To all the bikes we've loved before

Do you remember your first bike? Or better yet, the bike that really made you fall in love with bikes? All this time at home has gotten us thinking about bikes we loved, and given us time to scrounge around (or ask our very nice parents to do the scrounging) for pictures of our younger selves on two wheels. What started as a nostalgic conversation on Slack relatively quickly evolved into this entry in the Journal.

Danielle’s Purple Huffy

This Huffy Stone Mountain 18-speed wasn’t my first bike, but it is the one I most I’m most nostalgic for. Unlike the bike I had before it—a cruiser with a white and rainbow banana seat—that showed up under the tree one Christmas morning, I have no recollection of how or why I got this Huffy. It would have arrived during my pre-teen years when my parents were beginning to allow me a bit of freedom (which is also probably why I have no pictures of myself riding it and had to source a generic pic from the internet). 

What pressure you running, DK?

It was my first bike with gears and came with a sweet purple water bottle and matching handlebar bag—not unlike those that adorn gravel bikes today. Black, white, and grey paint were splattered on the frame in a way that felt edgy and rebellious, two things I definitely was not. But with mountain bike-style tires and handlebars, it was built for adventure and so was I.

I can remember riding it with friends to Salamino’s grocery store for candy and toys—bouncy balls, rubber poppers, and some sort of goo that stained our living room ceiling—to the catwalk that crossed I-690 so we could put pennies on the railroad tracks, and a few times a year to school. Once, while riding home after the last day of elementary school, the tip of my sandal got caught in my pedal and I crashed into someone’s mailbox, skinning my knee. I told my parents I was wearing my Power Rangers helmet at the time, but I definitely wasn’t; it was hanging from my handlebars (sorry, mom). Most of all, I remember the way I felt while riding this bike—free, independent, going places—and how the bumpy handlebar grips pilled up beneath my sweaty palms, leaving sticky flecks of rubber on my hands. I eventually switched to rollerblading in middle school and then nothing at all during my high school years. It was at least a decade before my next bike—a true hardtail—came into my life.

Barb Has a Sweet 10 Speed… And Crashes

My first bike wasn’t even a bike. It was a Mister T themed little scooter without pedals - we called it the Poopmobile for… reasons. But I remember my first 10-speed bike much more vividly. I got it for what I believe was my 11th birthday. It was pink and grey and it went so FAST. I still remember the feeling of flying around my dad’s suburban streets which were mostly empty - at the time he lived in a brand new suburb called Highland’s Ranch, where there were maybe 100 houses. It’s practically its own major city now….

I rode faster and faster, feeling invincible and speedy. Riding made me forget about my chaotic life at home, the fact that I was at yet another new school and the kids seemed mean, that my brother was a little lunatic who kept trying to bite me. And then I hit a patch of sand and crashed. But I didn’t even care, I was hooked.

I became obsessed with running while in high school and kind of forgot about bikes. But right before I went away to college, my dad and I went to a bike shop called Campus Cycles (fitting, right?) and I used my own money from my summer job to buy a fully rigid Gary Fisher mountain bike to take to college. I rode it around in Brunswick, Maine, where I went to school for a while, let it get flat tires, and brought it home with me to Colorado when I graduated. I still didn’t really know anything about bikes - so I didn’t realize it wasn’t actually a mountain bike you could ride on trails. My last memory of the old Gary Fisher is of me trying to ride it on a real mountain bike trail in Crested Butte the summer after I graduated, crashing, and getting so mad I threw the bike off the trail. Thus began my long, tortured quest to love mountain bikes, which is a whole other story.

Matt somehow purchases a totally sweet bike, almost by accident

For me the first bike that I truly remember riding and loving came much later in life - in college in fact. After spending a few summers tooling around on my parents’ ancient road bikes - downtube shifters and all - sometime around 2003 I decided to take my summer job savings and invest it in a proper road bike. It just so happens that my local outdoor shop had an employee who was a legit racer who was looking to unload his 2002 Cannondale CAAD5. But this wasn’t just any CAAD5, it was the famous limited 9/11 American flag paint scheme from the era when Cannondale frames were still made in the USA. When I bought it I truly had no idea what I was doing while on two wheels. I didn’t race, and the extent of my instruction came from the crusty older guys who welcomed me (and then shelled me) on my local Tuesday night group ride.

Given this was all new territory for me I don’t have many specific recollections of that bike - other than the experience of truly going fast on two wheels for the first time, of the at times punishing physical exertion of riding, and the absolute joy of being on a bike. Sadly I sold the bike when moving to NYC 15-odd years ago, but that red white and blue frame will forever be my favorite bike because it introduced me to riding.

