I read something recently about how much bikes have changed over the past 20 years, and it got me thinking about all the different types of bikes I’ve owned in my youth. Now, being in my thirties, I never used to ride around on a penny farthing or boneshaker or anything like that, but I have owned quite a few bikes. Some iconic, most of them quite odd.
What a beauty!
The one in the pic above, is pretty much how I remember mine, it had a little kickboard on the back like that one, but to be honest, it’s a tall order to remember much else…
Pros – bonus extra wheel for those with balance problems.
Cons -pedalling with any type of gusto resulted in ‘capsizing’.
This one still has the rear mudguard intact...
The choppers baby brother, this bike was made at time when having standard sized handlebars, and a full sized from wheel were so uncool. This bike was fantastic, and I rememeber, albeit vaguely, to having hours and hours of fun on it.
Pros – possibly the coolest bike a 7 year old kid in the mid eighties is going to get.
Cons – had a tendency to run way from under you if stood up on the pedals, resulting in an uncontrolled wheelie and a nasty scraping sound as the back mudguard grated along the pavement. I think I lost my mudguard in the end.
Note the rear brake fitted to this one. Mine had a pedal back brake however. Nice.
Possibly the best bike I’ve ever owned, or perhaps its just that I can remember having the most fun on this one. Pre BMX, it was built like a Tonka. I was super lucky as mine came fitted with a ‘pedal back’ brake. This meant that every single time I wanted to reduce speed, nothing less than a 10 foot skid would do. I got through many tires this way, and this bike was possibly my training machine for all things dangerous on two wheels. Golden.
Pros – pretty much everything
Cons – possibly lack of gears looking back on it.
The strikas big brother, The Grifter used to make fun of him and twist his ears for not having any gears.
Probably the heaviest bike in the world...
This bike kicked ass as it had ‘gears like what you get on a motorbike’. At least that was what I thought a ‘gripshift’ was at the time. Later on in life I discovered that Motorbike gears are down by your feet, not built into the handle-grip.
This bike was the last one I owned before my life was completely changed by BMX.
Pros – ‘gears like what you get on a motorbike’
Cons – This thing weighed as much as a motorbike.
The first one I owned was a Frankenstiens monster of parts that I managed to scrounge from who knows where. It was china blue hand painted and I have no idea what make it was, but it rocked. I even had a ‘Mag’ wheel on the back.
I couldn't find one as beat up as mine...
Pros – Front & back brakes, and a free membership to the ‘BMX Bandits’
Cons – I remember that the headset nut was cross threaded from day one, and it needed tightening by hand on a regular basis.
This one was swish, and it had a little heart shape cut out of the frame. My mate who I bought it from told me it was ‘custom made’, and that the heart cut-out was one of a kind. More likely it was mass-produced, but it saw me right at the time.
No heart shaped cut-out on this one, still looks sweeet though after nearly 20 years.
Pros – Looked the absolute business.
Cons - I was a bit scared to leave it lying around, as I thought it might get nicked. As it happens, it never did. Maybe I was lucky, or maybe I over-estimated its ‘snazzyness’.
After noticing people riding around on strange contraptions, that looked like racing bikes with fat tyres and handlebars that were horizontally straight across, I learned that they were called ‘mountain bikes’. After a year or so of begging I finally got my hands on one, and equipped with a stupid amount of gears, and a saddle 6 feet off the ground, I considered myself to be ‘grown up’. Once a few of us got hold of ‘Mountain bikes’, we used to frown upon BMX riders as ‘gearless idiots’, and mock at the speed in which they had to pedal, whilst we cruised along in 21st gear.
They don't make em like this any more, thank the Lord!
Then, after the age of 15, I started to regard mountain bikes as the norm, and since then my ‘bike-ography’ has been fairly lack-lustre. I’m glad to have owned such a great selection of bikes though, and at risk of sounding like an old git I’m going to say it…
