What's your fondest childhood bike memory?...

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Tell us what yours is!

[extra-vert]

When I was maybe 10 yrs old or so and we had those schwinns with the banana seats. My friends and I would stand up on the seat and bend down to steer the handlebars and ride standing like that. Boy those were the days! If I had kids doing that today, I think I'd have a heart attack!

[Tri Girl]

What's yours Lisa????

How fun! Mine is the Christmas when I was 10 and I got my first bike (there were 8 kids in our family and we didn't have much to speak of- but can you imagine a 10 year old with training wheels?). Anyway, it was the most glorious morning. I remember my dad carving our home phone number on the handlebars in case it got lost and I was just devastated that he'd scratched my new beauty. I still wish I could ride that bike- streamers, basket with flowers and all...

[mimitabby]

you guys have already heard my story. when I was nine, my father showed up with a bike one day (my parents were divorced and fought like cats and dogs)
he walked it over to a vacant lot near our house (in Newark, NJ) and showed me how to ride it. I had never ridden a 2 wheeled bike, being terrified by the well meaning techniques of teenaged neighbors a couple years before that.

I got on that beautiful royal blue bike (schwinn) and rode it. It was like I already knew how. This was long before the banana seats.

[margo49]

Riding into "town" 4 1/2 miles on summer Saturday mornings to the Central Library and then round the river to the Art Gallery and through the Park on a black sports 26" with back-pedal brake.While imagining I was a student at the Sorbonne or similar university
(It was the late 1960's).

[Kitsune06]

My happiest: My little sis and I had just taken our (little!) 16" wheeled baby bikes out after having removed our training wheels, and I showed off to Dad how I could ride all by myself. =D

My proudest: After an incident on my older huffy, where I could just SEE my mom trying to calculate ER costs as I dragged myself out from under the bike, I pulled my water bottle out of the holder, hosed out my bloody little hands and knees, took a couple drinks, put it back, looked at Mom and said "Okay, we can get going again." She was so proud.

[KnottedYet]

I'd been bike-crazy since I was a toddler, and obsessively rode my tricycle EVERYWHERE and all the time.

When I was six I saved up my allowance and with some parental $$ help I bought a blue Schwinn! I don't remember training wheels, but I do remember riding on everything with that bike. Cow pastures were great, cuz you could go really fast.

[chickwhorips]

mine is when my dad took off my training wheels.

my good friend mandy that i grew up with was over and she didn't have training wheels on her bike. so i told my dad that i didn't want them either. he helped me take them off, ok so he did all the work i handed him tools, wheeled that bike out of the garage, and hopped on. went around the little circle of drive way by the house with no problem!

i was so proud that i was just like my friend mandy with no training wheels who was a year older than me.

[quint41]

Oh my gosh, I just found this post. I wish I could find a bike the same color as the Schwinn I had when I was a kid!! It was sparkling teal green -- it actually sparkled! With a sparkly white vinyl seat. Oh wow, I wish I still had that bike! Great memory!

[Pax]

My brother and I "inventing" mountain biking when were living in Italy ('69-'73). We'd ride our banana bikes up the nearby mountain (The Dolomites) and race down the goat paths and stream beds...my poor dad had to have our bikes welded back together constantly.

[7rider]

Wow.
Most of my memories of cycling as a kid involve crashes and pain!
How did I ever get into cycling as an adult??????

I do remember I had this blue bike...I honestly don't recall what kind it was. But it had upright handlebars and a big white banana saddle. I tied a rope to either end of the bars, by the grips, and those were my "reigns". I really wanted a horse in a bad way, and that was how I pretended my bike was a horse!

[cosc]

On my 9th birthday I got my first 2 wheel vehicle. Learning to ride was tough on me and my new bike. My scariest and proudest event in elementary school was when I rode my bike 8 blocks to school for the first time.

[HipGnosis6]

Watching my brother ride his bike straight into a thorn bush!

[donnambr]

I turned 6 when I got this bike. My dad calls for me and I come into the kitchen. He tells me that he thinks one of my friends left a bike in the garage and I should come look at it so we can call the little girl that it belongs to. It's this beautiful blue Ross Polobike with a banana seat and a red and white basket. It's my absolute heart's desire. I am speechless. I have no idea whose bike it is and I tell my dad this. Meanwhile, my mom and Nona who lived with us were gathered around the door from the kitchen watching. Then my dad says, "Well hon, I guess you're the little girl that this bike belongs to. Happy early Birthday." It was the very first time in my life I cried from happiness. I may have posted this picture before, but so what. I loved that bike and I was pretty much glued to it whenever the weather was good until I finally got too tall for it when I was 12.