The good old days

I'm sick of stories of road rage, accidents, doom and gloom, flood
pestilence and famine, broken axles (oh that was me). How about some
cyclign stories from the good old days. I'll kick it off.

First road trip
I headed off on my first road trip when I was about 9 years old.
Yarrawonga to Tungamah, 26kms along country roads on a single speed
dragster (my little brother had a 3 speed, man was I jealous). And yes,
I did have my parents permission. Halfway there I got a flat tyre but
had no spare, no repair kit, not even a pump. Luckily one of the local
farmers came past and offered to help. Into the back of his ute went the
bike and down the road to his farm where he patched the tyre, pumped it
up again, then dropped me off again on the main road. Off I headed with
no more problems. Even if someone did offer to help these days, would
you get into the car with them?


Music before MP3
Alright the early 80's might not qualify as good old days, but back then
I was a teenager with a trusty BSA 10 speed and too much energy for my
own good. But I would never head out on a ride without music. And for
me, music involved a ghetto blaster (remember them huh huh), 3 ocky
straps to attach it to the rack, and a handlebar bag with at least 10
tapes to listen to (at least 4 of them had to be Midnight Oil), and a
spare set of 8 batteries. Off I'd go and not small trips. I'd do a 70km
circuit over Kinglake with this load. On the climb up to Kinglake I'd
see other cyclists up ahead turning around to see what the hell was
coming. And I must have been fit because I used to catch and overtake
people with this load. MP3 players, bah humbug!

DaveB

Fantastic stories.

I remember my first crome BMX. I must of been 9 or 10 at the time and it
had no brakes. I was also living in Tasmania at the time, and it's hard to
find a flat spot in Tassie. I had the best time of my life riding down
grass hills and dirt roads on that single speed that got the speed wobbles
fairly easily. Looking back now I remember a few quite-close calls that
leave me wondering how I made it through but I loved every minute of it.

Flash back to now and here I am sweating it down the freeway to work, oh for
the fresh air again.....


"DaveB" wrote in message
...
I'm sick of stories of road rage, accidents, doom and gloom, flood
pestilence and famine, broken axles (oh that was me). How about some
cyclign stories from the good old days. I'll kick it off.

First road trip
I headed off on my first road trip when I was about 9 years old.
Yarrawonga to Tungamah, 26kms along country roads on a single speed
dragster (my little brother had a 3 speed, man was I jealous). And yes,
I did have my parents permission. Halfway there I got a flat tyre but
had no spare, no repair kit, not even a pump. Luckily one of the local
farmers came past and offered to help. Into the back of his ute went the
bike and down the road to his farm where he patched the tyre, pumped it
up again, then dropped me off again on the main road. Off I headed with
no more problems. Even if someone did offer to help these days, would
you get into the car with them?


Music before MP3
Alright the early 80's might not qualify as good old days, but back then
I was a teenager with a trusty BSA 10 speed and too much energy for my
own good. But I would never head out on a ride without music. And for
me, music involved a ghetto blaster (remember them huh huh), 3 ocky
straps to attach it to the rack, and a handlebar bag with at least 10
tapes to listen to (at least 4 of them had to be Midnight Oil), and a
spare set of 8 batteries. Off I'd go and not small trips. I'd do a 70km
circuit over Kinglake with this load. On the climb up to Kinglake I'd
see other cyclists up ahead turning around to see what the hell was
coming. And I must have been fit because I used to catch and overtake
people with this load. MP3 players, bah humbug!

DaveB

I had a Dragster when I was a boy. SOME ******* IN A CAR RAN OVER IT!

Oh, sorry.


--
Alan Erskine
We can get people to the Moon in five years,
not the fifteen GWB proposes.
Give NASA a real challenge

Alan Erskine wrote:
I had a Dragster when I was a boy. SOME ******* IN A CAR RAN OVER IT!

Oh, sorry.



These are supposed to be happy stories for a Friday afternoon.
Depressing shildhood stories can start another thread.

DaveB

I remember when I could go for a ride without arm warmers, leg warmers,
frozen fingers, numb toes, with the sun in my face, the wind at my back and
the birds singing.

Bring back a bit of summer please :-)

Bow


"atacca" wrote in message
...
Fantastic stories.

I remember my first crome BMX. I must of been 9 or 10 at the time and it
had no brakes. I was also living in Tasmania at the time, and it's hard
to
find a flat spot in Tassie. I had the best time of my life riding down
grass hills and dirt roads on that single speed that got the speed wobbles
fairly easily. Looking back now I remember a few quite-close calls that
leave me wondering how I made it through but I loved every minute of it.

