How did we get here?
04-21-20, 09:52 AM
#1
Junior Member
Thread Starter
How did we get here?
Great to read the introductions - but might any of us say how we got into biking in the first place? There doesn't seem to be a thread for this so here goes:
I always enjoyed riding around rural England as a boy on my bike. It was the closest thing to a freedom machine I could find - so much faster than walking and as a little lad I could see further, over hedgerows when standing up on the pedals. My dad bought me bikes and they were never new, but atrocious old things made from heavy, seamed steel pipe with rod brakes (which were rubbish) and, at best, Sturmey-Archer three-speed hubs. The finish was always hand-painted and showed several different coats underneath. But . .
In the 1960s I found a bike shop in Croydon, the Southern suburb of London. It was run by Mr. Flint, who was a Velodrome racer as a young man (around 1920), and moved on to manage the Delivery Bicycle Service facility for the British Post Office in the Southeast - from the way he described it, a real production facility with parts being installed in batches and painting . Every Postman's Delivery bike I saw must have been refurbished by him. He had retired to run a bike shop and he showed me how to lace a wheel, remove stubborn parts, the benefits of wide-flange rims and more, all with a kindly tone. I can remember the smell of the shop to this day - new paint, rubber tyres, and oil, and the worn bare wooden floor. Years later, I asked the Croydon Historical Society about him. He was a known Velo Champion - but they had just then junked his old racing bike donated by his wife as they had run out of storage room. If only I had been a few days earlier!
So that's how I got here, given the confidence by a kindly old guy to work on old bikes, moving up to putting together my own from parts literally pulled out of trash heaps. Any other newbies have a story to share?
I always enjoyed riding around rural England as a boy on my bike. It was the closest thing to a freedom machine I could find - so much faster than walking and as a little lad I could see further, over hedgerows when standing up on the pedals. My dad bought me bikes and they were never new, but atrocious old things made from heavy, seamed steel pipe with rod brakes (which were rubbish) and, at best, Sturmey-Archer three-speed hubs. The finish was always hand-painted and showed several different coats underneath. But . .
In the 1960s I found a bike shop in Croydon, the Southern suburb of London. It was run by Mr. Flint, who was a Velodrome racer as a young man (around 1920), and moved on to manage the Delivery Bicycle Service facility for the British Post Office in the Southeast - from the way he described it, a real production facility with parts being installed in batches and painting . Every Postman's Delivery bike I saw must have been refurbished by him. He had retired to run a bike shop and he showed me how to lace a wheel, remove stubborn parts, the benefits of wide-flange rims and more, all with a kindly tone. I can remember the smell of the shop to this day - new paint, rubber tyres, and oil, and the worn bare wooden floor. Years later, I asked the Croydon Historical Society about him. He was a known Velo Champion - but they had just then junked his old racing bike donated by his wife as they had run out of storage room. If only I had been a few days earlier!
So that's how I got here, given the confidence by a kindly old guy to work on old bikes, moving up to putting together my own from parts literally pulled out of trash heaps. Any other newbies have a story to share?
