how did you get into cycling?

[IanDG]

We've had the 'how did you get back......' thread, but when, how, what or why did you get interested in the first place?

For me, once I learned to ride 2 wheels I was always on a bike, I cycled everywhere, school, mates, choir practice. it was always on a bike. I remember exploring local lanes on my mums Raleigh 20 shopper, with OS inch to mile map, sandwiches, flask and cape in the rack bag. I was probably 9 or 10 at the time.

I got a second hand Sun Sirocco racer for xmas when I was 12, I went out everynight after school on a 5-6 mile loop and ventured further afield at weekends.

My dad had been a cycle tourist in his late teens/early 20's and a member of Stafford Road Club. One night one of his old club mates nocked on the door and asked if it was his son he saw over Rugeley way the other day. It was, and he invited me to a Stafford RC club night, then the club runs started, I did a 100 mile reliability trial a few weeks before my 13th birthday, then the evening TT's started and that was it, the wheels of an obsession started rolling 

[Mr Larrington]

Someone lent me a copy of Richard's Bicycle Book at an impressionable age...

[Greenbank]

Grew up in small villages near Cambridge where everyone cycled/cycles. A crap bus service helps too.

Being the youngest of four helped as my parents were happy for me to go out cycling on my own from an early age (At 10 I was doing 50 mile rides with a friend).

[clarion]

I was a utility cyclist as a kid.  We just went everywhere on bikes, till I was about 13, when I just began walking huge distances.

So how did I actually get into cycling really?  Simple:  I found a bike in the cellar.

[TheLurker]

I'm still (sinfully) proud of the fact that I taught myself to ride when I was about 4 by getting on a bike that one of the other kids on camp had left lying around. No one had told me that you had to be taught to ride a bike.  On the strength of my assertion when I got back home that I could now ride a bike Mum and Dad sprung for one (it was a kids folder!) at the Naafi and I haven't been without a bike for more than a few weeks at a time ever since.

[civvy]

I grew up on a quiet cul de sac, where the local kids were very rarely seen off a bike. It was also very close to a canal towpath, so I was taken for short rides with my parents pretty regularly.

[andygates]

Getting to school - it was ride or the stinky bus.  And then I discovered paper rounds and my own disposable income, and upgrade fever, and the rest is history...

[border-rider]

My dad was of an age (born 1924) that everyone always cycled, and we just did it naturally.

My brother, sister and I always cycled to school - everyone did - and I carried on using it as a means of transport to Uni and when I started working.  Mrs MV and I lived in Leeds, and a car was a bit unnecessary.  I got a bit fitter and started riding with Leeds CTC on Sundays, then when we moved here to West Berks I did 17 1/2 hilly miles each way each day to work (still no car) and got really quite fit 

I graduated from Swindon CTC to Newbury RC, where Steve Oxley introduced me to audax.  The rest just followed.

(originally posted on the wrong thread)

[vorsprung]

I didn't have a bike as a kid

When i lived in London in the 80s/90s I used to ride to work on a bike- a few miles up Hackney Marshes and across Stratford

When I moved to Devon I couldn't drive so I often rode the 2/3 miles up and down hill to the train station.  After doing that for a couple of years in all weather I noticed I was getting leg muscles.  Devon is quite fun to go out of an evening for a spin in the summer.  I got given a few hundred quid so i bought a nice bike instead of the scrapheap i had been using and started doing audaxes the next year

[kyuss]

BMX Bandits. I was 9. Nuff said.

[woollypigs]

A bike was pretty much my first present, started with a trike with a tray at the back In Denmark and in my family it is pretty much the norm if you can walk you can ride a bike.

And at times my bike was my only friend, because my folks moved around a lot, but the bike also gave me the change of finding new friends as I could get around and explore the new neighborhood.

If I wanted to go somewhere out to play, over to a mate, to school it was on your bike or walk there was no way in h@*l that my folks would give me a lift.

Cycling is just something you do, it is quite weird to think about it as something that you don't do or something that is special.

[tiermat]

I rode a bike as a kid, as it was the thing to do (and I couldn't/still can't run to save my life).  All was well until I was about 13 when I got into a particularly nasty accident with a motorbike that appeared out of nowhere and was going way too fast which wrecked my pride and joy.  My dad fixed up the bike but it sat in the shed for years and made it's way to the skips after I had left home...

