Let's hear about your first bike.....

[xeney]

I never had a tricycle. My first bike was a red Schwinn Fair Lady Stingray, a single-speed with a banana seat, coaster brakes, and a sissy bar. Very much like this one only mine was red.

I still think all bikes ought to be red.

[Maureen Valley]

My first real bike was a two toned blue J.C. Higgins from Sear's. I think I was nine. My Grandfather had it shipped to me from Chicago.....and it was a beauty. Sadly, it was stolen. That's what I get for leaving my toys in the front yard all night. It was a small town in the upper midwest, and we thought we were safe from such things.

Wrong.

[KayTee]

My 2-years-younger brother got a new Schwinn for his birthday at age 5. That was the first bike in the house. When my parents realized that I was riding the thing more often and better than he did, they got me a big old used, reconditioned, one speed, balloon-tired Roadmaster, metallic blue with a step-through frame, chrome fenders and a wire handlebar basket -- a girlie bike, of course, and it must've weighed 40 lbs. I rode that bike to school and everywhere until I was 12, when my brother got a brand new 3-speed English racer. Then I snuck around riding his bike whenever I could - changing gears was fun! Bike envy, I know, but my well meaning parents were very old school traditional, and girls had to be girlie while boys got to do the fun things (like riding bikes fast). My mother still thinks it's positively outlandish that her 54-yo daughter bombs around on ridiculously expensive "men's bikes" (w/top tubes), grinning like a fool, sweating like a horse and wearing skin-tight britches !

[Crankin]

I can't remember if I had a tricycle. But, my first bike, bought with really good intentions for my 7th birthday, was a very small German bike that probably cost my parents a fortune. I guess they didn't realize what an uncoordinated klutz I was! I was fine with the training wheels, but I could not learn how to ride without them. I do remember boys in the neighborhood making fun of my "teeny" bike. Also, it was different; i.e., not American. So, it got put away. Then, when I was 9, almost 10 my mom was determined to teach me to ride when we were at our cottage on the Cape. The cottage colony had 3-4 flat roads, so she rented me a purple Schwinn and i was riding in 3 days. I remember having absolutely no control and veering across the road, into a friend's car. The best part was she let me ride it back to the rental place (a mile!) with her following me in the car. I was hooked. They got me a blue Schwinn, with coaster brakes and a big blue rack on the back. I had that for a year and then I got a Raleigh 3 speed, with a Brooks saddle. I rode everywhere on it, up big hills and in cold weather. In 8th grade I got another Raleigh, in a bigger size. My riding stopped when I was 16 and moved to Florida; too hot and I got my license. My next bike was when I was 24 and a boyfriend bought me a mongrel 5 speed road bike at the Tempe Bike Shop when I was in grad school at ASU and first teaching. I used to ride it to class in the summer in a sundress! Then, my husband and I got 10 speed Univegas in the eighties. That was it until I got my first road bike in 2001.

[aicabsolut]

I still think all bikes ought to be red.

Hahaha.. despite my tricycle, I think all bikes should be blue! The fixed gear Schwinn, my 2nd bike, a 3 speed Schwinn (with hand front brake and rear foot brake), and my mom's equally girly 3? or 5? speed cruiser were all blue. My dad's bike is blue-ish too..the old school Bianchi green (darker, more blue-green version of their current color)..I think his bike is from the 60s? So of course my road bike is blue

[uforgot]

The rule in our house was ONE tricycle and ONE bicycle. You could only have a bicycle when you were 12. I desperately wanted a real bicycle, so I began riding my oversized tricycle on two wheels. I just tipped it and balanced it and rode it just like a two wheeler. The only time the third wheel hit the ground was when I stopped. I could turn completely around at the end of the road on two wheels. Did I get my bike early? Are you kidding?!?!?!? Rules are rules....imagine all the kids in the neighborhood having real bicycles and when I'm 10 and 11 I'm still riding a tricycle, but even embarrassed I couldn't give up riding. The Christmas after my twelfth birthday I got a JC Higgins Sears bike. I kept that bike well into my 20s.

We have 8mm movies of my riding the tricycle. Looking at those now, I imagine the neighbors got a real kick out of the weird kid riding like a circus act.

[teawoman]

My dad and I used to go riding on the weekends. I remember he had a Raleigh. I had a green bike from somewhere like Canadian Tire. This was around grade 3 or 4. When I first was learning to ride it without training wheels, he used to run behind holding on to the ends of a belt slung around my waist. It had a piece of tape on the right side handlebar so I could remember which was the right side of the road. (I'm left handed, so I got confused ) We rode on the roads too, all the way to the bike path along a golf course.

I coveted a bike with a banana seat and those upright curved handlebars with tassles on them, but my mother wouldn't let my dad get me one because she read the handling was dangerous.

