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

[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.

[DebW]

I don't remember a tricycle, but I probably had one. I do remember the first two-wheeler with training wheels. My sister and I had to learn to ride without training wheels in the grassy back yard and do a figure-8 around 2 trees before we could ride on the sidewalk. The next bike I remember was a red coaster-brake Schwinn - mine was a boy's frame, my sister had a girl's frame. I did 20 mile rides on that single-speed bike. The next bike I bought myself at age 16. It was a green 27-lb Manufrance 10-speed for $109 (made in France of course), bought from the shop I would start working at the next year.

5th: The Trek 420 I'm named for

Some people name their bikes, some people get named by them...

[Bikingmomof3]

My first bike was purchased in July. A Giant Sedona. I had it for 3 weeks and sold it for a Trek 1000.

[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.

[shootingstar]

A blue, one-speed that shared with 2 other sisters. I didn't learn to bike until I was 11 yrs. old. Did not have training wheels. I could barely touch my toe on the sidewalk. It was a bike meant for a short adult.

So I skipped the tricycle phase.

But we did have a red and blue tricycle for younger siblings.

[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.

[RoadBunner]

I remember riding this blue thing - a Columbia or something, I don't remember. But it had upright handlebars, and I tied a rope from one grip to the other, and those were my "reigns" and I used those to steer the bike. Because, I didn't want a stinkin' ol' bike! I wanted a HORSE!!!

The first bike that was all my own (not a tricycle shared with cousins or a red training wheeler-turned two wheeler shared with my sister) was a purple and white Huffy. I also put rope "reins" on it and pretended it was my horse (which is what I really coveted at that age).

[Zen]

http://forums.teamestrogen.com/showt...ght=bike+Sears




.

[Triskeliongirl]

Wow, what an interesting question. I still remember that itty bitty first tricycle. What I remember about it that it was red, and can picture myself riding it on the sidewalk in front of my childhood home.

The next visual is the day my dad took the training wheels off my first two wheeled bike, also red. Again, an image of me riding it on that same sidewalk....

Then I remember my favorite bike in high school. I remember it being called an 'english racer' and it had 3 speeds. It was green with white trim.

Next, I remember the day they pulled my name out of the big rotating barrel on TV. I won a '10 speed' bike, red. It arrived in a big cardboard box and again I have an image of my dad assembling it for me in my living room shortly before he died. I road that bike all through college and even the beginning of graduate school. It was stolen U-locked to a pipe on the house I was renting an apartment in just outside of central square in cambridge.

I replaced that with my first touring bike. A univega nuevo sport from a funky bike shop just outside of harvard square that doesn't appear to be around anymore. I bought it with the intention to tour europe, but given I couldn't reach the brake levers that never happened. The bike shop put an itty bitty stem on, and those cheater levers, but I never felt confident enough on it to do that european tour. It was a mixte, so was the best version of wsd that existed then, and it was made of what was considered very light weight steel in its day. That was my bike for many years, although I ran more than cycled when my kids were young.

My husband replaced it with one of those dept. store huffy's. I promply gave it to my daughter and bought my first terry classic, the first adult bike I had that fit me. That was 2001. That bike was crashed so I got another 2001 terry steel classic, used. That was followed by a 2003 bike friday, which was stolen. That was replaced by my 2005 terry titanium isis, and last year I added a 2003 terry steel isis to my stable, retrofitted with s/s couplers for traveling.

[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