Do you remember your first bike?

[hobbes]

Do you remember your first bike?

We never hung out with people who had racers. They were weird.

[The Purple Cow]

Do you remember your first bike?

And we still are.

[WOM]

Do you remember your first bike?

When my daughter was barely old enough to stand, I bought her a knackered old bike at a garage sale for $1. It was made in Czechoslovakia and was just...funky looking. I spent a few hours tidying it up and getting all the parts moving again. Then it sat there for four years until she could grow into it.

Meanwhile, her grandparents proceeded to buy her a new BMX-style bike, all purple and shiny and whatnot. Whenever we go out for a ride around the block, she always takes the one I got her. It pleases me to no end.

[pebblethefish]

Do you remember your first bike?

hobbes wrote:

We never hung out with people who had racers. They were weird.

Sadly, I seem to remember calling BMXs "spastic plastic" machines. While they retaliated at our racers by calling them "mental metals".

Wit was in short supply back then.

[JtS]

Do you remember your first bike?

I had a Raleigh Boxer


My brother had a Raleigh Striker (not my brother>>>)

[Spearmint Rhino]

Do you remember your first bike?

hobbes wrote:

We never hung out with people who had racers. They were weird.

Damn right. Where's the fun in having a bike you can't do wheelies or jump ramps or scramble round muddy building sites with? When you're a kid, I mean. Racers were for joyless young fogeys who stayed at home making Airfix models.

[treibeis]

Do you remember your first bike?

Where's the fun in having a bike you can't do wheelies or jump ramps or scramble round muddy building sites with? When you're a kid, I mean. Racers were for joyless young fogeys who stayed at home making Airfix models.

If you replaced the drop handlebars with a pair of cowhorn handlebars, then a stuffy racing bike suddenly became one of the coolest things on earth. And wheelies were a lot easier, too.

It's true that kids who had racers could be a bit off-kilter. One of my classmates had one (although it wasn't a real racer, just a three-speed with drop handlebars) and he bought a mileometer for the front wheel. He used to spend hours, days even, just riding around "to get the miles up".

I could have understood it if he'd taken off to the Mendips or Weston-super-Mare or somewhere else where the scenery's not too bad, or at least a little bit different to what he was used to. But he was clocking up 20 or 30 miles in the side streets of east Bristol.

[Toby Gymshorts]

Do you remember your first bike?

My brother had a Raleigh Striker

No, he didn't. He had a Raleigh Strika.

[/pedant]

[EIM]

Do you remember your first bike?

http://bmxmuseum.com/bikes/falcon/23392

One of these. Eat my 80s skills, shitheads.

[hobbes]

Do you remember your first bike?

Acorn wheels? You peasant. It was Skyways or Z-Rims where I'm from. Next you'll be telling me you had AZ's instead of Mushroom grips.

[The Purple Cow]

Do you remember your first bike?

Racers were for joyless young fogeys who stayed at home making Airfix models.

Indeed it's true I can't deny it.

My Curtiss Helldiver was the envy of the neighborhood.

[The Purple Cow]

Do you remember your first bike?

Ta daaaaaaaaaahhhh

[caja-dglh]

Do you remember your first bike?

Worn Old Motorbike wrote:

Whenever we go out for a ride around the block, she always takes the one I got her. It pleases me to no end.

I can't help but imagine that a quiet word from your wife encouraged this. Not that it might have been a formality anyway - just... that seems the type of things a mother would do.

Probably in the hope of you taking on more ridiculous projects in the garage.