PC: Trevor Raab, Pedal Room

Lucia, future CRCA president, breaks rules on her tricycle

Growing up in Beijing, China in the 80s, bicycles were ubiquitous. Everyone got around the city by bicycle or public transit, and I would often be a passenger on my parents’ top tube or rear rack. Cars were a unique and curious sighting. I’m pretty sure this little red tricycle was my first bike. I rode it around my extended family’s courtyard, when hutongs were more prevalent than high rise apartment buildings. Apparently, I gave my cousin a lift from time to time too. I was probably 3 when this photo was taken. It was before I had my first serious bike crash as well, requiring a trip to the hospital for some stitches on my chin. I learned that using a tricycle as a stepstool is not a good idea. I don’t remember a whole lot else about that bike in particular, but it does serve as a reminder of how bikes have been a big part of our lives from the beginning, and how we all got along just fine without personal automobiles in a big city.

Johnny B’s first ill-advised rides

My family moved from Brooklyn to the suburbs of Long Island when I was 7. The suburbs seemed safe enough to my parents for me to ride a bike alone in relative safety. My first bike was a classic banana seat, ape hanger, Raleigh in Royal Blue. I rode that bike on busy suburban streets to buy comic books and baseball cards, summer camp with my cousin on the back, I explored the single track in the forest behind my parents house with my brother, and after a few years, attempted to repurpose it into the latest trend- BMX. I took off the fenders and banana seat and attached a leather touring saddle with springs I found discarded by a neighbor (but left the giant ape hangers on). It’s silhouette was slightly more BMX than it’s original mock-chopper inspiration, but it was the equivalent of a tacking on a giant rear spoiler on a pedestrian Honda Civic. Sadly, I don’t think I have any pictures of it. 

My next bike was a Huffy Santa Fe. A bike straight outta the 10-speed boom. Initially, I was a bit embarrassed to be seen on this bike- brown and tan with rubber grips rather than bar tape. I wanted a Schwinn from the LBS but instead I was given this Huffy from Toys “R” Us. After one of the “cool” kids commented on how much he liked my bike and its brown rubber grips, I had a change of heart and felt pride in my ride.  My fondest memory riding this bike was when a friend convinced me that we should ride nearly 50 miles (there and back) to visit the house featured in The Amityville Horror. We rode for 3 hours to see a seemingly innocuous house that had haunted our childhood, and then turned around 5 mins later to ride back home. As we rode back on busy b-roads trying to beat the setting sun, I remember regretting that I had agreed to this. I was on mile 40-something (I probably had never ridden longer than 5 or 6 miles), my legs were letting me down, and it was getting dark. I’m not sure how we got there and back because I was too young to understand how to read a map.

Scott falls in love with his carbon bike

I had a few different bikes growing up but the bike that really made me fall in love with cycling was my 2015 Giant Propel Advanced 1. It was my first carbon bike and from the moment I jumped on it I was hooked. It was the bike I was on when I started bunch riding with friends, fell in love with pre/during/post ride coffees, joined my first race, won my first race, climbed my first “mountain” and of course fell down the slippery slope of upgrades.

An extralite stem (83g on a bike that had an alloy steerer tube, lol), custom built carbon clinchers, my first power meter and of course standard chainrings. At the time I thought this was my forever bike until 18,000km and 18 months later I (of course) decided it was time for an upgrade.

Post-Upgrade, almost time to sell…

Erwin and his BMX

Growing up in the south of the Netherlands, I recall my mom claiming I rode a bike before I walked. The first bike I fell in love with wasn’t one of the many traditional Dutch bikes I’ve owned over the years. It was a little red BMX, pictured here on a family holiday in Luxembourg, if I remember correctly. I went anywhere and everywhere on this bike - from my school commute to riding around town. This bike also gave me my first taste of racing, on a track with tight turns and ramps I created in a local forest with a group of friends. Sweet, sweet memories.

Leah doesn’t mess around and immediately starts racing on the track

The first racing team I joined was a track racing team, despite the fact that I had never been to a track, didn’t own a track bike, and had never ridden fixed. Before the season started, one of my new teammates sold me her track bike, a little red Continuum with 650C wheels built by a local shop in the East Village. I remember trying to ride it around my small Brooklyn apartment, falling a lot, taking it outside, and still falling a lot. Eventually, I got the hang of riding fixed and it quickly became my favorite bike.

I loved how fast I felt on my track bike and raced with it whenever and wherever I could, at Kissena and T-Town and Red Hook and Mission Crit. It was the bike that taught me about gear ratios, brought me my first bike friends and helped me fall in love with racing. Sadly, I have no idea where my red track bike is now — when I flew back from Intelligentsia a couple years ago, the airline lost it and it’s never been recovered. I still hope it might pop up on eBay one day, but until then, I’ll have to practice my terrible track stand on a different bike.