How you started cycling

[jeltz]

Just getting back into it. As a teenager it was my means of transport now 20 years on I bought a bike to do extra fitness and stamina work to prepare for black belt grading later this year.

Really enjoying it and am very lucky that there is an old railway line which has been turned into a cycle track, locally.

 

[Riverman]

hmm tough one this. I can't put my finger on it. I've just gone through various phases of cycling.

1st phase: discovering the bike (can't remember when this was)
2nd phase: young teenage kid beating the boredom by cycling miles every day
3rd phase: Commuting whilst at uni
long break
4th phase: Touring (this is where I am now)

Btw lol my weight during phase 3 was 12stone. My weight now is 14.5 but was 15 until only one months ago. Just goes to show how much that break damaged my health.

I find the thing that really got me into cycling is not owning a car and wanting to get places faster than walking. I'm hoping touring is going to take accessibility of places to a whole new level.

 

[jybeebee]

It started for me when I was 9 with a bike that my next door neighbour paid for - and I paid back every week from my pocket money. A Hercules costing £12 or so new. Tried to enter the school's cycle team for the borough cycling competition, but the "coach", a cop who was father of by in my class said I wasn't good enough.

Getting the top score for the Cycling Profociency Test in the school made him reconsider and we went on to win. I think I have a little trophy somewhere.

Stopped cycling for a while when we moved to London and got back into it after thirty-some years when a friend at work finally persuaded me to try commuting by bike. Borrowed one of his bikes and haven't looked back.

Loving it.

 

[Plax]

I started cycling because:
1) I used to do a lot of running but my knees were giving me jip.
2)I was fed up of the gym. By the time I got home from work I just couldn't be bothered going back out to the gym.
3) The gym cost me money and I only ever went on the running machine.

I thought I'd get a bicycle and start cycling to work as it would:
1) serve a purpose of getting from A - B.
2) Combine exercise in the form of a commute.
3) save money on gym fees and on petrol.

I'm loving it, no real obstacles apart from the first week I had to stop halfway up on one of the three big hills on my commute to rest my legs. I thought it would be a doddle being a runner, but as I found out I was working completely different leg muscles. It took me 32 minutes and 2 seconds to get home on that first day. I can now do it in 18 ish minutes.

 

[Mr Creosote]

I learned to cycle when I was about 6 or 7 years old and have cycled continuously (road and then MTB and back to road) since then.

At the time I learned to cycle I had my arm in a plaster cast to above the elbow joint because I had given myself a greenstick fracture of the radius (leaping off the top bunk and landing badly). I had been to an out patients appointment in the morning and as I recall my mother had decided it wasn't worth sending me to school for the afternoon so she dragged me along to the house of one of her friends.

Well I eventually got bored and went nosing through the friends garage and came across a kids bike in there (no stabilisers). Looking back on it now, Christ knows what I was thinking but I took the bike out onto the cul-de-sac and attempted to ride it.

The first few attempts were pitiful but by the end of the afternoon I had balance, braking and turning figured out and was obviously well pleased with myself.

However, in learning to ride I had worn out the plaster cast across the palm of my hand and had to return to hospital to get it fixed and what really sticks in my mind is the ticking off I got from the doctor/nurse who seemed to be less than impressed with my efforts.

 

[Headgardener]

Usual learnt to ride as a kid up to the age of about ten/twelve years then a gap until about thirtyfive when I commuted to work for year on a secondhand MTB. Then after another thirteen year gap last year I bought a Sarecen hybrid off my brother, now I am waiting for my new Dawes Horizon to arrive. It will be my first new bike since I was about eight all the others that I have had were secondhand. Also it will the first one in my size as all the others have been slightly to big.

 

[D4VOW]

I learnt as a young child, before I can remember. The 1st bike I remember riding was a Raleigh Budgie but I was already riding without stabilizers by then.

 

[mac1]

did some cycling up until about 9 years old. Then nothing except for one weekend. Then January last year was in Cologne on a language course. On the way to the school was a bike shop with a black Electra Sparker cruiser bike in the window which caught my eye and was all set to buy one once I got back to the UK. Didn't and I'm glad of it because I would have found it a little impractical. Would still like one though but only for occasional use.