[redrhodie]

My first 2 wheeler was a metallic blue stingray-style with a white banana seat and bar end streamers. I learned to ride it after what seemed like an eternity of trying to push myself off, not getting momentum, falling, then throwing the bike to the street in total frustration. I was so bad at first that the neighbors used to gather around and watch, all giving advice and encouragement, which was no help to me at all, and added to the incredible stress I felt.

Finally, my dad ran along side and pushed me, and off I went, the mystery of the whole thing was cracked. I still remember yelling "You can let go now!", looking back, and seeing him already half a block back, laughing. That was a good day! I felt like I won the tour de France.

[OakLeaf]

It was some black thing I kind of got from my mom when I was 7 or 8. It was way too big for me. My uncle taught me to ride. I did have tricycle(s), but I don't remember anything about them particularly.

I remember one day soon after I'd started riding, I rode straight into a bush at the end of our block. My friend told me the bush had "attracted" me, so I came home and related that to my parents.

My dad, always a stickler for language, said, "No, it dis-tracted you." To which I replied, "No, I went into it, so it must have a-ttracted me."

My first bike that was really mine was a green metalflake Stingray. And the first bike I bought for myself was a used Peugeot UO-8 (also green). I loved that bike, rode everywhere on it for 8 or 9 years until it was stolen

[Jolt]

1. Big Wheel
2. Red tricycle (like almost everyone else had as a kid)
3. Kent single-speed girls bike--first two-wheeler, scared the heck out of my dad while I was learning to ride it (had a little problem figuring out how to use the brakes!!)
4. Purple and pink Roadmaster ten-speed (delivered newspapers in my neighborhood on this one--I was nine or ten)
5. Current bike--Giant Nutra hybrid

[HillSlugger]

My first bike was an stingray-style bike with a banana seat. I'm embarrassed to admit that I didn't learn to ride it until I was like 12. I wrecked while trying to learn at around 8 and I guess it took me a while to get back on!

[Aquila]

Oh, my, the memories!

I remember riding my trike in the backyard with my grandmother watching me.

I got a real bike when I was six, after spending WAY too much time bothering my big brother by climbing up on his purple Stingray (somehow I could get up and sit there with it held up by the kickstand). Mine was a blue girls' bike, which I rode for a few years until my brother got a brown ten speed; then I used the Stingray until I got a three speed.

I got a ten speed for college, until it got stolen, at which point I used my brothers' "new" silver ten speed. That bike had the BEST balance of any bike I've ever ridden. Unfortunately, when I went away to the Peace Corps, my mom "lent" it to the crazy neighbors who cannibalized it. (Why would anyone think they could take apart someone else's bike for parts?)

I got myself a Fuji ten speed when I got back from the Peace Corps, but barely rode it for nearly 20 years. Then a year of good riding and I got myself my Trek Pilot.

I feel bad for both my Fuji and Trek; I imagine them talking in the garage about having to put up with my slowness.

But you know how you see people driving around in their Miatas, all crazy, goofy smiles? That's how I look on my Trek.

[NbyNW]

I have memories of a red tricycle, and after that I shared a little orange bike with my brother. I don't remember a brand or markings, but I remember it had white handles and a white seat, and solid tires made of some kind of hard plastic. And since we were fond of tinkering with it I got my ring finger stuck in between the chain and the cog . . . my first trip to the emergency room! Good times . . .

My first "big girl" bike (because it had no training wheels, was not a hand-me-down from my brother, and it was mine mine mine) was a blue Schwinn Fair Lady, which was the girl's version of the Sting Ray. White banana seat with blue & yellow flowers, and fat rubber plat form pedals. My first lesson in leveraging my middle-childness. Even better times . . .

[dex]

But you know how you see people driving around in their Miatas, all crazy, goofy smiles? That's how I look on my Trek.

That's why I drive a Miata *and* ride a bike.

[tc1]

Little trike
Big red trike
Big red trike rode on 2 wheels alla time
Small red bike at age 5, probably borrowed
Big (way too big!) blue Schwinn steel single speed woman's bike
Purple fair lady sting-ray, which I was forbidden from for 3 months because of a badly broken arm (bike is still in pieces in the garage)
Steel "10 speed", think it was a Sekai, had for 1 month before it was stolen
24" Sears oversized 5 speed stingray
Schwinn orange crate-still got it and it's for sale
Skateboard (hey, I got around the college campus on it, it's like a bike)
Specialized Hard Rock mountain bike (still got it, not for sale)
24" cruiser (BMX type, Redline I think, it's for sale too)
Rodriguez adventure with flat bars, my latest love
I am trying hard to justify getting a full suspension MTB