first bike memories

bonefishjake

Strong like bull, smart like tractor
Team MTBNJ Halter's
AoN's response in el zollers 'kid bike' thread got me thinking about all kinds of first bike memories.

-i remember begging my mom to take the training wheels off my little red schwinn and bombing down our rock driveway towards taylor town road in montville. i was like three and man did i get bloodied up...but damn was that fun.

-i remember the first time i jumped my scrambler off the dirt pile in the field next to my house (for some reason i'm pretty sure this was after a failed attempt to put a starwars guy into orbit with a couple bottle rockets, followed by a couple taped to the top of a matchbox car..)

-then there was the first time we actually went "mountain biking". up in splitrock (most of you know my unease with this place now..) this i remember pretty clearly b/c i was amazed even then that i didn't kill myself: just BOMBING down the fire road on the 'ol fully rigid, toe-clipped trek 850 antelope and jumping the huge drain pipe...which led to a sketchy landing followed by me pitched into a tree. no helmet, no gloves, no spandex. just me out riding with my buddy.

ah, those were the days.
 
M

Michael

Guest
I don't remember ever having a bike with training wheels. My first real bike was a 60's Schwinn Lemon Peeler Krate muscle bike my cousin gave me with a 3 speed Stik Shifter, chopper bars, drum brakes, springer fork and a slick tire. Of course I jumped it, and finally the fork snapped and I did a faceplant that put my front tooth through my upper lip. Got my first stitches. This was around '76. Then I got a brand new yellow Schwinn Scrambler. Us boys gave our bikes names, and I named it Scrambled Eggs for some odd reason. A week later somebody stole it. That was the first time my mom heard me cuss. The next day my grandma bought me a chopper bike. I hated it because BMX bikes were getting big with the Mongoose and Redlines. I jumped the chopper and snapped that fork. My next birthday I got, finally, a red Mongoose with Moto Mags. Now I was one of the cool kids. Modded the hell out of it with a number plate with all kinds of stickers, bunny pegs, some kind of stem and all the pads. My buddies and I would lay on the ground and jump over each other. I cleared 6 boys once. But one day I landed on Bobby Graves and broke his wrist and split his head open. His parents wanted to sue mine but they never did. I was grounded forever though. Somewhere around that time I also got a dual suspension bike. Yes, they existed back them. It had a motorcycle type fork and rear suspension with two big shocks/springs. I forgot the brand. Then around the 6th grade I got a Suzuki RM 80 and got totally out of bikes until about '89 when my uncle got me into road bikes. I got my first mountain bike when I moved to Hawaii in '93. A Trek 8000. Fully rigid, LX stuff and cost $1000.
 
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anrothar

entirely thrilled
my first bike was a little 12" wheeled, riser barred fixed gear. learned how to ride by my mom standing at the top of a grass hill and sending me off down to my dad. i would fall over, get up, kick the bike and yell at it, then get back on. i learned pretty quick/early apparently. earliest real memories are taking my bmx bikes mountain biking through the woods to the quarry about 3 miles ride away to play around on all the dirt bike stuff there. and riding through every mud puddle i could find like it was going out of style.
 

ArmyOfNone

Well-Known Member
I can recall being about 12, bombing down this hill behind the apartment onto a piece of plywood with three cinder blocks underneath it. The landing was not so good but i was still on the bike outta control and ran head one w/ a dumpster.

My mom came out chasing down the hill screaming. I really was fine but all i was concerned about was that the chain had fallen off the rings. "I hope my bike is alright" "who cares about your fucking bike get inside!"
 

elzoller

El Guac-Oh
Too many memories to list here.
My first bike was a chopper type called VAGABUNDO (Vagabond). Next I moved to the Mexican version of the MONGOOSE 'cause my parents couldn't afford the expensive import :( . I remember building ramps on empty lots in my neighborhood and a lot of scraped knees and elbows. I also remember being chased by dogs a lot, luckily I always outran them.
But the most recent funny memory is when I started mountain biking here in the US back in 2000. With no spandex, no clipless, no camelback, just going around Ramapo Lake and thinking I was a cool 'cause I was mountain biking :rofl: Then one day I met a friend who said he was a mountain biker too and he was going to show me the trails by Skyline Drive. He took me to Cannonball and I almost shit a brick. :scared: :scared: I was telling him there was NO WAY anybody rode that, that was not a mtb trail!! :rofl: Eventually after many tries and "endo's" I was officially a mountain biker :)
 

Judge Smails

New Member
The first "real" bike I got was a Webco (short lived 70's BMX company). We used to borrow milk crates from the Quick Check by my house, we'd put a wooden ramp on the first one and then see how many crates you could jump. We set this up at the elementary school by my house because there was a good 200 yards of blacktop with a few downhills to get up to speed.

The legend of our neighborhood was an older kid named Ali Jackson, rumor had it that he jumped 16 milk crates! He had a white PK Ripper and in our minds couldn't be any cooler. Eventually I got my own PK Ripper and for a while I thought I was hot sh*t.

After probably 10 years without riding a bike my first mountain bike was a Cannondale SM400 in about 1992. To tell you the truth I don't remember how/why I got into mountain biking, but 15 years later it seems to have stuck.
 

Eileen

Active Member
This is a great thread :cool:

I remember riding down my street and racing my grandpa who was in his car. I was still riding a little kid bike at the time. He stayed just in front of me the whole time - "You're not going to lose to an old man are you?"

Then I remember getting a 21-speed Shiwnn. I went and bombed a hill by my house. There was a cross street about half way down. Somehow at that age I wasn't thinking about cars because I rode through there a lot. It was a rush and lot of fun.

The first time I went mountain biking I rode my Shiwnn through Ringwood for ten miles. No clipless, no camelback, no tube or tools :rofl: I was muddy and completely exhausted but I had a smile on my face when it was all over :D
 
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