On yesterday's ride I was desperate to break my 30 km/h average for a one kilometer ride. No, I didn't by the way, with the relentless headwind and hills...that's my story and I'm sticking to it...lol. But whilst drudging on into a strong headwind and thinking to myself, "I need to go harder, come on", I started to drift back in time. I began to remember what it was like as a kid to ride, no Strava segments, no averages, no pressure on myself, just riding. A time before mandatory helmet laws and all the crap where you were free just to ride, no restriction and no interference.
I can still remember vividly my first bike. It was Christmas 1968, I was five and there under the tree was a bright blue 20" bike with high rise bars, dragster seat and sissy bar (these were the norm back then). I had been hounding my parents for a bike for ages, so the story gets told, and my dream finally came true.
Unbeknownst to my parents I had been riding for the past twelve months, a neighbourhood friend's brother had a 20" Dragster with T-bar three speed shifter on the the top tube, you know the ones that carotid your testicles if you slid forward, and elongated forks, it was so cool. Well anyway, I had been learning to ride this, no training wheels, just on the fly which I mastered rather quickly.
I remember arguing with my mother about how the training wheels needed to come off, I didn't need them. I couldn't tell how I knew I didn't need them, as it wasn't so much her knowing about me riding was an issue, it was about whose bike I had been riding that was. He was one of the boys I wasn't meant to mix with.
Anyway in the end my parents relented and dad took them off. By 7:30 am I was shooting up and down our street in Unanderra, a king, my own bike finally.
I rode everywhere, and even places I shouldn't have. Not a day went by that I din't ride to school, ride around town or simply ride up and down our street just for the fun of it. My best friend at the time became jealous as I no longer had time for him. I didn't have much time for many of my friends as none of them had bikes, and I did.
After a couple of years, the whole high rise bars and long seat went by the way side. These made it too difficult navigating bush tracks, old drains and the tracks around the old quarry. The long saddle was removed along with the high rise bars and after raiding my sister's bike, that was no longer used, they were replaced with a saddle from a 26" girls bike and flat bars. We didn't have BMX bikes back in that day so I suppose you could say that this was our version.
Rain saw me out on the bike up to my cranks in mud. Other friends started getting bikes by this stage so races were on. We would gather at the corner on a Saturday or Sunday morning with a small dilly bag over our shoulders packed with some vegemite sangers and a bottle of cordial, and we'd be off.
We would ride into Wollongong, survey the beaches, or we would head up into the mountains zig-zagging or walking our bikes up the steep inclines.
My uncle was a gadgets man, and me being a kid that was allergic to chocolate I would get bike bits rather than Easter eggs for Easter. This was great, new pedals, chains, speedos, lights, you name it I had it. If it could be fitted onto a bike, then well and good, except for a basket...lol.
As I grew taller the old 20" had to go and I eventually up graded to a 26" three speed. Whilst it was good, it wasn't the same. I kept comparing it to my first as though it was some lost love, and in a sense it was. But as I continued to ride, I realised that on the bigger bike I could ride further. The bike having gears I could climb the inclines rather than walk. My friends eventually got bigger bikes as well and it wasn't long before they were all fitted with racks.
Options, as far as we were concerned, were limitless. Instead of just carrying something over our shoulder and going for the day, we could load up and go out for the weekend. So, in a nutshell we transformed into junior tourers, bikes loaded up with tins of baked beans, a tent and sleeping bag. Back then, before the urban sprawl there were no limits as to where we could roam and set up camp.
Then at twelve years of age we moved. The friendships based around cycling were no more. Where we had moved to not many had bikes, and being a small country town I couldn't understand why. People rather walked than ride, this was foreign to me.
Anyway, the old 26" lay stacked up in the shed. It would be bought out from time to time, but as all my friends walked it didn't seem feasible to get too carried away with it. I was playing footy and in the early stages of high school when salvation came, I got a job. The job was as a paper boy, up every morning at five, down to the newsagents, rolling the papers, filling up the milk crate I had on the rack and then off on my run. $1.25 per day was worth it. It was a great excuse just to ride again. I also found out that a few of my other friends had bikes, but they were restricted to just riding for the paper run, what the ????
It wasn't long after this one of my other school friends, who was into cycling introduced me to track. Wow, what a rush. It wasn't long before I bought an old second hand road frame and fitted it with a fixed wheel. I loved it and couldn't get enough of it. As we were getting older, and track was through the summer months there was no school football to keep me conflicted. We were able to get permission to do track for sport on Wednesday afternoons. After all there were those that were allowed to hit golf balls around, why couldn't we do what we liked. It wasn't long after that I got my first ten speed road bike.
Times were simple then, we didn't over complicate our lives with "stuff". Even when it came to the competition side of things it was fun, light, no pressure. We didn't have social media based sports apps that seem to make every aspect of our lives a competition.
So when I get a little too caught up in the "I have to go harder" mindset I now remember back to a time when we had no bike computers, no expectations, no mandatory helmet laws or government interference, a time when we had only two things, our bikes and ourselves and we just loved to ride.
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