I remember the precise moment I learned to ride on two wheels having recently destroyed my Pashley pickle tricycle. I was given a 'nice' bike for my 14th birthday, a second hand Raleigh Flyer. Because I was so completely crap at sport of any kind I managed to persuade the head teacher to let me start a cycling club at school. There were three of us and we would go for rides when everyone else was playing footy or cricket. Heaven!. Rode from Welshpool to Carlisle one one occasion. Epic!
I was always really into cars and assumed like many people that I would graduate from cycling when I passed my test, however when I moved to London in 83 to attend art collage it was clear, even then, that there were too many cars on the road. I started walking to college as the buses and tube were slower, graduated to a skateboard so the natural thing was to rekindle my interest in cycling. Bought a 2nd hand Rory O', rode it into the ground and a year later blew my grant on a brand new Claude Butler Dalesman and a set of panniers.
Got into HPV racing and mountainbiking and to this day consider myself first and foremost a mountainbiker rather than a cyclist. Didnt do very well at collage so got a job in a bike shop as a mechanic and thats where Ive stayed aside from a brief foray into plumbing. Ive had sooo many bikes over the years, several road bikes, recumbents, Moultons old and new, Bromptons, tandems, cruisers, choppers, roadsters, butchers and bakers, and various trailers. I should try and write them all down sometime. But mountainbikes. Ive had more than sixty mountainbikes.
Didn't give it back for a few months until I could afford a proper bike. Which became my only mode of transport!
