I'm with pinkbikes. Sign me up for CyclistsAnonymous or something.

I started by biking the 3 mile commute into school from about 5th grade. By the time I got to high school, Dad would take me out for a 20-30 mile ride on Wednesday evenings. We took a trip up to Mackinac Island in Wisconsin (which is navigable only by horse and buggy, bicycle or foot), I did my first century at about 15 years old, and I tagged along for the last few days of GRABAAWR. There was one hill on the last day of that ride that destroyed me (I was technically still riding a kid's bike, all pink and purple), so in 1991 Dad upgraded me to an aluminum Trek 1100, with a triple! Woo! I made it up that hill the next year no problem.

That bike lasted me through the rest of high school, college, living in Chicago, and several years in San Francisco. I didn't buy a car until I was 29 years old. I would wax and wane on yearly mileage, but that old clunker of a bicycle was always there.

I met a boy who worked for a bike company. He convinced me to finally upgrade, and I went full carbon, Dura-Ace, clipless pedals, GPS, the whole shebang. My yearly mileage went up into the thousands. I started setting goals: go up mountains, do more centuries.

I got a mountain bike late last year, but I'm still a little scared of it. It's difficult to ramp up from too-easy fireroads to OMG DEATH! singletrack. I have a steel cruiser for groceries, errands, and getting to and from the gym. And I have an old French steel roadbike that I'm using to learn how to take apart and put back together things.

I still have the car, but it seems to be mostly used to transport the bike around. Funny, how that works.

-- gnat!