How did you start cycling?
 

I'm interested to hear how everyone started cycling properly (by that, I mean not just jumping on a bike for a few minutes, but actually going out for a longer cycle).

So far, I've got a hybrid. What interests me is how people developed on to an actual road bike, and whether the transition is easy? It'll be a few years until I do begin to look into buying one, but it's nice to hear peoples opinions...

My car got Repo'ed. I rode on a department store schwinn mountain bike until that gave on me after three months. I then started talking to a friend of a friend about his wierd fixed gear bike, and found an old road frame and made it into a ghetto single speed. Bought another road frame made that into a ghetto single speed and am currently converting it to a fixed gear.

Since I was commuting I got interested in the right way to ride my bike, the most efficent way, and then found that I perfer cycling to any other form of transportation, aside from flying, but I can't do that very well...

My car was hit by some lady, I had liability, though she was cited at fault I never had my vehicle paid for. I'm just too lazy to sue her over 3000 bucks. I bought a 94 Yukon for 1000 bucks...I'm going to put a motor in it. In the mean time cryogenic got a bike I've started riding with him. Now I bike/bus to work...I just found out that in about 2 months I've already saved money and that's including what I paid for the bike. I no longer have any desire to drive unless it would be necessary

After losing about 40 pounds, I wanted to take up a sport for the summer, so I got myself a Schwinn MTB from Wal-Mart. Rode the heck out of it, and liked it so much, I decided to go road.

I got a Trek 1200, shoes, tights, jacket, helmet, gloves, a bag, bottle, pump, and framepump, and slowly built up distances until I went 25 (the short route) on the NYC MS Bike Tour.

The transition was easy for me, since I had ridden what used to be called a "ten speed" most of my childhood with my dad and my friends. Now, I can ride for quite a bit and be comfortable. I love my road bike, but every once in awhile, I jump on the MTB for a change of position and pace.

That's funny. You should consider changing your member name heh.

That's awesome though, you definitely save money commuting by bike and it's enviro friendly to boot.

I honestly don't know. I've been riding pretty much forever. The last time that I drove a car, I was working in a bar well after 2am and a friend called to have me drive his car home - got a DUI and they wanted $100 to give me my license back. I never paid the money, since I hadn't been driving for a long time before that and didn't think that I needed a car.

I remember my first bike ride - got a BMX bike that my grandmother won in a bowling tournament for Christmas. My dad and my uncle took me to the park across the street from her house, where they held the seat and ran then let go... I guess they thought that I'd magically learn how to balance. It took a long time for me to lose the training wheels after that, because I had the memory of wrecking over and over and over...

I've always been a lonely kid and cycling entertained me more than anything else at that time. The fact that it's exciting, fun, physiologically demanding and the ability to start, stop, think anywhere kept me at it. To this day I still don't know how to drive a car.

It's G 2 Classified, If I tell you, I have to kill you :D :D

In Cleveland Ohio, where I grew up, the only way for me to get to a sleezy part of town, to buy illegal fireworks, or to a novelty store, to buy whoopie cushions, or to The creek to throw thing in the water and to fish things out, was to bicycle. At 12 years old, I learned that Bike=Freedom. A couple years later, we moved 4 miles away. Becase I biked, I could keep my old friends, and see them as often as I liked.

The thing that really got me going was seeing Hans Rey do a trials demo at Crabtree Valley Mall, when he was sponsored by Swatch.

We had a 3-day series of major rides around Melbourne and mountains that a group of 20 participated in. This got me really interested into proper bike tours and rides. I have been on all these tracks since with another person, and i bought accessories, then forums, then i learn't more and more about riding so it has just built up. These forums are a great way for information and just worldwide discussion to keep the interest going.

Doc said I needed to exercise due to my diabetes. Got a POS mountain bike from Toys R Us. Graduated to a Trek 7300. Then to a flat-bar road bike. Since my road bike is in the shop for an overhaul, I'm back on the hybrid for the next week.

When I was 20 years old I went on a 2 year mission for my church to New Zealand. 18 months of that was spent on a bike. That was from 1978 to 1980. The amazing part to me is how ill equipt we were for the amount of biking we did. We had no helmets and wore dress pants and white shirts and ties. We didn't even have water bottles....

I decided a few years ago that I was just getting too old, fat, and lazy. I started looking around for a form of exercise that I would enjoy. I didn't really enjoy walking because I really never got any more than a couple of miles from home and that was boring. Running was out - I've always hated running and I'd had my fill of it from high school sports. Besides, I'm what you'd call "slow"....running, that is :D . Anyway, I saw a lot of folks around here riding their bikes on the streets and have a neighbor, co-worker, and a brother that are cyclists, so I started asking some questions about the current cycling scene and they were happy to point me in the right direction. I had ridden an old 10 speed occasionally back in the mid-eighties, but I wasn't prepared for all the choices and much higher prices than I'd remembered. I thought that a hybrid would be the way to go because I wasn't sure if I wanted to lean towards the mtn bike or road side of the sport, so I bought a Gary Fisher Utopia, which is pretty much the same as your Trek 7500FX, but with a suspension fork. After my first season on the Fisher, I knew that I was a roadie at heart and I got tired of the road bike people passing me all the time, so I made plans to get a road bike in a few years. In September 04, my LBS ran a midnight sale with some outrageous prices that I couldn't pass up and I bought an 04 Bianchi Veloce. Transitioning from the Fisher to the Bianchi was easier than I thought it would be. The Bianchi's handling is somewhat "twitchier" than the Fisher, but that's due to the lighter weight and the narrower handlebars. It was more difficult getting used to the clipless pedals, but after a few mishaps, I got used to them and actually remember to unclip when stopping most of the time ;) . Now, I use the Fisher as my foul weather bike, my trainer bike, and my riding with my wife bike. When I want to feel like I'm flying, I use the Bianchi. I love the bike, the pedals, and just going out and riding as fast as I can. I'm still old, fat, and lazy, but I'm not as slow as I used to be :D .

