Eric F 

My dad was a serious cyclist, but not a racer. He taught me about weird names like Merckx and Hinault, cities like Roubaix, and the proper pronunciation of Paris. My first bike was a BMX bike from a local (and legendary) frame builder, and not long after, my dad took me out to do some BMX racing - which I enjoyed, but wasn't all that good at. Typical of the mid-'70s, I roamed the neighborhood with the other kids on our bikes, and went farther than my parents ever knew on summer days. Sadly, that bike got stolen outside a bowling alley. My next bike was a track frame that my dad converted into a 1x6 drivetrain, and I leaned how to use toeclips. However, when I got my driver's license, bikes became irrelevant to me.

In about 1990, I got the urge to buy a MTB. That was a life-changing moment. Riding got me wanting to ride more, and wanting to ride more was hampered by my cigarette habit. The bike won, and I stopped smoking, cold-turkey. In '92, I did my first MTB race. My dad drove 2+ hours each way to see me start and finish. I didn't realize until much later how meaningful that was to him. Around that time, I reconnected with a friend from elementary school who was also a MTB rider, and I started riding and racing with him and a couple of his other friends. We had a lot of great adventures together over the next few years. Another one of that group introduced me to road riding. I was quickly hooked on the speed and efficiency of the road bike, and road racing became my passion. Unfortunately, my dad passed away before he could see me race - and win - on the road. After my second kid was born in 2004, I stopped racing. I was a Cat 2, and the time needed for training to race at that level was in conflict with the kind of dad I wanted to be, so I hung it up. Despite enjoying some nice success on the bike, quitting then was the right choice for me.

15 years later, at the end of 2019, I was 225lbs (60+ lbs over "race weight") and 10 years into being a travel sports dad. I made the decision to get my fat ass back in shape, and I went to what I knew best. Bicycles. It started with short trainer sessions, and I did the things I knew how to do to make fitness gains quickly. It wasn't long before I was able to join some local group road rides with people I used to ride with in my racing days. The weight came off, the fitness improved, and for the first time in almost 20 years, I bought myself a new (used) bicycle...and then a couple more. Getting back to being a good rider again feels like I got part of myself back. I'm really enjoying being able to ride competitively with my friends who never stopped riding. I don't want to race like I did before, but have found a new love with gravel events.

In early 2020, I rebuilt my dad's Nishiki ONP, which had travelled with me over the years, but had been pretty neglected. Giving life back to the machine that was my dad's passion was a truly enjoyable and heart-warming project. I don't ride it as often as it deserves.

I still ride with my elementary school friend from time to time. Other than family members, there isn't anyone in my life I've known longer than him. We still like playing in the dirt together. He was the best man at my first wedding in '94.

My friend that got me into road riding is currently the head coach of the MTB team at one of the local high schools. We still ride together, when schedules permit. He was the best man at my second wedding in '03.

urbanknight

Setting aside the casual riding as a child just playing with friends or going to one of their homes, my father got into cycling for fitness when I was 11. He liked it and invited the rest of the family to join in. We rode together on weekends and signed up for charity rides from time to time. My brother and I eventually got into racing, but we all gradually quit riding as other endeavors took over. After college, I got back into riding until my wife and I had a child, then I hung the bike up again in favor of family time until my weight and health suggested I should find a balance. Now I'm back to riding, but only a couple times per week.

jon c. 

Diogenes can end his quest.

jon c. 

I rode a great deal as a teen but abandoned the bike in my 20s. 30 years later my wife suggested we get bikes to ride around the neighborhood. Rode a hybrid for a few weeks and it was okay, but then I got a vintage road bike and it felt like I was a kid again. My old love for riding returned.

wheelreason

I'm not into cycling, I'm into riding my bike...

wolfchild

We now need a thread on what's the difference between a cyclist and a bike rider ?

Eric F 

I feel fairly certain that we have had that, and it didn't go well.

big john

I rode a 3 speed as a kid but stopped in high school. Started drinking and smoking, starved and lost weight, got fat and drank myself into a GI bleed. Before that, while I was still drinking, I got a dirt bike as a trade for working on a car and one of my drinking buddies and I started going to the desert and getting drunk out there. We rode our motorcycles a bit, too. This was around 1980.

