What got you into cycling?

[Golfgeezer]

Second hand bikes that my dad did up for me and painted when I was a kid. I still remember the frames hanging up in the cellar after a going over with the rattle cans. Bought myself a couple of new bikes when I got older but I remember these first bikes with fondness.

 

[jefmcg]

Mostly the drugs and the sex parties.

https://www.cyclechat.net/threads/university-dissertation-study.204263/

 

[Lonestar]

Dunno.Borrowing my mates bike when I was very young and trying to get it in a straight swap for a camera which wasn't allowed.Then my dad refused to let me have a bike till I was 12.Still wasn't happy about unleashing me on London's roads at that age and decades later I'm still cycling.Never had an interest in cars.

 

[psmiffy]

I had a bike when I was around 6 years old and depending on where we were living cycled to school from a-bout that time till I was thirteen when school got too far away. However, at or around that time my orthopaedic surgeon suggested to my parents that cycling would be beneficial and it is probably that time I became a "cyclist".

 

[Accy cyclist]

Like most on CC i was brought up to ride bikes as a child. I stopped riding when i discovered "birds and booze" in my late teens and 20's but took it up again when i couldn't afford a car to get to work. Thirty odd years later i'm still riding though now it's for pleasure rather than transport.

 

[Hill Wimp]

My dad buying me a bike when I was a toddler...

^^^ that

I never really stopped after this. Can't remember never not having a bike.

 

[Racing roadkill]

Interesting reading another thread about the 1989 TDF being the catalyst for getting another poster into cycling and was wondering what got everyone else into cycling?

Mine was the 2012 TDF, watching Froome support Wiggins and the hype and euphoria around British sport at the time got me off my arse and finally made me buy a bike which I had been procrastinating about for years, mainly because i was scared to cycle in the roads as I hadnt been on a bike since childhood. Four years later now cycling five days a week to work circa 35 miles per day and it was the best decision I ever made. Lost 3 stone as well and generally feel healthier and happier than I ever have.

My folks bought me a bike for my fifth birthday, I soon got the 'bug', and nothing has changed.

 

[Elswick Cotterpin]

Probably my Dad, and Richard Ballantyne! Vague memories of knocking on doors with my dad looking at bikes that people were selling... and reading Richard's Bicycle Book - I think - sometime in the seventies.

 

[Dogtrousers]

Ah yes, Richard Ballantyne. All I know about bikes came from that book. Which explains why I can't adjust indexed gears.

 

[Dave 123]

A red Raleigh Grifter.

 

[Stevec047]

Cycling has always been in the family from a young age. My dad used to ride pro back in the 70's competing in crix and 1 day races all over the UK.

Growing up there were always 3 road bikes hanging up in the garage his daily ride that was in rust red with steel mud guards and the classic leather bag strapped to the saddle. His blue training bike and his custom built Holdsworth complete with full team running gear.

From about 4 years old I remember having a rally chopper style bike which o loved and then moved on to a bmx before getting a mountain bike which I still have albite in a poor condition.

15 years passed with me getting fatter and unfitted still with a deep interest in cycling and when my relationship failed I decided now was the time to get back on the bike. Cheap second hand road bike and since last october I haven't looked back. With two young boys who have just started in the world of cycling with balance bikes I am hoping the bug rubs off on them.

 

[Dogtrousers]

Up to age about 30 I rode a bike, went on cycling hols and so on. Then I took up running. Then I wrecked my knee falling over in the snow and had a long period of operations and recovery. All the while my weight was increasing. Then a friend told me he'd had a warning from his doctor about his blood pressure and had bought a bike on eBay. I got back on two wheels and it was like I'd never been away.

 

[summerdays]

I had a couple of trikes as a young child, the first one was red and the second one blue, there's even a photo of me on it somewhere...

Then bikes through my teenage years and then a bike stop for 15 or more years, apart from the once a year hire at a trail in the Peak District or somewhere. Bought my children bikes and they just rode them in our close mainly. When my eldest reached the top of primary she needed a new bike for doing her Bikeability and so she choose this awful bike from Toys r Us! However it was the first one of their bikes I could ride, and so I'd borrow it and go off exploring, I loved it so then I had to buy a bike for me as her bike literally started falling apart! Been riding ever since!

 

[Aravis]

It was all a bit more complex in my case. I was never prevented from riding a bike, but I certainly wasn't encouraged as a young teenager.

My dad was a decent amateur time-triallist in the early 1940s. He was called up pretty late and in 1943 went over to Canada for bomber crew training. Over there he had the good fortune to develop what we now call type I diabetes, which of course almost guaranteed that he would survive the war, hence the fact that I'm here now.

He did briefly return to racing but then contracted tuberculosis, ending his cycling days.

I remember him saying once that he blamed much of his later ill-health on his days as an athlete. It didn't occur to me when he said this, but I assume now that he was referring to drugs. If so, his reluctance to introduce me to the world of cycle racing is much easier to understand.

Aged 24, I upgraded to a good quality fast touring bike (Revell Elite). With that I rode solo and unsupported from Bristol to Geneva and back, five days in each direction. This was far beyond anything I'd done before, and I think the demonstration that I clearly had some ability gave my dad a bit of a shock.

I do remember testing myself on a local 10 mile time-trial course, and did well enough to suggest I could have made a go of it. But I was enjoying the style of cycling I was doing - long distances at a comfortable pace - and that is where I stayed. I'd be lying if I said I didn't have some regrets.

 

[Venod]

It was the only form of transport in our house, Mum and Dad cycled to work and Mum used to visit Grandma everyday by bike, so it was inevitable I had an interest, I built my first bike with an old frame from the dump and old parts, this fostered a life long interest in cycling and all things mechanical, it shaped my life, leading to a job in engineering, enabling me to raise a family without many money worries.