dragracer

For some reason, while working on my wife's bike last night, I started thinking about the first new bike I had when I was a kid. So in honor of upcoming father's day I thought I'd share this story about my first bikes, and my Dad. I'm definately no writer, but I'll do the best I can.

I grew up on a farm. I was(and still am) 100% country boy. Not sure you could say we were poor, but my parents didn't have enough money to just go out and buy my sister and me every little thing we wanted. A new bike being one of those things. I can remember when I was about four or five, trying to learn to ride some huge bike that we had around the farm. My Dad tried and tried to help me learn to ride that thing but it was just too big for me so I quickly lost interest. One day we went over to my Aunt and Uncle's place and I distinctly remember following my dad out to their barn. There hanging way up high in the woodwork of the barn/building was a bicycle JUST MY SIZE! It was a bike that my older cousins had outgrown and now it was all mine. My Uncle and my Dad got it down and dusted it off and loaded it in the back of the Rambler wagon. The bike was rusty all over and the tires were solid rubber. I remember one of the tires had a big chunk missing out of it, but none of that made any difference. With more help from my Dad I was riding that little bike in no time. I remember my dad kept telling me how to stay upright and running along behind me holding me up. He kept telling me "If you start leaning to the left, turn left, if you're leaning to the right, turn right". It didn't make any sense to me at the time but it worked. I rode that little bike for a while but I soon outgrew it.

After a while I REALLY REALLY wanted a new bike but I knew my parents would not, or could not, get me one. And I didn't expect them too. Even to me as a little kid a new bike seemed like a HUGE investment back then. I was always looking at a magazine called "Boy's Life" and on the back cover there were always pictures of all these really cool "prizes" you could win. And all you had to do was sell Christmas/greeting cards. So one day I decided to send off for the card selling package. I got it and promply decided I was going to sell enough greeting cards to "win" a new bike!! It was some astronomical number of cards I had to sell but that didn't stop me. Anyway, I started hitting up everyone we went to visit and I walked to houses in the area and I had my mom take me to some farther off houses. I think she even took that junk to work with her and sold a lot of cards to people she worked with. Amazingly, after a couple of months I had enough cards sold to get my new bike. I was pretty darn excited! I sent in the order and the money and got the cards....but no bike. I was a little disapointed but I didn't lose faith. I think my parents thought I had been ripped off by some card selling "scam". I delivered all the cards and continued to wait for my new bike. I'd just about given up on it and almost forgotten about it when my dad got a call from the railroad station of all places, asking something about a bicycle. We got in the Rambler and drove to the station and low and behold...THERE IT WAS!! My new bike!! It was in a million pieces packed in a big cardboard box, but I knew exactly what it was when I saw the box.

We got it home and my dad put it together and I was in 7th heaven. I'd guess this was around 1966 or 1967, give or take a year, and this was the coolest bike I'd ever seen. It had a long skinny "banana" seat that had little sparkly metalflakes in the plastic cover. It had 20" wheels and knobby tires. It was some awful brownish yellow color but it made no difference to me at all. And the coolest thing of all was it had THREE SPEEDS!! It just doesn't get any better than that! The shifter was mounted on the top tube. It was this huge "stick shift" contraption that had to have been close to a foot tall. I remember more than once sliding off the front of the seat and slamming the ...uhhmm.... "boys" into that damn shifter. Oh the pain! After a while, I added a "sissy bar" on the back of the bike. It was now the envy of all my friends. Ok maybe not, but I thought it was. I could ride wheelies for what seems like miles. Was probably more like ten feet. My dad had built a big double carport on the back of our house and half of it had a concrete floor. I used to go flying inside the carport, throw the bike sideways on the concrete, turn it as hard as I could and go flying back out into the gravel driveway where I'd fling it sideways in the gravel, drag a foot, turn, and start another lap. I think my Dad used to get a little irritated at me for creating a "berm" in the gravel where I turned. Seems like I did this for hours. I'd just go around and around and around until I was totally exhausted. It was GREAT! I rode that bike everywhere. There weren't very many houses out there where we lived, but I could go see my friends whenever I wanted to now. I thought I was really doing something to ride my bike 4 miles to go to my best buddies house for the day.

