Kids, and the blue bicycle

I have to admit, whenever I see you guys posting up photos and stories about getting kids on bikes, upgrading their bikes, and just spending time on their biking... It tugs at my heartstrings in a major way. Not because my own (four-legged) kids are incapable of riding, or because my pre-packaged parental tendencies are going largely unused. It's that...

A bike to a kid can be a magical machine, a friend, a toy; a gateway to a fascinating world, and a super fun way to get there. I think of my own bikes as a kid. There was no more prized possession than my bikes. But, I was fortunate enough to have one.

I might have posted this here before, but times like this – and your fabulous posts of generosity toward kids – make me think of it. I can never read it without feeling a lump in my throat, or maybe a tear in my eye, but it's a happy sadness, if you know what I mean.


Blue Bicycle 2019

The girl had so hoped for this day
The bicycle was shiny, wonderful and blue
Her father had given it to her

He was shrewd and miserly, but this time he opened up
It was a rare event
The girl was heartened by the gift and wasted no time getting to know her new friend

One day she awoke to discover the bicycle gone
Her father had taken the bike and sold it
Shortly after that, the father separated from the mother and left the family

Today the girl has her own bicycle--a white one. And a gray one. And a red one!
She can have any bike she wants, any color.
But these bikes all seem very blue
To us

 

Thankfully, I didn't have a father who sold my bike... But I did have a grandmother who brought me one that she found on the side of the road. One man's trash, another man's treasure... Even if that man was 4 1/2. I still remember the rush riding down the driveway. Remember the stings from the time I strayed and landed in the pricker bush, that also held a beehive...

The frame is still in the basement at my mom's house... tucked in the crawl space.

Thanks for the memory trigger...

 

I had a blue bike
It was loved
Not just liked
I locked it one night
In a place I regret
On a corner
In Hollywood
Vine and Sunset
I had a new friend
She kept me
The weekend
The blue bike sat locked
until the end
But you know what happens
When you haven't been true
The bike was long gone
Now I'm the one
Blue

 

So that's what RSM looked like before the build-out huh?

 

Great post @mike. Makes me appreciate the blue BMX with white tires I had back in my day when chasing down the ice cream man and climbing [and falling out of] trees was par for the course of playing in the neighborhood.

One day as a kid I was riding in the [not busy] street in front of my house and inadvertently obstructed the forward progress of a vehicle that had to slow way down to avoid running me over. My dad saw it happen and yelled at me that I was forbidden to ever play in the street again! WTF! Yea that didn’t last, but at least he cared.
This daddo ain’t goin nowhere either...unless that forehead vein bursts and I bleed out.

 

And what a beautiful young lady!!!!!

 

While I haven’t been posting “normal” rides here lately I am focused on more important riding that Strava doesn’t get turned on for. It’s not the same adventure as being up in the mountains but it’s an adventure I wouldn’t want to regret missing.

Thanks for a feel good post, @mike!

 

What a photo

 

Yep... So much growth! The water tower in the background fell down a few years ago, and they recently bulldozed my elementary school and turned it into a Dollar Store.

 

You know your town is going places when Family Dollar and Dollar General stores start popping up

 

Town? You guys got to live in a town? With people? Probably had a stop light, too.

 

Your town hasn't really "arrived" until it has a Walmart.

A Walmart selling blue bikes, natch.

 

I recall living/workin in Mansfield, PA...if youz lookn’ fo someone, all ya’ll had to do was wait at the Walmart, and eventually you’d find ‘em there.

 

Love this pic!

 

So many feels in here!

 

Soo cool @Faust29 !!! I have a picture of myself taken on my 5th or 6th birthday on a very similar blue bike!! I can remember how happy I was too! Lol at the banana seat!!!


Btw, how lucky are you to still have this bike!??? Drag that thing down and restore it!!!! Even if it just is going to go back into the crawl space!!! What's wrong with you!??

 

Haha, my first bike was blue, and it had a banana seat and ape hangar bars....geez then I moved up to a bmx bike, my twin and I would build janky jumps and eat dirt...those were the days
Great thread @mike

 

Lol, the progression to BMX and building janky jumps!!! Lol, that's great!!!

 

Haha, we’d use the same track to ride and jump our horses too...janky and redneck
This thread is bringing up some good memories..hopefully you all feel the same

 

Indeed.. Christmas Day 1987 I was 6 and got a Mongoose Decade Freestyle BMX bike from Santa. It was my first bike with handbrakes and as I was riding down our driveway towards the front door I started spinning the pedals backwards trying to stop, luckily the step in front of the door endoed me just right so I wasn’t injured as I flew into our front door back first and legs up.

I never tried to use coaster brakes instead of handbrakes again after that day.

 

Some serious riders there, Corn, good work.

 

Great thread @mike. A bike supplies a freedom like nothing else. There is a certain magic that comes being taken to places that is powered by your own personal will power. It’s wonderful to see someone discover this magic for the first time.

 

Lol...good times Can you imagine if we had these spills on video?!! That would be awesome!

 

Someone got me on video, around age 12 (8mm film, 1974-ish), jumping my Schwinn Stingray and snapping the apehangers on landing...and subsequently faceplanting. I wish I could find that.

 

You MUST find it!!!!!
I’m in a similar boat, we have an old reel to reel of my sister and I rolling down hills tucked inside of huge truck tires!

 

This is a spectacular photo in every way!

 

Bingo, Snake – it's a big thing for a young person.

I was thinking how cycling forced me early to make more important decisions and exercise *some* reasonable judgement – formative stuff indeed. From walking on the sidewalk to riding with traffic, making navigational decisions...a leap for a kid. First bike ride to the mall was an early enlightening experience, and by age 13 I was bikepacking. Doing this stuff without parents around was real growing up. It's probably not legal today...

 

I hate that my kid, and most kids, don't get to have the experience with bikes (especially a particular bike)and freedom like I did. Grew up super rural, with lots of woods separating us from our neighbors. We cut bike trails through the woods, and built jumps, and made tons of bad decisions (digging pits behind jumps, filling them with water, and then continuing to dig the pits bigger without making the jumps bigger is Russian Roulette with physics as it turns out). My blue bike was a black and gold Huffy with checkerboard velcro wraps around the handlebar and top tube pads. It was light, and easy to do wheelies on. It didn't have front brakes, but I learned that I could jam my foot in between the front wheel and the fork and do an indo. I spent thousands of unsupervised hours in those woods on that bike. Thanks for the thread. I may be slightly off topic, but this was a fun trip down memory lane.

 

That's it. The day before my recent surgery my daughter and I went to Balboa Lake, and did the 5ish mile loop. We chatted, and rode, and I gave her crazy props for pedaling up a small hill without having to get off and push. And I puckered when she recovered from a speed wobble at the bottom of a hill because her bike was too small. It was one of my favorite days of the whole year.

 

Great stuff, Matt. Right on topic if you ask me...kids and bikes