At 28 riding seriously. I said what the hell. I got no job. Graduated from College a bit over a year. Still recovering from my relationship. Well, got a real road bike and hoping to change my life. It sure did. I got a job a month after. Reading up on road bike on the web. Got involved in a recreational club. Got banned from it within a year because they though I couldn't ride my bike safely. I basically screwed them and left. Got into the racing. Been 2 years now. A cat 4. And I make the club to kiss my ass. :D Not bad.

My uncle got me into it. Started a year(or two) ago with a crappy mongoose I got from wally world. Thrashed that bike to hell and gone, then got a "real" mtb, FS, hydro discs the whole deal. Then came the three road bikes:D

While everyone at school is excited about driving and putting money into their cars I, on the other hand, am excited about my new road frame which I am building up. All my friends think I'm crazy, but life is good 'cause chicks dig guys in lycra right? :p

Friend got me to ride with him. Although it hurt at first it felt good and was great stress relief. Then we went up on the mountain and rode some trails. I had a blast. So I got a good bike and just ride... I needed some excersize anyways.

Got a job that forced me to ride all the time. Now I could not just ride 5 minutes and stop. The first week was a shock, now I can ride 8 hours no problem. Got into road bikeing some time back and now I am doing 50 - 100 mile rides all the time. Commute once in a while also...

Yep - this forum really got me interested. I needed to go and get some new inner tubes for an older bike and so I went to my LBS. They had these Trek bikes lined up and I fell in love with them, so when I arrived hope I jumped onto the web and took a look at their website. After that I found this forum and it's been going on from there. :)


I'm hoping that's what will happen in my case, but at the same time I'm looking forward to a good few years on my hybrid. It's faster than anything I've ridden before so I can only begin to imagine riding a true road bike...



Thanks for all the responses, it's very inspiring to hear all of your stories.

Used to commute in in the early 80's all the time. Moved to the suburbs and got fat and happy. Now I'm back in the city and enjoy the commute more than I used to and have lost 30 lbs (20 more to go).

When I was about 20, went to Armor Officer's School in Kentucky; somehow got connected with one of the locals in their E-Town/Radcliffe club. Still remember this beautiful state of Kentucky.

Without knowing anything about frame size, I bought an old school Motobecane that was about 25" frame. I had the seat as low as it could go, & my hips still rocked when I pedaled. They had a tour one weekend, & I rode my first metric century in the rain on this bike. I still marvel at how everyone wasn't making me the joke of the day.

The head guy in their club offered to trade my (oversized) Motobecane for a Colnago for about $600. I still kick myself for not following through on either this deal, or the deal I missed out on cause a guy wanted $350 for an Eddy Merckyx & I offered him $275.

Inherited a Salvation Army 3-speed (functioned as one-speed) in college from a friend, discovered that it got me around campus and to my volunteer job across Providence a lot faster than waiting for buses. Moved to Oakland, borrowed a bike from the person I was staying with because it got me to my job much faster than the buses there, too.

Moved to France with a not-overtly-religious-but-mildly-cult-like non profit, bought an old road bike from a yard sale because otherwise I'd have to depend on the organization's shuttle bus between our two towns, and I preferred the freedom of my own schedule and ability to explore the area. Got lost at night in my first week, in the middle of farmland, no streetlights, a pedal-powered light that died whenever I stopped to try to figure out the French signs (which I later gathered meant "no trespassing"), chain fell off, lewd guys catcalled me from their car as I fixed the chain, considered spending the night hiding in a cornfield, had to stop three times to ask directions in pathetic French -- but realized that riding a bike at midnight, lost in a foreign country, was in fact exhilaratingly great.

Moved to NYC, and as of this year I've found that biking gets me around town about as fast as the subway, and is much better for my mood and health. Don't know if I'm a "proper cyclist" as the first post asked because I don't go on road trips and my bike's not super-advanced (good bike, 80's Panasonic road bike, but nothing fancy about it) but it's my main form of transport and I ride about 100 miles/week, so in my mind anyway I'm a cyclist. :)

Cars have never been of interest to me, I guess because in my 20s I moved often and to places where public transport/biking made the most sense, and worked for very low-paying non-profits, so I couldn't afford one. I did buy a friend's '77 mustard-yellow Volvo station wagon with the bottom rusted out for $600, loved it, drove it about 3 months and about 1,500 miles before it died, but since then I've never thought about buying a car.

I hurt my L knee & non-weight bearing cycling helps, plus feeling the wind in my face enables me to escape the day's problems, albeit briefly.

If you go anywhere and you can find a member with the username PWRDbyTRD...it's probably me. I wouldn't change my username ever...and I've never owned a Toyota...I just love the supra...PWRDbyGMC I don't think would hit the spot very well...once again 15mpg just sounds expensive, I'll stick to bike/bus for work.