Tell me about your...
 

...first bike.

http://www.arkansasoutside.com/getting-them-started/

A red, department store Huffy BMX. Rode it until it fell apart. Then when I was around 10, I got an actual mountain bike - WITH GEARS!!!!! - for Christmas. It was also a department store Huffy but god damn was it awesome.

2nd hand 16" BMX. I never had training wheels, so I taught myself on a slight grade with my feet dangling. Later took those 16" wheels off and put them on my GT 20" BMX. The gearing was insane and made a crazy-fun trials'y bike.

Brand new 24" JC Higgins coaster-brake mid-weight, ca. about 1961. I believe just like this beauty, with its Baked-On colors and racy twin middle bars :lol: :

http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t...Higgins_24.jpg

Mine was something like this. I'm not sure if it was a Schwinn but it did have the removable bar. As soon as I grew out of it my sister got it.
http://www.schwinncruisers.com/wp-co...winn-pixie.jpg

I'm pretty sure it was a box store bmx of some sort... kinda fuzzy on it.

Huffy Pro Thunder... Blue and Yellow with MAGs!!!


http://bmxmuseum.com/image/pro_thund...1_copy1_lg.jpg


Slowly replaced parts until it was a fully decked out Redline MX-II, with Stu-V bars, and ACS Z-Rims...

Wish I still had that thing...

I claim to be the inventor of mountain bike suspention with my first mountain bike. It was a (circa 1985) department store 26" - 10-speed cruiser. My freind had a 1982 Kawasaki KX80 with a blown motor. I stripped the forks off the motorcycle, and through the genius of being a stupid 15-year old, got them installed on the bicycle. I can't remember exactly how I managed compatibility between the parts. I think I just ran the motorcycle axle through the front hub without bearings, and similarly, the fork head-bolt throught the head tube without any headset bearings, but I somehow got it (sort of) rideable.

I removed the fork springs and just used air for springing. Also, I replaced the fork oil with water to soften the damping. The bike looked like a chopper with almost 10" of front travel. The wheel and fork were only loosely connected to the bike. It didn't steer for sh*t, but you could go full out (ok 10-mph) into a curb and literally not feel any front impact. I think I quickly ruined the rear wheel, since it didn't fair as well with the curb.

A red and white Sears single speed coaster brake bike, similar to the Schwinn Pixie shown above, circa 1962. It had solid, unforgiving rubber tires and I'm amazed parts of me weren't permanently damaged :D . One day my dad took the training wheels off and gave me a running start down the street, pushing the bike. I still remember the thrill of freedom and fear when he let go and I was on my own.

I got interested in mountain biking when it gained widespread popularity in the mid 1980s, but couldn't afford to buy one for some time and wasn't mechanically inclined enough to build one. Finally got a Univega Alpina in 1989, full rigid chromoly frame and first-gen index shifting. It had a weird paint scheme of dark battleship gray drizzled with flecks of red paint. I called it the "bloody sneeze" bike.

Orange Schwinn something or other my parents bought off a guy who refurbished old bikes. It came complete, with a banana seat and coaster brakes.

This was in the 80s.

I was never the cool kid.

I was that kid. :cry:

When I was a kid the big thing was ghetto bmx choppers (this was actually before the term BMX existed :eek:). Two pieces of pipe, hammer one end of each flat, drill for dropouts, jam the other end of each pipe up over each fork blade, add a banana seat and some super high-rise bars and presto - you instantly became Peter Fonda (who?). The longer your "fork", the cooler you were.

Black & bright orange box store training-wheel bike > no more training wheels > unpainted Schwinn BMX bike > green Schwinn MTB > Mongoose box store BMX bike > 2000 Redline Proline Expert > GT BMX bike I bought from a friend for trying new tricks/jumps when I didn't want to destroy my race bike > 2001 Gary Fisher Wahoo > 2008 KHS XCT 535 build.

A 20" Royce Union with solid tires. Weighed a ton for a 6 year old, but loved it.

A 16"-wheeled, full-fendered cruiser-style, brush-painted sky blue and festooned with stickers, like luggage. So long ago, even my memory of it is in b & w, lol.

Ask me about the SECOND one, the famous Schwinn Stingray....