Eventually some serious riders joined our group and we all got modern motorcycles. My friends were running and weight training and I was still drinking and smoking and fat. I needed to do something aerobic and work on the legs. My landlord abandoned an old Schwinn 3 speed in the weeds so I decided to ride it. Put tires on it and the first ride the chain broke. I rode it for 6 months and then bought a cheap road bike that fit.

In 1989 I joined a road club and sold my last motorcycle in 1992. I've done 1000s of club rides, probably close to 3000. Met a lot of good people and had lots of fun. Road trips, centuries, tours, and mountain biking. I'll be 70 in a few months.

Chuck M 

I wanted to say that as a kid, riding my bike was all that I had to do. But the truth is, I was blessed that riding my bike all summer was what I had the opportunity to do. While I took some years off, I always have loved bicycles. Not just riding them but working on them too. I was a poor kid and had to wait on dad to get paid a time or two so I could get a tube. But I'm extremely mechanically able, so when the bike didn't work and I didn't need anything too expensive, I could keep it ridable. The Lord has blessed my wife and me. I suppose I could afford more in a bike than what I need, but I love what I have and I'm happy with my bikes.

I enjoy riding my bikes. Always. Every time. Even this past summer when I broke my wrist on one, I'm glad I rode that day and that the injury wasn't something that would bring an end to my enjoyment of riding bikes and working on them.

Maelochs

Great if it worked for you I guess ....... I normally counsel people to at least wait until Junior High .....

Chuck Naill

My grandfather brought home a 20" bicycle when I was four.

DorkDisk

The flashy clothing.

macstuff 

Cycling isn't necessarily a sport. That is one facet.
Moreso it is transportation and excersize
I got into it in 1969 when I was given my first bike.
I'm in it now for transportation, enjoyment and exercise.

CrimsonEclipse

I was a child and there was no internet yet.

Troul 

one of the few things with wheels that didnt/doesnt require a license, regristration, insurance, inspections, emissions testing, & no credit line needed with the snap-on truck.

Random11

I was a runner for more than half a century before knee problems forced me to give that up. So I bought a bike. Cycling isn't a perfect substitute for running, but it's the best I can do these days.

Alan K

In my case, it wasn’t what, it who and the answer is my father.
Once I learned how to ride a bicycle when I was about 5, I have been using it routinely… to go to school and beyond (walking or bicycling). After finishing edumacation, for commuting and just enjoying.

PaulH

Shortage of car parking,

rsbob 

you really need to get your emissions tested.

jaxgtr

As a kid, I rode my bikes all over the place, it was fantastic freedom. As I got older, I got into cars more, gave up biking and took up running which I continued to do when I went into the service. I used to do numerous marathon length runs a month, as there not much else to do on deployment. I eventually got tired of sore knees, feet, and ankles, and running shoes in the 80's and early 90's, are not what they are today, otherwise I might still be running. I ended up tearing some ligaments in an ankle when running offroad one day when I was on deployment in Sicily and that was pretty much the end of my running career. A lot of gained weight later, I decided to take up cycling to get some fresh air and lose the weight. After 7 or 8 years, I lost all the weight I had gained and a few extra to boot and found I really enjoyed it more than I thought I would and glad that I decided to pick it back up.

SpeedyBlueBiker

Like most of the kids in my neighborhood, we all had bikes and rode them everywhere! It was how we all got around back in the day. We rode trails and on the streets to get to school. Didn't ride for a few years after getting my driver's license but began riding some when in college. During this time I was a competitive runner at a large college so was busy with school, track, and XC. I used my old 10-speed bike to get around campus. Fast forward a few years and I'm living in the SE Asian country of Thailand for work. I had other expat friends that I ran (non-competitively) with and was in fairly good shape. A few of them were also mtn biking so I got into that. Rode mtn bikes all over Thailand and also up into Laos and down in Malaysia. Returning to the US, I decided to try road biking and immediately liked it and rode a couple of the big rides in the Seattle area. Been riding road bikes now for just over 20 years. Still have an itch to ride mtn bikes and might try that again as well.

