I started proper bike riding at the age of eight well nearly nine. Prior to this I like many other fifties British kids rode a Triang tricycle. You now the sort of thing, typical 1950's tricycle with solid tyres and large wheels, height of kids fashion, middle of the road everyday child's trike. The young boys equivalent to a Raleigh Lenton. Now if you were really somebody you rode a Gresham Flyer the Magnum Opus of children's tricycles and if you had mega bucks you had the full monty pneumatic tyres, metal boot with the foldable parental controlling handle. Mind you would have to be really hard, thick skinned or a sissy to leave this thing fitted! The favourite game on these tricycles was to time trial around the block either solo or with a jockey standing on the rear axle. An eight year old's imaginary North Kennsington Barracci Trophy. Sometimes we would have a dozen or more riders and if they were really sporting kids we would exchange trike's and do an aggregate time. Needless to say this was thought up by the brainy kids the ones who would finish up passing their eleven-plus and going to grammar school. Prior to this my cycling had been confined to at first going out in a tandem fitted with a Watsonian side car. Must have been all of eighten months, sure they just took me out as the motion of the tandem sent me to sleep and stopped me crying. The next passage of right was graduating to kiddy seat behind the stokers seat of the tandem. My Dad did manage to shift me nearer to him by fitting kiddy cranks but I can only remember a handleful of times riding with him. Think they must have been a pain when the tandem was being used by adults all the time. Oh and I forgot before any of this in the child's handlebar seat of my uncles roadster. Now I am nearly nine and not yet riding a bike solo so my Dad decides its about time for the offspring of a Cycling family to learn and pretty damn quick. So my Old Man borrows this girls Norman child' roadster from a family down the road. First thing he does is lower the saddle right down to the seat lug and next off come the pedals. Now he says listen carefully cycling is as easy as falling off a bike. Not a very wise choice of words! Anyway the instructions were to propel it like a scooter or a hobby horse and just lift you feet up off the ground when you get your balance, easy peasy lemon squeezy, once you got the hang of balancing we will put the pedals on and set the saddle height for you and off you go. The bike fully rideable I mount with trepidation and with all my mates looking on. I start to pedal with my Dad holding the back of the saddle shouting words of encouragement. "How am I doing Dad? Just great is the answer you are riding on your own and I am not steading you. These words must have carried on for sometime until silence. Dad no answer. Dad silence. Crash and a tangled bloody mess on the Royal Borough of Kennsington pavement but I ask you how the hell can you cry with all your mates looking on and you riding a sissy girls Norman bicycle. My old man bangs the handlebars straight with his fist and says now get back on and try again. This time I have cracked it and my mates jump on their bikes and tag along. Freedom at last now I can go fishing, train-spotting, bus-spotting, anything without having to pay tube or bus fares. London is at my feet. Within a matter of days my Dad brings home a secondhand Elswich Hopper sports tourer, straight handlebars, single freewheel and steel cable brakes. This bike is in one hell of a state but he says with your help we will make it like new and you will learn how to do all your own repairs. This is by way of a belated introduction to the list and to get me out of decorating. She who has to be obeyed thinks I am doing an urgent quality control handbook for work. Next the lightweight love affair.
Thats all for now. Keep those wheels spinning, in your memories if not still on the road. Be lucky Mick Butler Huntingdon UK.