing off my racer to the kids back home that had bmx bikes. I would fly by them, kicking up dust as I zoomed past them down the street.

So what did I end up doing? I showed off all right. The neighborhood kids could only take so much of my taunting, so they challanged me to jump their bmx ramp. I couldn't refuse, so I tool off down the block to gain as much speed as humanly possible.

I jumped the ramp at a high rate of speed and I had a good hang time, from what my brothers told me. You see, when I landed I was still cruising. Wanting to cap of my feat with some panache, I decided I wanted to skid out leaving some rubber on the pavement.

So I pulled hard on the brake levers. So I thought. It turns out I pulled hard only on one: the front. That was the last thing I remember about that incident. The rest of the memory somes from my brothers who were watching from the front yard and couldn't stop laughing.

As expected, I sailed over the front of the bike, which bounced softly into a ditch while I bounced off of the street a few times. I ended up with my first case of road rash, all over my legs, arms, hands, and my face. No I was not wearing a helmet but I was very lucky.

Anyhow, when my brothers tell this story they still get a good laugh out of it, eighteen years later. Me? I sit back, close my eyes, and listen trying to remember that day. All I can come up with is what I said when I took off down the street before the jump: "you guys are gonna see something you haven't seen before." Of course, nowadays they can watch it all they want on Jacka$$.

I still have that bike. It's in my parents' garage begging to be restored.