Sentimental Bikes

Do you guys have a bike which you could never get rid of? Why does it mean so much?

Lets see em!

This one.

It now exists exactly as it was when new - frame and forks. It's a 1999 CAAD 3 Martyn Ashton Volvo Team Replica.
I stripped it to build my Pompino, transferring the saddle, seatpost and front brake to the new bike. Everything else was sold or binned.
I'll keep it because we've been through so much together (I rode it almost daily from brand new in 1999, until March 2013). Might rebuild it one day but tbh it's a nice thing to look at, so it can sit indoors for a bit.

They say you never forget your first, eh?

A Raleigh 'Dido' (stop laughing at the back), mine was baby-blue and red though, with classy white tyres. I got my dad to fit a huge Never Ready tail lamp on it.

The actual bike is mouldering in a shed until I acquire younger relatives

My beloved Pogliaghi - alas with a crack in the down tube, which I suppose I might one day get replaced, but for the time being it is hanging on the wall at home.

I bought it in about 2003 or 2004 but had known it for some years before then. It had belonged to Bernard, the cheery bloke from Longford who used to deliver sandwiches to my workplace on the Haymarket in the early 1990s. He sold it to a colleague of mine, who a bit later offered to sell it to me after my Harry Quinn was totalled by a dooring incident in February 1995, but I found the riding position a bit scary, and I ended up riding (dare I admit it?) a Marin Sausalito for a few years. I did borrow it for the London triathlon (thereby hangs another sad tale) and ended up buying it.

I tidied it up and modernised the groupset a bit and rode it from Paris to London in 2006, which marked a renaissance in my cycling, and on some of the early FNRttCs. It was after a FNRttC to Whistable in 2012 that I spied the crack in the paint just behind the head tube lug. A bit of scraping revealed that the down tube had a crack about half way round it, at which stage retirement beckoned. Most of the kit was transferred over to other bikes, first up a nice Concorde which turned out to be a little too little, and then to my current Dave Lloyd Concept 90, to which I still have no sentimental attachment.

My System Six- first "proper" bike, and the one that made me take cycling a bit more seriously.

I think I'll always have it in one form or another. Might put it back to how it would have been in 2007.

my Giant Yukon SE which my dad brought back from Taiwan for me in 1994.
actually there were two, the first identical one was stolen within a couple of years (I was careless) and this one, which we had thought to maybe sell, has been in use ever since. it's lost its crappy front suspension, super-wide "brahma" bars and been through a number of front wheels, but it's still the bike I ride when I go home.

Similarly to Dammit, my first 'proper' bike was a second hand Trek Madone 5.2, which I rode everywhere, including my first long series of rides (650 miles in 7 days)

Now having a bit of a LOL at the official photo from Trek's website. Those bars?! Clearly thats where Halfords get their set-up info from!

Still think its the pretty-est Trek (oxymoron much!) frame and it was all downhill from there. Would like to have one again sometime, but my one was written off :(

^ Expecting to get nerg'd for that post tbh :/

Dads bike, utterly original, nut and bolt rebuilt last year. 'Nuff said....

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My first road bike ! But it got stolen 2 months ago :/ I was really sad when that happened. Gotta lock'em up good from now on

Nice!

My Gary Fisher frame will never be sold. My first 'proper' bike, rode it in XC races, a 4X race, and racked up many many miles. It's on the shed wall at the moment, hopefully at some point I'll have a use for it again.

Came to me for free and has carried me and god knows how much cargo to and from work through 2 winters now. Has had a powdercoat and a few new bits and bobs but not much really and certainly not much in the way of maintenance but still I can just jump on and I know it'll be sweet.

The frame more than anything. Bought way back at the start of the fixie boom, my first proper fixed frame (ie not a conversion), swapped with a mate for his Fuji then bought back. Has had the chainstay battered in for chainring clearance, tatty as hell, hellish low bottom bracket and all but worthless but it was my first and it'll never get sold.

Probably also my 1x1. Was looking at a Pugsley recently but the thought of making the 1x1 redundant made me sad. I passed on the Pugs and have treated the 1x1 to a set of Middleburns instead.

sweet surly^^
nostalgias not what it used to be.
nah good thread idea actuallly:)

My first proper bike. I saved up for this, £25 a week from a Saturday job. I loved it more than my mother. Its in bits in my shed.