SoSmellyAir

In my childhood I had a BSO which I rode around my parents' condo and in local parks. In my teenage years my parents bought me a 26" McKinley 10 speed hardtail MTB / hybrid? Riding it was one of the few escapes from my strict father until I was allowed use of the family car starting my senior year in high school. Driving initiated a quarter century hiatus from cycling encompassing university, work, law school, new career, and starting a family. Then one day, when I was in my early 40s, I realized that many people were zooming around on their bicycles in Irvine. Since I was by then a parent and no longer partaking in urgent apple pie delivery from the Julian Pie Co. via the local mountain passes, I decided to resume cycling to see if I could recapture the Zen (flow?) I had experienced (first as a teenage cyclist, then as a middle-age pie transporter). I bought a hybrid and within 6 months, a proper road bike. Who knew whether I would have resumed cycling if I did not live here? By late 2020 I had joined Bike Forums, so well past the point of no return.

Troul 

i've stopped a lot of the fast fuel that resulted in bad output putts.

jaxgtr

My mother said the same thing about riding motorcycles. My dad had one in the late 50's, Indian Enfield, which was really just a rebadged English brand, but was almost killed on it when he was hit by a drunk driver. After I moved out from her roof, I rode motorcycles as my primary mode of transportation for 10 or 12 years. Once my wife got pregnant, I had to get a car and I ended up selling the bike. As we have no kids at home now, my wife wants me to get another motorcycle as she loves to take trips on them. We did a tour through Germany in the late 80's where the company took your luggage to the next stop and you drove the motorcycle from stop to stop. It was fantastic. I would love to do that again and I will be turning 60 this year, so that might be my present to us.

A buddy of mine I grew up with was given his Mothers 76 Vega and it became our auto shop class project. We fixed up the body, re-did the interior, suspension, wheels, tires, and painted it. Unbelievably, the engines in that specific year were not terrible, but if we had the money, we would have swapped out the engine and transmission. Those cars had such bad suspensions, but were so much better compared to the early versions. It was not your Mom's Vega after we got done. It was not a bad riding car. He ended up selling it the shop teacher and picked up a 65 Ford Falcon Futura with a 289 V8 4 speed manual 2 door with bucket seats from one of the retirees that was on my paper route after her husband had passed. Bucket seats were really uncommon at that time so it stuck out, and he really liked that. The car was in perfect condition, had about 3K miles and was kept in a garage. He bought it for $1.5K as the woman was moving back north and did not want to have to take it with her and since I had been delivery papers to her for 6 yrs, she let me know the car was going up for sale before she put it in the paper. We updated the wheels\tires and some other minor tweaks, but that was about it. The suspension was pretty plush and the V8 was unbelievable powerful for a car that light, if I recall it was close to or under 25\2600 lbs and had something like 260\270 hp. Been a while, but I did like that car.

Jay Turberville

In the '60s when I was a kid, everyone had a bicycle. But somehow I always loved riding more than most of my friends. I'd just go riding around after school. I could go three or four miles away and get home in plenty of time before being asked where I was. I could go places. Freedom. I remember wanting a ten-speed so badly I could taste it. Surely, with 10 speeds I could go way faster and way further. More places.

I finally got my Sears Free Spirit 10 speed. Someone convinced my dad that it was better than the Schwinn Varsity that I craved. On the one hand, I was thrilled. Finally a 10 speed. But it wasn't the Varsity everyone else had - and my bike shared its name with Playtex "Free Spirit" underwear. Oh well. It was an honest-to-gosh 10 speed. I drilled out the pedals and added toe clips. Now it was a racer.

With it I discovered ... the realities of wind resistance. But I could go a bit faster and a bit farther than on my coaster brake Schwinn Typhoon. Our 7th grade school science, Mr. Sears, teacher road bikes. He and a couple other teachers arranged Saturday rides. They'd take us somewhere in cars and pickup trucks with our bicycles. From there, we'd ride back to school in a group. I specifically remember going to South Mountain Park. We started by riding partly up the mountain - almost to the radio towers (finally got to really use those low gears). And then we rode all the way back to the school. That was about an 18 mile trip as a 12 or 13 year old. And back then, that had us crossing most of the Phoenix. Amazing. You could really go places with a bicycle. I figure that probably hooked me for life. Even when life pulls me away somehow, I've always found myself eventually drawn back to bicycles and cycling. I now volunteer at Bobs' Free Bikes and in the back of my mind I have the notion that maybe for some kid, getting a bike will be the spark that my 10 speed and Mr. Sears were for me - and a few more kids will get hooked.