Always rode a bike - for a child it was freedom. I'm pretty sure I remember the first time riding with no trainer wheels - along the sidewalk, drifted into a wall and split my scalp - much blood and wailing. Various fat-tired kids bikes, only vaguely recalled. I do remember learning to ride with no hands, and cruising along one day, feeling like the sh1t, and a passing Guard (Irish cop) pulled me over and gave me a good yelling. Folks bought me a 5sp drop-barred bike when I was ~11, replaced it with a Campag-equipped Viking (short-lived Northern Irish brand) ~14. My next-door neighbor, who was a former amateur racer, got me interested in "proper" racing bikes. When they moved back to England and I spent summers over there, painting houses etc, I built a Nuovo Record-equipped Hetchins out of parts from his garage - this became my "summer bike" - when I wasn't painting, I was putting in miles throughout the Berkshire countryside. Fast forward to grad school, and when the RD hanger of my Peugeot broke, I didn't have the funds to repair it, so I parked it in the shed where is slowly become one with the earth. In '95, in Boston, I decided to do the '96 Boston-NY AIDS Ride, so I built up a road bike (De Bernardi with Campag Athena 8sp) over the winter and started training in the spring. Did the Ride (awesome, btw), kept training and never looked back. So, with the occasional short hiatus, I've been riding bikes, or messing with bikes, for about the last 50 years. The bikes have just been getting more expensive...