Bikes/cycling of your youth

I had a list of my bikes i've owned on a thread somewhere but can't remember where now and can't be bothered to write them out again.

It's because dogs eat less bones.

I'm guessing your list would be a thread in itself.

It's because dogs eat less bones.

Ha...that was the response i got...less bonemeal in their food. :)

Found the list.. :)

Trike
Raleigh Budgie
Little savage bmx
Vindec
Mini road bike
Sun solo
Raleigh mustang
marin eldridge grade
orange aluminium O
S-bike
custom built webster
orbit cyclocross
another custom built webster
another custom built webster
shogun road bike
gt sts 1 x2 (broke both of them)
gt sts 1000ds
pace rc200 team issue
santa cruz bullit
dekerf singlespeed
brooklyn machine works race link
fly estampida bmx
brooklyn machine works park bike
brooklyn machine works gangsta
surly karate monkey
onza mini bike
unknown old track bike
surly pugsley
brooklyn machine works big link
lemond sarthe road bike
fisher cake 1 dlx
brooklyn machine works big air full suss bmx
storck scenario road bike
sunday bmx
unknown lo-pro
Eddy Merckx lo pro

I know your parents own a bike shop, but the leap from the Raleigh Mustang (Red, brown, shit all over) to an Eldridge Grade is pretty big.

My mustang was black and white...sold it and used christmas/birthday money to buy the marin.
My folks have only owned a bike shop for 10 years. :)

The original thread about old bikes, as opposed to the one about learning to ride, is here:

http://www.londonfgss.com/thread16996.html

And that is, indeed, an eyebrows thread.

There are few photos of me as a child - we're not a family big on cameras. So none of me with bikes. But my bikes were:

A trike with pedals fixed to front wheel and a bin at the back for putting stones and acorns into.

A solid-rubber-tyred single speed bike that I crashed on first stabiliser-less ride (looked round at my dad and fell flat on my face). Then crashed again trying to use it like a BMX on the steep dip down to Dibden Hill and grated half my face off - that resulted in the scar on my eyebow and the slight droop to my left eye when I get tired.

After I outgrew that, I had no bike for a while, then whilst trying to save up for my mate's old Chopper, my folks bought me a new one. In red. With the tiny rack that was just big enough for my paper-bag and the proper springs under the seat which actually did fuck all anyway.

Then when I outgrew that at about 16, I briefly had a loan bike for a while, then nothing til I was about 35. And nobody is interested in grown up bikes.

BTW, can I just mention the Grifter... Did it really weight more than the rider, cos that is how I remember it.

The first one I can remember was a Triumph Palm Beach that I rode and rode and rode. I regularly rode round south Essex on it doing 60-mile days. At the time everyone aspired to a "10-speed racer" and I eventually got a Carlton at the age of about 14 and did similar routes. That bike ran for years until I lent it to a junkie (you live and learn!) when I was about 25. Various not-very-good bikes intervened, and now I've got a 14-speed Carlton, a Carlton fixed, a Brompton, a Claud Butler MTB hybrid and a 1920 Raleigh Superbe. I don't think I've spent a week of my life not being on a bike, and am beginning to find it quite hard to talk to people who don't cycle.

I learnt how to ride on my own when I was 11, as I didn't like my parent's methods haha. Just one day, got on and thought, I'm going to cycle and cycle. And I did. I learnt it on a BMX style frame, the name escapes me though. Then my dad got an Apollo for me from Halfords. :/

Ha...just noticed my comment in the thread Delphina started. :)

"Whatever happened to white dog poo?....i used to see loads of it in the late seventies/early eighties"

Arthur Smith's joke was "how come the only white dog shit you see these days is Leeds United..."

Having said that how come nobody spontaneously combusts these days and has big foot retired?

My first was a pink and yellow (battenburg, if you will) BMX with white grips and tyres, and brake cables. It had a rear disc wheel with the image of a rat on a bike swinging a cat around it's head, and the words 'Rad Rat' in graff style lettering. It was the late eighties, and it was rad.

My first was a pink and yellow (battenburg, if you will) BMX with white grips and tyres, and brake cables. It had a rear disc wheel with the image of a rat on a bike swinging a cat around it's head, and the words 'Rad Rat' in graff style lettering. It was the late eighties, and it was rad.

That sounds like the best bike ever (with the exception of Team Yo Eddys in Harlequin fade)

Back in the day I was rolling around on one of these. . .

snap i had the same it cost me £50 i broke it at formby trails when i was 11

I came across some pictures of my bikes from when I was a kid and thought they'd be worth a post. I do seem to remember a thread like this but a serious bout of UTFS didn't turn anything up.
So for the piccies...my much loved Cannondale M400 (I think at the point photographed it was only the frame that was original) and my lovely SE PK ripper which I bought from Nige Page (of downhill riding fame).
And me being a fat child on my ripper at the local BMX track.

Post your own embarrassing bikey childhood photos here!

jammy please take me to those jumps for a sweet ride

My Dad made my brother and I one just like this in 1982.
He used to race TTs and sidecar motorbikes so I figure he thought it would be a grand idea to make the kids one...
I remember taking the corner onto our rd at full speed so we'd go faster down the hill. Poor neighbour Rachel Mahre ended up in hospital with a monor head injury beacause I didn't know how to steer the thing. Ha Ha! Would love to have that bike now!
Mum made Dad sell it...

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hah! thought i'll contribute with a picture of my self on the lately (at the time) finished build of a GDR-DIY-BMX. almost brakeless (hub brake thingy) and 20" heavy duty steel rims from a moped cart trailer thingy, laced with xtra thick steel spokes to heavy goods bike hubs on a 24" modified frame. good mud clearance with the shortened mudguards. it was hand painted by me with nitro paint and i had such a whuzzy head from it.

needless to say, that i was totally up to try and test the limits on these overbuild wheels and bombed down almost everything in my way. i even crashed into one of these Trabbi cars (background) and split the cardboard bodypanel but no scratch on my bike, BOOM!

are you a Berliner, reen?

i still love this photo

and my first proper bike haha

After my bitchin' metallic blue tricycle, I had a yellow BMX, when that broke I got a purple Townsend Questor MTB, 18 gears man, WHOA. When I outgrew that I got a metallic green Peugeot MTB with orange V brakes. This is still in my dad's shed, if it's not too small for me I'm going to have a bash on it next time I'm there. And take a picture.

Great pic!

I had a shitty bike, it doesn't matter what, for years as a kid, and it never failed on me. Then one day a friend of mine had one go on it, did a wheelie and the front wheel just fell off and rolled away leaving him to land on the forks and faceplant into the concrete and his chestplant onto the handlebar.

His dad never let me come round after that. I must have ridden with it loose for a while before that

not really the same, but i still use the same handlebars that i had on my first ever bike

OG Raleigh Chopper that used to be my uncle's. Must've been in my Grandad's shed for 20years until he gave it to me.
Raleigh Mustang, blue and purple
Raleigh Boulder, 15 speed gripshift. Was the dogs bollox.
Saracen something, wish I could remember the name. Was silver and yellow alu, RST front sus. Sadly stolen from our garage.
GT Timberline, metallic green. Snapped the headtube, got replaced by a blue and black version. Still have this in the hallway.

Stopped riding for 6 years.

Sixar Team, got nicked.
Geoffrey Butler, waiting to get re-welded.
Holdsworth Special.

My first bike was a brakeless trike, steel, lugless construction, finished in pale metallic green. Loved that thing.