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obviously i have no fixed gear credibility but for a while i had a weirdly sentimental attachment to my first bike, despite the fact it was fucking shit. i really liked it's shade of blue and it's actually what i started commuting on. i remember getting so fucking out of breath going up hills and people making fun of the tiny wheels. it was also a heavy bastard and the folding capability was pretty much useless. but nobody ever wanted to nick it even though every part of it was quick release. the 3-speed gears were also fun as gear 3 was tremendously tough, like trying to push your feet into an elephant's bum or something, gear 2 was okay but occasionally slipped at the worst moments and left you frantically pedalling air in busy intersections or going up southwark bridge, and gear 1 was obviously useless. that and the handlebars used to detach sometimes while steering. that being said, the brakes were amazing!
yet being the most uncool & dangerous thing to probably cycle i did some totally slow-but-comfy epic 3am cross-london rides and was finally liberated from the night bus rides of ultimate despair and sorrow.
i sold it and it now rusts in someone else's garden.

My first 'racer' - a Raleigh Rapide, bought for a Christmas present in 1982 - used, abused and put in the attic for 20 years until last year when I cleaned, polished and oiled it to get it back to its' original condition.

Before cleaning -

After cleaning etc

I think the bike has covered over 10,000 miles and still runs well. The only thing that needed changed was the headset. I have the original wheels back on now.

If ir'a over 10,000 miles, chain and drivetrain might be already quite worn.

Mikey, post a pic of your haggard charge!

I got this frame in 1992 as a present from a law firm that was representing Giant after my RB2 rusted and snapped during a snowy winter. I've ridden over 200,000 miles on it, but stopped using it for work in 2007. I ride it very rarely now as I'm old and fat, so have some concern about it snapping in half

I bought this Marin Indian Fire trail in 1993, my first race worthy mountain bike. I had previously used a couple of bikes but this had the really aggressive geometry popular at the time.
I bought it the day after the bike I had was nicked. That got nicked 20 minutes after I turned down the job of a lifetime, which would have meant a move that my partner didn't fancy.
So when I got home and was more gutted about the bike she was more than happy for me to spend £1100 on a bike, given that we weren't moving.
Days later I caught someone riding the nicked bike, and that became a rack and guards commuter while the Marin was a weekend warrior race bike.
In 1995 I bought a new race bike, and was supposed to sell the Marin, but that became the off road tourer and that started me on some epic jaunts carrying camping gear to all sorts of ridiculous places.
It is now my bike of choice for most rides, it has evolved into the perfect do it all bike.
The only original parts are the frame and thumbies. It has been rebuilt at least 4 times and has had 10 rims and is now on ceramics./attachments/79545

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Well, I got rid of a bike that I wish I never had of sold.

I spent all of my part time job money, birthday money etc on a Sid Standard Superb back in the early '90s. I bought the frame second hand and bought Chorus parts for it bit by bit. I remember having it ready just in time for the last TT of the season.

Fast forward a couple of years when I was 17 and passed my driving test and I sold it to buy a Renault 9.

Always regret that and I have never sold another bike since.

If I had to keep one bike and sell the rest then I would have to keep this bike. made to measure (before I had kids and could just about afford it!):

That thing looks FAST! Can't be difficult to get sentimental about any bike you've had custom made for you!

As sentimental as I could probably get about rubbish bikes I owned as a kid but I've never felt wholly attached to any.
That said, I do currently keep my Arthur Caygill in the living room and even though he only comes out for the track and in good weather, the idea of selling it feels like lunacy. Maybe that makes it a sentimental bike of the future!

Paramounted - any pics of the Caygill?

It may have gone fast in the right hands!!

Last year my youngest rode a few crits on it. I put some drops on it and it was like a mini road bike. He now has his own road bike and I am tempted to have a pop at time trialling again this year (should know better!).

That's very kind of you to let your sprog ride it. Now he's got his own though, it's time to get it (and yourself, perhaps) back into TT mode!

Here's the Caygill:

http://i61.tinypic.com/710bqb.jpg