Your Very First Bike

[SouthernBelle]

I got mine for Christmas when I was 4. It was red and blue and had training wheels. Don't remember the brand, but I bet it was from Western Auto way back then.

[Cyclo Kitty]

Mine was a blue metallic single-speed Raleigh with a coaster brake. Might have been the Space Rider or the Colt. I rode it with my Dad all over Chicago, until I finally wore out the coaster brake! Coming down the hill from the Rookery behind the greenhouse in Lincoln Park, I shot across the street and into the park....Dad yelling at me about safety. He refused to believe the bake had failed until it tried it himself (by hand, he's 6'-2" and if it had gotten small for me at age 8, well, it was beyond him to squeeze onto it!).

I loved that bike, and I remember the shop where we bought it, and the next one, and Dad's bike so well. One reason I like my LBS here so much is that it smells just like Turin did in the 1970s and the guys are pretty similar too, but there are women mechanics and sales people.