What was your first ever bike?

[Wal]

My Sis reminded me of my first bike last week, I thought it was cool... Set me up for a life of cycling, touring and cycle commuting... Not a very successful audaxer!

Mine was a Raliegh Budgie, a dark deeper purple with yellow signature, like a mini Chopper.

Here: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/waalsgarage

What was your first ever bike? Penny Farthing?

[Basil]

I'm afraid I have no idea. I was 8 and happy to get a 'big boy's' bike.
Until then I'd made do with the tricycle I'd had from age 4.  Again, no idea of the make.
Sorry.

[tatanab]

A generic child's single speed roadster.  I don't remember brand or model.  This was in 1962.  I recall my first day ride, all of about 5 miles, with a mate from school.  We were 9 years old and trusted to go off to a neighbouring village all on our own.  We probably had heaps of sandwiches and lashings of ginger beer for the adventure.

[phantasmagoriana]

I'm afraid I have no idea. I was 8 and happy to get a 'big boy's' bike.
Until then I'd made do with the tricycle I'd had from age 4.  Again, no idea of the make.
Sorry.

Similarly, have no idea what mine was, except that it was a sort of goldy/coppery colour.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Whereas mine was dark blue. With white tyres. Not just whitewalled, the tread was white all over. I'm going to guess the bike and tyres were both at least ten years old, possibly nearer 20, when I was firmly in single digits – can't remember quite how old I was. It was a Raleigh but I can't find any photos that look how I remember it.

[Canardly]

Second hand Reg Harris made in Macclesfield. Thing of beauty. Cost £15.

[drossall]

A Norman of England. I was seven or eight, so it can't have been anywhere near as big as I remember it. My feet wouldn't reach the pedals, so Dad fitted wooden blocks.

[Socks]

I was a late starter with a Halfords 'Olympic Sports' bso, bought when I was 22.  Initially used for Sunday club runs, then to commute to work.  It lasted quite well considering ...

[The French Tandem]

I'm quite surprised to see that people can remember so many details of the bike they had such a long time ago. All I can remember is that mine was blue, a very nice metallic blue, with chrome mudguards. I was about 7 or 8, and very proud of this bike!

A

[Suffolk Born]

A second-hand, blue, 3 speed Chopper - wish I still had it.

[cycleman]

A little trike with a metal box like a bread bin on the back  red and blue as I remember. First bike was a little triumph child's bike  red 

[drossall]

A little trike with a metal box like a bread bin on the back  red and blue as I remember. First bike was a little triumph child's bike  red 

Ooh I had one of those trikes. I think mine was red, and my brother's blue. In time, they went to our sisters. I vaguely remember being detailed to wheel one, or perhaps both, round to a new owner when they were eventually sold.

[farfetched]

When I was 9 a Raleigh Chopper, Red with yellow transfers. 1974
I sold it for slightly more than the new price 4 years later (we had inflation back then too)
Then bought a new Viking Jubilee racer, great bike.

[Canardly]

A little trike with a metal box like a bread bin on the back  red and blue as I remember. First bike was a little triumph child's bike  red 

Ooh I had one of those trikes. I think mine was red, and my brother's blue. In time, they went to our sisters. I vaguely remember being detailed to wheel one, or perhaps both, round to a new owner when they were eventually sold.

Crikey I had forgotten that. Yes I had one, aged very small.

[Wowbagger]

A little trike with a metal box like a bread bin on the back  red and blue as I remember. First bike was a little triumph child's bike  red 

Ooh I had one of those trikes. I think mine was red, and my brother's blue. In time, they went to our sisters. I vaguely remember being detailed to wheel one, or perhaps both, round to a new owner when they were eventually sold.

Crikey I had forgotten that. Yes I had one aged very small.

Moi aussi. Mine was broken when my brother's rather large friend, aptly named Tony Gammon (I wonder where he is now?) rode it and broke it. That was before we left the council house where I was born, so I was, at most, 3. I do recall it vaguely, but I remember well the incident that broke it.

After that, the bike I learned on was a blue and white Philips with 24" wheels. Of course, it was a hand-me-down from older siblings. I started riding the mile or so to school, and home for lunch and back again, when I was about 8 (1962 or 1963).

I remember my school friend Nicholas Mason coming out for a ride with my mother and me when we were younger than 10. I can't remember how he got his bike to our house because he lived at the bottom of Brock Hill, almost in Wickford, and we lived about 3 miles from him, at the top of the hill and further on. I reckon we must have ridden about 15 miles, including what seemed to me then as a very steep hill (downwards) leading towards the Bell pub in Rettendon on the A130 (many forummers will know where I mean). Nicholas rode too close to me, came in sideways on and knocked me over. I had quite a large gravel rash on one calf or another.