I don't remember what happened to that bike but it's long gone. I probably outgrew it and it was given away to one of my relatives or a neighbor kid. Who knows. Wish I had it back, just as a keepsake if nothing else. My dad's been gone since 1990 and I never thanked him for getting me that first junk bike or helping me to learn to ride it. I think he had as much fun teaching me, as I had riding it. I'd like to think he's still watching me ride my bike and that he's proud. Hopefully he's reading this as I write it.....So.... Thanks for the bike DAD!

townandcountry

Great story. And you told it very well.

My first bike was a coaster bike, one speed. I guess it's what would be called a fixed-gear bike. My brother and I each got one for Christmas one year, his was blue, mine was red. We were the coolest kids on the block. Rode everywhere, even some places we shouldn't have been. I remember best how patient Dad was teaching us how to ride, not with me and my brother but the other kids as they grew up. Those bikes got passed down until they fell apart. My Dad has been gone one year today and he was my hero. Thanks Dad, for everything.

Buzzbomb

Thanks for the hit. Nice write-up.

mtessmer

Thanks for the story! It reminded me of my first experience with biking. We didn't have allot of my either, so one day my Dad comes home with five old bikes that he bought for fifteen dollars. He parted them out and made three decent bikes for my sister, brother and I. Mine was the bigest, it was a 1950 Firestone, 26 inch balloon tires, horn in the tank (top tube), fender mounted head light, "bucking seat" (rear rack), long horn handle bars, etc. It was brown (I think it origanally was red but it was pretty weathered). The thing was a tank but I rode it everywhere. My Dad was very patient with me when he taught me how to ride it... thanks, Dad. Even at the time he died a few years ago he told me he was proud of how I kept it up.

SanDiegoSteve

Good story!

Yea, dad hooked me up with my first road bike when I was about 12. A Trek 330. Loved drafting behind him on weekends.

Later, when he upgraded, I got his Trek 1500. Both bikes thanks to dad. The 1500 is gone now, since it got cleaned out by a pickup (me on it). That got me a lecture from dad, but more important, he was happy I am still alive and can still ride.

In about 2 months, he will be a grandpa... we'll see who is firt to by my child their first bike!

Gurgus

Cool story! My first bike was given to me by my Dad. I was riding at the age of one year and a half. We had that bike for a long time. Both my brothers rode learned to ride on it too. We called it the "shkcreeepa" bike because that was the noise it made as it went along. I think it was red and yellow, had a number plate on the handle bars, was a single speed fixed and has solid rubber tires. It was great!

I can remember my Dad picking me up from my friend's house in the summer time when I was about 8 years old on his ten speed. He would sit me on the top tube and fly as fast we could go all the way home. I think it's his fault that I like to go as fast as possible.

I'm a dad now. My boy is 6 months old. When my wife was 6 months pregnant, my dad and my brother were on their way to work and saw a small bmx on the side of the road with training wheels and a sign on it that said "free bike". They grabbed it brought it home for my boy. The tradition continues. Dad rocks.
He saw to it that my kid had a bike before he was born.

Portis

This has all got me trying to remember how I learned to ride a bike. I can't remember oddly enough. I don't remember my dad pushing me around. I think my older brother and sis and the neighbor kids rode so I figured if i was gonna keep up I better too.

I suspect I just crashed a bunch of times until I got it right. The odd thing is that I remember a LOT about my childhood. I remember my 5th birthday like it was yesterday, (30 years ago.) but I don't remember learning to ride.

Great story. Interesting how much you loved those "junker" bikes. There is a moral in there somewhere. So many trash the less expensive bikes yet they often are the ones that are most fondly remembered. My bikes when I was a kid were often from Clark's fix it shop. It was an old man in an old church building that took old bikes and rebuilt them and gave them new life.