Hmm... my first bike was a cheapie red bmx with heavy plastic mag wheels from Toys R Us that I got for my (6yo ?)birthday. Rode it all through the neighborhood and exploring what was beyond. It was like being on a moon mission going where no one had gone before. Going to the next neighborhood back then as a kid was a big thing. LOL! Then riding to the local 7 Eleven for candy, big gulps, comic books and playing a video game became the thing to do with the neighborhood kids. Good times...

My first mountain bike was a '90 Giant Sedona ATX rigid chromoly steel bike that I had to pay in two installments with the supermarket cashier/bagger job I had back then. The bike was around $350 back then and I thought that was a lot for a bike. I rode that bike for a good eight years before I bought a new bike. Loved riding that and it was my gateway bike to other mountain bikes I've acquired since then. No longer have it, gave it to a buddy so he had a loaner bike.

Funny, seems I've come around full circle... I love riding my old Fat Chance rigid mtb which gives me the same experiences and thrills as that old Giant.

I dont remember my first bike because that was about 52 years ago. I remember my first NEW bike though. It was a gold colored Sears and Roebuck Spyder44. I think the year was 1964 and I think it was made by Huffy in the USA.

16" wheeled purple cruiser style bike with fenders, a banana seat, coaster brakes, and a full-length chainguard. Not a Stingray though. I don't think it had a brand name...to the point that my second bike was a Huffy and I was excited that I had a "name-brand" bike. It was a hand-me-down from the neighbors' daughter.

well, since you asked...

the first bike i can remember riding...i was about 5 years old, it was solid metal, a single speed (i was so cool back then), i am willing to bet the chain never saw a drop of oil, it hovered around the 75 pound range from what i remember, with solid rubber wheels...i remember riding it about two tenths of a mile and being completely wiped out, bonked.....

the first "real" bike i owned....was a purple bike from Two Guys Deparment Store in New Jersey (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Guys)....huge plastic banana seat, sissy bar, ape hangers, it was pretty awesome. i tried my first wheelie on it and went all the way over, landed on my back, knocked the wind out of me....

my first "mountain bike" was a green trek 820, hardtail, rigid, which i got in north carolina. we would drive 45 minutes to ride on a trail called "devils ridge" or something really intimidating, which was almost four whole miles of ass kicking awesome singletrack (at the time). the rides were epic (at the time). one day my friend, who was totally hardcore, did two laps in a row on it....i remember it had a huge steep downhill descent...and a huge honking climb....we went back to ride it one day years later, and the huge descent was gone...(it was still there, turns out it wasn't that huge)....

my first road bike was a bianchi something or other. i raced crits for a year on it. like everyone i started at cat 5, and after a year, i think they may have invented a "cat 6" just for me, based off my illustrious crit racing career....

i have had many "first" bikes, and i have loved them all and they have all given me great memories...

Interesting reading Chad1376, well done.

Sadly Yamaha beat you to it by a decade: http://bmxmuseum.com/bikes/yamaha/766 - Full-Sus too!

An Orange one of these - a Dragstar from the Australian manufacturer Malvern Star. Thanks Dad!

http://www.ozbmx.com.au/uploads/1253...9_3_769356.jpg

I had the same but with coaster brake. I eventually stripped the paint and painted it "glittery" blue. The bars were swapped for MX bars, and the saddle and sissy-bar were removed and replaced with a saddle. Then it was off to the wonderful world of BMX. Two years later I got a real BMX!! A red Premier (another Australian brand)

Mine was a Trek Madone given to me as a hand me down. I guess some guy used to race on it in France or something.

The first one that I can recall was a Huffy Thunder Road. Black and orange with the number plate placards and one of those "engine rev sounds" grips on one side, and a wire worked speedo. I busted the speedometer my first ride out with it going down a hill in the apt complex trying to go as fast as I could. Didn't look and slammed head first into a dumpster. Gave the front wheel a nice hump that it had from that time on. It eventually went to my grandfathers house where it stayed dusty, in a barn, unused aside from a week or two out of the year when I visted and attempted to beat it to death doing stupid things like jumping out of the hay loft, etc. It is likely now a part of a car frame or something...