Fast forward 10 years or so, too many late nights drinking and take aways and I had put on too much weight, went out, bought a cheap MTB and loved it, took the bike back after 3 weeks and upgraded it (the guys at the shop were ace, they gave me close to new price for my old bike against the new bike!) and started racing XC.

All stopped again when I got into a little bit of trouble, left my ex-wife and moved to Leeds.

Fast forward again to 3 years ago and I made the decision to get fit again, new road bike made it into the stable and I haven't looked back.  Interestingly (or boringly dependent on your viewpoint) this time last year my average speed was ~12mph.  I was chatting to a guy the other day and I realised I had made the statement that I was disappointed because my average this year is only 15mph!!!!

[Polar Bear]

I cycled a bit as a kid.  I got my first 'decent' bike ( A BSA Tour de France) when I passed my O levels in 1980.   Blue with yellow bar tape and those infernal GT brake levers.   First and only real upgrade was to up the number of gears to 12.   That bike got trashed in 1985 by a RLJ, another cyclist who t-boned me and bent the frame!   I bought a commuter 'atb' in 1987 as I was missing the wheels and have been cycling ever since.   It wasn't until 1998 though that I sarted having more than one bike ...       

[mike]

when I was a kid there was a second-hand bike shop in the village - basically a big shed full of old bikes which the old boy had tarted up a bit and was re-selling.  The smell of new tyres still reminds me of it now.  He had an aviary full of budgies right next door.

I did the normal biking round the village with mates, then a friend and I did a tour of Norfolk when I was about 12, staying in gardens of our parents friends, one of whom took us to the pub *and bought us a beer*    I think we did about 50 miles a day.

Then (on the same bike) a sponsored century when we were 15 or 16 was the high point of my cycling till about 3 years ago.  I had a bike at university but it was just for getting to the pub or to rowing training a bit quicker than everyone else.   

[LEE]

Every little kid I knew in late 1960's only stopped riding their bikes to play football.  When we got older we rode to school, rode home, got changed, rode to the park, played football until we couldn't see the ball and rode home.

Bikes were just an extension of our bodies.

[JohnP]

Like most, childhood bikes led to school bikes.  Talked PE Staff in to letting a group go out on bikes instead of x-country running. One lad rode a Freddie Grub that he inherited from his Dad who had converted to TT and Touring a trike. Cycling became bigger when the velodrome was built (still in weekly use). Club runs, some 10s and 25s. A couple of club members found their way to Canada and (IIRC) Russia as Olympic Sprint Squad members so club runs could be 'sprightly'.

Then I discovered girls etc etc

[geraldc]

Born in Cambridge, so I cycled to school, in fact I used to tricycle to preschool.

Never did my cycling proficiency, and can never get used to wearing a helmet on commutes.

I remember when we realised that our mum's Hercules step thru shopper bike with its Sturmey Archer 3 speed hub was faster than our BMXs.

It took me years to get used to the concept of gears. Cambridge was flat, so you changed gear for fun, there was no other reason to change gear.

Bought a Brompton to take on holiday, but then started commuting on it in London. Did the London Cyclethon on the Brommie, and then got into long distance cycling.

[hellymedic]

Learned to ride another kid's two-wheeler at the age of seven.
Saved a little cash & mum got me a Hercules Jeep with 24" wheels when I was 11. This had a faulty freewheel and never went far.
Went on a 6th Form Field Study trip to Millport, on the Bicycle Island and was hooked.
Bought a Raleigh with 3-speed dynohub later that year and took it to Sheffield Uni the next.
Went on to get 10-speed Raleigh with good granny gears, followed by Claude Butler Majestique when that got stolen.
After qualifying and having more cash (and bike thefts) I bought more bicycles.
Had 6 bikes by 1995 but have mostly rehomed them since due to increasing disability.. The new homes are more illustrious...

[LittleWheelsandBig]

Did the usual kid thing, not venturing too far from home.  I was always fairly rubbish at anything that required running or throwing or catching a ball.  That took care of most sports, so I tended to avoid sport.

My high school physics teacher was a pretty good bloke and he rode bicycles for fun.  The light went on - no running, no throwing, no catching!  I joined the newly-formed local touring club (40 km pootles required a snooze afterwards), heading into the racing side of things as the fitness improved.  Audax came along a bit later...