Your Very First Bike

[rapid cycler]

It was a Sears girl's bike, bright yellow, with a white flowered banana seat and a white flowered basket. Oh, and rainbow-colored tassles on the handlebar grips. These details were explicitly requested by my 5-year-old self. By the time I was 9 or 10, and a confirmed tomboy, the basket had been ditched and both the handlebars and seat had been swapped out for BMX-style equipment. It was a very strange looking bike, especially given that it still had a girl's step-through frame! At a certain point, maybe out of his own embarrassment, my brother handed down to me his red Schwinn Stingray.

[Torrilin]

My first bike was a pink Huffy with a weird seat. Not quite a banana, not quite a normal saddle. Handlebars were lower than the 70s bikes I've seen here, more in the style of a modern comfort or cruiser bike. Step through frame, one speed, coaster brakes. Knobby tires.

I learned to ride it in a cul-de-sac built into the side of the hill. It was just off a residential street with decent grade, maybe as high as 6%. The cul-de-sac itself was set at an angle, so you got lots of nice drills on turning and how to gain speed off a gentle grade. I distinctly remember my dad teaching me the turn signals and telling me I was to use them, even if I couldn't see any cars. I remember spending a solid year with training wheels, and getting to the point where I didn't really need them. Had dad take 'em off and promptly had a ton of spills. Decided I needed to learn to fall, so I practiced. Lots.

When I was in my teens I got another garage sale Huffy bike in more my size. It was probably officially a mountain bike since it had knobby tires (which I wanted since I was not a great enough fool to try riding thin tires on PA roads). It didn't really fit properly, but I could at least ride to the library, the swimming pool and my first real job on it. I don't recall how many speeds it had, and I didn't really know how to use them (friction shifters cause index hadn't been invented when the bike was built). It did have real brakes and I *did* learn how to use those... going down the hill into town is an 18-19% grade. No trouble at all hitting 35 mph off that. The trick was to keep your speed in check for the curves and potholes.