Flash back to now and here I am sweating it down the freeway to work, oh
for
the fresh air again.....


"DaveB" wrote in message
...
I'm sick of stories of road rage, accidents, doom and gloom, flood
pestilence and famine, broken axles (oh that was me). How about some
cyclign stories from the good old days. I'll kick it off.

First road trip
I headed off on my first road trip when I was about 9 years old.
Yarrawonga to Tungamah, 26kms along country roads on a single speed
dragster (my little brother had a 3 speed, man was I jealous). And yes,
I did have my parents permission. Halfway there I got a flat tyre but
had no spare, no repair kit, not even a pump. Luckily one of the local
farmers came past and offered to help. Into the back of his ute went the
bike and down the road to his farm where he patched the tyre, pumped it
up again, then dropped me off again on the main road. Off I headed with
no more problems. Even if someone did offer to help these days, would
you get into the car with them?


Music before MP3
Alright the early 80's might not qualify as good old days, but back then
I was a teenager with a trusty BSA 10 speed and too much energy for my
own good. But I would never head out on a ride without music. And for
me, music involved a ghetto blaster (remember them huh huh), 3 ocky
straps to attach it to the rack, and a handlebar bag with at least 10
tapes to listen to (at least 4 of them had to be Midnight Oil), and a
spare set of 8 batteries. Off I'd go and not small trips. I'd do a 70km
circuit over Kinglake with this load. On the climb up to Kinglake I'd
see other cyclists up ahead turning around to see what the hell was
coming. And I must have been fit because I used to catch and overtake
people with this load. MP3 players, bah humbug!

DaveB

DaveB Wrote:
Alan Erskine wrote:
I had a Dragster when I was a boy. SOME ******* IN A CAR RAN OVER
IT!

Oh, sorry.



These are supposed to be happy stories for a Friday afternoon.
Depressing shildhood stories can start another thread.

DaveB
my first 'real' bike ride was '89ish. I had just bought a cool (for
then) mtb at bikehouse off a cool guy (turned out to be damian grundy
National mtb coach now) who had won it in the TdTassie.
Having just lost a close mate (opening car door, Chapel St. Driver got
2 years Jail. sorry...) and work was ****ting me (it was my first job
and the concept of no long holidays was rather hard to grasp), the need
to get away was beckoning...

Decided i would use my 4 weeks leave wisely and ride around Tassie.
Went to Paddy Pallin and bought a compact sleeping bag, oneman tent and
one of them bluesleepingmats, rack and panniers and started looking at
maps.

Arrived the next Friday at work with a fully laden bike with above
mentioned gear and tranjia(?) and collapsible flyrod and a 2nd set of
clothes, answered lots of stupid qu's re WTF i was getting myself in
for (luckily i had no idea!) and bided my time until 'hometime' and
then rode from Richmond down to Station Pier and rode onto the 'Abel
Tasman'. After suffering an appalling meal, and the even more appalling
cabaret act in the main bar I retired as the swell was making me touch
both sides of the hallways (the 6 beers probably didnt help either!).

Woke up and went to my bike below with all the cars and rode down the
ramp and into Devenport. Referred to my map (still got it. heaps of
wierd little notes all over it) and headed towards 'Sheffield'.
Did I mention the hills? Tassie has quite a few. Shall never forget the
map of Tasmania again:P
Never having done more than 30k before, I spent most of the morning
going up what seemed like the one endless hill and reached a location i
was expecting a town and food/drink to be at, but was met by a
roadsign!!!
Lay down on the grass by the road and bonking badly byt this stage,
fell asleep for (i think) about 2-3 hours.
Rode on to Sheffield and camped next to the footy oval like a dead
thing.

To be continued...

this one is looking like War'N'Peace!


--
flyingdutch

"DaveB" wrote in message
...
I'm sick of stories of road rage, accidents, doom and gloom, flood
pestilence and famine, broken axles (oh that was me). How about some
cyclign stories from the good old days. I'll kick it off.

First road trip
I headed off on my first road trip when I was about 9 years old.
Yarrawonga to Tungamah, 26kms along country roads on a single speed
dragster (my little brother had a 3 speed, man was I jealous). And yes,
I did have my parents permission. Halfway there I got a flat tyre but
had no spare, no repair kit, not even a pump. Luckily one of the local
farmers came past and offered to help. Into the back of his ute went the
bike and down the road to his farm where he patched the tyre, pumped it
up again, then dropped me off again on the main road. Off I headed with
no more problems. Even if someone did offer to help these days, would
you get into the car with them?