We didn't have much for money either and I only ever had one new bike in my life until I was 34. I got a new Dirt King from the local Hardware store when I was around 7 or 8. Man, was I proud of that. Probably cost all of $30 but it had a number on the front and I was hardcore!

dragracer

Oh my God, you just brought back another bicycle memory. I had forgotten all about this....LOL

We lived about 20 miles from the nearest town and in that town was this raggedy-assed old building that served as a bike shop. It was just packed full of old bicycles. I remember it was a long skinny building....almost like it used to be an old barn or chicken house or something like that. I don't think they had any new bikes, just a bunch of old stuff they had fixed up to sell. After I outgrew the 20" bike mentioned above, I was ready for my first "ten speed". I was probably 13 or 14 years old. My parents found a used "ten speed" for me at this "bike shop" for something like twenty bucks so they decided they would get it for me. I was so happy!! We hopped in the car and went to pick it up and when we got there my dad told the guy he had called about a bike and was here to pick it up..........and the guy said he had just sold it. I don't really remember my dad ever getting mad at anyone in his entire life, but I think he wanted to punch that guy. So I never got my "ten speed".

ollo_ollo

I remember one Summer my friend John & I stripped our JC Higgins cruisers down, took off the chrome fenders, removed the tank & horn. Cleaned & lubed everything & pumped the tires all the way up to 45pounds! We went everywhere on those bikes & built a ramp to do some jumps. By Fall they were really worn (That was also the Summer we learned to ride up at high speed, turn & stomp the brake to broady to a stop)... At Christmas time we each got a new 3 speed "racer" bike with drop handlebars & a generator lightset. We were totally surprised. Thanks mom & dad. (Of course the bikes were about two sizes to large & boy were we sore from sliding back & forth on that top tube until we grew into our new bikes). Don

iceratt

Bikes were toys, in my mind, until I got a Puegeot ten speed, for by 15th birthday. It was a light silver bike, with alloy rims. If I named it, I would have called it Freedom. Suddenly, I could transport myself anywhere that I wanted. I rode to friends' houses, to the novelty store for whoopie cushions, to a seedy part of town to buy illegal fireworks, to parks to explore the woods and river banks, and just about everywhere else. The exceptions were, that I neither used my bike to go to school, nor the grocery store( I had a single mom who worked until 7pm, so I did the shopping, straining to cary two full bags on a 3/4 mile walk).

I didn't know any adults who used their bikes for transportation. Contrast my situation with that of my 2 boys, who are 8 and 9. They enjoy riding their 21 speed Trek moutain bikes to the icecream parlor, movie theater, YMCA, grocery store, and friends houses. If we go somewhere that they can get by peddling, I refuse to drive. To them, cycling is as natural as climbing steps. In a few years, when they will be able to ride off on their own, they may miss the wounderful, sudden sense of freedom that I experienced, but they already have an acceptance that bicycles are a great way to get to just about anywhere that they want to go. That's beautiful to me.

I know. They'll probably rebel and drive Hummers to the corner store when they are adults. They are quite aware of a child's obligation to drive their dad bananas.

bianchi_rider

My dad is actually my step dad, tho we have never really been close I consider him my ONLY dad.
Recently we have become pretty close due to a business venture we took together. Upon this I have realized how much he appreciates me and I him, he looks at me as the man I am now and not that kid he raised, he treats me as an equal with respect.. I never really knew how interested he was in my cycling until I did my fisrt century oh so long ago. He actually showed up and drove as support for me. I was riding and he pulled up next to me and said "keep pedaling, you are 65th right now" I looked and was in awe. I smiled and thought damn thats cool of him to show up. Afterwards we loaded my bike and he drove me home, we stopped and ate dinner and he was bragging to the waitress how I completed 100 miles and so on.
Then in the later years as we grew closer I found when I was short on $$$ for my cycling he was willing to help me out, no questions asked. He likes my bikes and we have ridden a few times together and he would tell me to go ahead as he wouldnt be able to keep up and he didnt want to slow me down.
I am glad for my dad, and I try to show him as much as I possibly can and when I can, I know he wont be around forever so I look at each day as a new begining of the days we wern't so close and when i ride, I always think of him pulling up beside me on that first century.. Dads are way cool and always full of surprizes, enjoy your time with your dad, and if things arent on the up and up, swallow your pride and get to know your dad again because tomorrow may be too late. Dont know if this is what you were looking for, but guess its what came to mind and whats in the heart.. Ride safe everyone