On another occasion, when about 14, I made my way from Ramsden Heath to Fyfield to see a school friend. That took me at least an hour and a half each way (about 17 miles, I think, so it may have been longer) on a 26" something. Possibly a Raleigh, I can't recall. I didn't take so much as a puncture repair kit with me - at that stage, I don't think I had ever mended a puncture. We didn't have a phone at home either, so if I'd had a visitation I would have had a damned long walk. I do recall taking the 1" OS map with me and navigating my way along lanes I have ridden many times since.

[orienteer]

Blue Gresham Flyer trike when small!

First "two-wheeler" was a small, anonymous used bike with 18" wheels, then graduated to using my mother's pre-war Maclean bike with a Sturmey Archer 3 speed hub for a while until I could afford my first new bike, a Maclean also, with 5 speed derailleur.

Family also had a Maclean tandem which I stoked behind my father with the aid of wooden blocks on the pedals, and my brother in a child seat on the back.

[IanDG]

A Raleigh (Astronaut I think). I seem to also remember 90deg swept back bars and rod brakes.

A second-hand Sun Sirocco 10 speed "racer" when I was 12.

A second-hand Holdsworth Professional frameset when I was 14.

[bobb]

I can't remember the make, but it was called a Pixie. It was blue and yellow and had solid tyres. I remember it being incredibly uncomfortable!

[JellyLegs]

No idea what make / model it was but it was a dark golden colour, sized to suit a 5 year old and had stabilisers.  It remember my parents teaching me to ride it on the outfield of South Woodford Cricket Club during the summer of 1975.  I upgraded to a red Rayleigh Chopper two years later.  It was a bit too big for me and my dad used his engineering skills to good effect and modified it to allow the seat to lower an extra bit so my feet could touch the ground.  Lucky he did as some local scrote stole it from our garage and repainted it yellow (badly) but he couldn’t explain to PC Plod how it came to have identical modifications to the ones in the pictures of my bike.  I loved that chopper and rode it everywhere for 4 happy years.  Built like a tank so descended the local steep hill like a rocket.  I broke several old wheel driven speedos by pushing it beyond the stop at 40mph.

[hatler]

Can't recall the name of the first one, but it was red and had big fat white tyres. After that was my faithful Dawes Dapper. Cycle to school and holiday freedom.

[hellymedic]

Blue Hercules Jeep 24" wheel from the rag & bone man when I was 11.

Purple Raleigh Caprice when I was 17.

[Mr Larrington]

Blue thing.  Possibly a Sunbeam.  Handed down from Professor Larrington when she graduated to an RSW 14.

[DuncanM]

I think my first proper bike was a Hawk Emerald. It was a 20" wheel shopper style bike (a bit like a Raleigh 20 but less cool) with a fixed wheel. As I got a bit older I was envious of all my friends on BMXes, the only silver lining was the huge black lines the Emerald could leave down the road thanks to the crap tyres and fixed wheel!
When I was about 9 or 10 my dad won a BMX (Raleigh Aero Pro Burner - it was an awesome bike) in a Halfords competition, but the end of the BMX era arrived pretty quickly, and I eventually sold it for £40 to fund part of my MTB. I wish I had kept that bike now. Raleigh released a 35th anniversary limited edition one for £599 a few years ago, but to get one now you are significantly over £1000, so short of a lottery win, that's somewhat out of reach!

[Cudzoziemiec]

A little trike with a metal box like a bread bin on the back  red and blue as I remember. First bike was a little triumph child's bike  red 

Ooh I had one of those trikes. I think mine was red, and my brother's blue. In time, they went to our sisters. I vaguely remember being detailed to wheel one, or perhaps both, round to a new owner when they were eventually sold.

Crikey I had forgotten that. Yes I had one aged very small.

Moi aussi. Mine was broken when my brother's rather large friend, aptly named Tony Gammon (I wonder where he is now?) rode it and broke it. That was before we left the council house where I was born, so I was, at most, 3. I do recall it vaguely, but I remember well the incident that broke it.

Me four. And I think it was actually a...

Blue Gresham Flyer trike when small!

Pale blue. At some point I removed (or got my dad to remove) the box, which left a bar, on which my little sister stood for laps of the garden, or possibly even up and down the street (which was unpaved, about 200m long and a dead end).

[pcolbeck]

Hmm I learned to ride on something small that had been passed round the family for a couple of generations. No idea what it was.
The first bike I can remember being specifically mine was a red Raleigh Tomahawk which was a smaller version of the Chopper. I loved that bike.