Music before MP3
Alright the early 80's might not qualify as good old days, but back then
I was a teenager with a trusty BSA 10 speed and too much energy for my
own good. But I would never head out on a ride without music. And for
me, music involved a ghetto blaster (remember them huh huh), 3 ocky
straps to attach it to the rack, and a handlebar bag with at least 10
tapes to listen to (at least 4 of them had to be Midnight Oil), and a
spare set of 8 batteries. Off I'd go and not small trips. I'd do a 70km
circuit over Kinglake with this load. On the climb up to Kinglake I'd
see other cyclists up ahead turning around to see what the hell was
coming. And I must have been fit because I used to catch and overtake
people with this load. MP3 players, bah humbug!

DaveB


Ahhh yes....childhood memories!!........My first bike was a 26 inch (we used
to call them by wheel sizes not frame sizes back then) blue, backpedal
brake single speed job I got for Xmas 69( i wanted a Speedwell
Mustang(dragstar) with 5 speed derail),
This one was called a Magnet or something and it was a good normal shaped
boy's bike...in a basic kinda way, in fact my mate with the Speedwell
Mustang couldn.t even come near me for speed,, the Xmas morning i got it off
"SANTA" at 5am in the morning with the sun shinin', riding around in my
Pj's.....no pedo's(that we knew of) in my street.

Being from Newcastle, My mate and I decided to go for a ride in Blackbutt
reserve and this place had some awesome downhill bitumen slopes that really
looked steep to a 9 yr old, I asked my friend would he mind swapping bikes
for a change and he agreed and he got on my singlespeed with only a
backpedal brake and he took off downhill at god only knows what speed (i was
just cruising with the 'stang') in the middle of this downhill was an elbow
bend that he forgot about and quickly engaged the backpedal brakes locked
wheel, and through the trees and out of sight at breakneck speeds. I didn't
give a **** about him (great mate eh) I was too worried about me bike and
more to the point what dad was gunna say when i bring it home mangled.
Lo and behold, when i got down the absolute bottom of this hill, near the
duck pond ,I couldn't beleive it.....i rubbed my eyes about 3 times and
slapped my own face trying to wake myself up, here was my mate, sitting on
my bike, not a bloody scratch on either of them....I was Flabbergasted,
didn't think it was possible he could come out of that alive let alone
without a scratch........he turned and said to me " jeesus mate...what took
ya so bloody long??!!" I remember this as if it was yesterday but this
happened in 1969-70 summer holidays.

Regards

DJ

DaveB Wrote:
I'm sick of stories of road rage, accidents, doom and gloom, flood
pestilence and famine, broken axles (oh that was me). How about some
cyclign stories from the good old days. I'll kick it off.
DaveB


Kewl! We/me/us started cycling circa 1972/3 courtesy of a cute little
trike with a tray. I can vouch for all the hilly stories about Tassie,
grew up in Lutana. Cool hills to spin down, absolute mongrels to push
the bike back up. Especially Ash Street.

Hills and an unsupportive social environment made me give up cycling
until my late 20's. If I'd been a few years younger I probably could of
been interested in BMX stuff. Unfortunately it was the heyday of the
oversize 10-speed bike. An older brother used to work at Ken Selfs Bike
shop in Moonah, I used to "ride" my brothers bike by sitting on the down
tube and scooting along, fun until I sat back on the chainrings....

Anyway it's never too late to re-commence your childhood, I've been
happily getting in touch with my inner child (or should that be inner
tube ?!?) for the last eight years. Silly is good.


--
cfsmtb

Bow Wrote:
I remember when I could go for a ride without arm warmers, leg warmers,
frozen fingers, numb toes, with the sun in my face, the wind at my back
and
the birds singing.

Bring back a bit of summer please :-)


I remember when I could ride uphill on a hot summer's day without
cooking my brain in a helmet.

I remember the feel of wind in my hair.


--
aeek

aeek wrote:

Bow Wrote:


I remember when I could go for a ride without arm warmers, leg warmers,
frozen fingers, numb toes, with the sun in my face, the wind at my back
and
the birds singing.

Bring back a bit of summer please :-)




I remember when I could ride uphill on a hot summer's day without
cooking my brain in a helmet.

I remember the feel of wind in my hair.




While I agree with you, please do not start the helmet debate, it gets
as bad as the top posting debate!

--
Remove norubbish to reply direct

Jack Russell