Brink wrote:
> How old were you when you got your first really nice bike and what was it?
I didn't get my first bike until I was 13.
Our yard is a hill. There are various gradations of hill. Some of it is uphill and other bits are
downhill but it is all hill. Except for the bridge, which is usually littered with broken glass,
there aren't any nearby sidewalks.
So with no place for me to learn how to ride a bike and no place for a younger person to ride
without getting in the car first I didn't get a bike.
My aunt bought it for me for my bat mitzvah. She had taught me to ride the summer before on a bike
path behind her house.
I don't remember much about this bike. It was bright hot pink. It was, if I recall correctly "a
beach bike" and had big tires. I liked that bike. A lot.
On my first big bicycle ride I was very annoyed when they said I couldn't use my single speed bike
and had to use a multispeed bike. One of the counselors at the summer camp worked for a LBS and was
a geek so I ended up riding an old oooollld bike. I don't remember the type of bike. But, being a
geek myself, I remember the ivory colored plastic that was an early type of plastic, and the
information imparted to me about the way in which the welds were done. It had 3 speeds. I moved
gears when someone told me to move gears.
In later years at the same camp I would bring along my older brother's road bike and end up swapping
with a counselor who could actually ride it and having their bike adjusted to me. And then, my last
year at that camp I had my own new geared bike.
Which was a nice bike though may have been an Xmart special. It also may have been bike shop. Recent
past though it was I really do not remember! It wasn't important to me at the time, it was just a
bike that was going to replace the single speed I really liked because the people at the summer camp
insisted I have a multi speed bike. (I never shifted except when someone reminded me to do so and
usually walked up most of the hills but they insisted if I wanted to go on the two week bike and
hike trip I had to have a proper bike.)
And which was stolen from _inside_ our house at the end of summer. The theif realized someone was
home before they got anything valuable and was heading out when they saw the bike sitting in the
entryway. Rrrrr.
In college I rode my hot pink single speed and loved it. It almost never got locked. In my third
year of college the people mowing the lawn at my rented house moved the bike away from its hiding
place next to the house into a nice prominent place on the porch ... from which it disappeared never
to be seen again.
I probably would have gotten a new bike but I broke my leg at the beginning of that summer.
I purchased my first "bought it with my own money" bike at 21 from the bike shop closest to work. It
was 220 rmb bargained down from 420 because I wanted the cheapest bike in the shop and they refused
to sell it to me. "Not good enough for a foreigner."
It was stolen over the summer when I loaned it to a friend.
My first nice bike came a few weeks ago.
Not a fantastic bike but a nice bike.
For 490 rmb (about 50 or 55 bucks) I got a Giant Athena. It has wide tires but definitely isn't a
mountain bike. I'd guess it is an all terrain type bike. Local streets can certainly be all terrain
at times.. Single Speed. Shimano thingy-whatses on the wheels ... I think hubs is the correct term.
Those are the only parts on it that have names printed on them.
You can see a picture of it and some uselessly written in Chinese specifications at:
http://www.giant-bicycles.com/ch/030.000.000/030.000.000.asp?dealerid=&dealercountry=&lYear=2003&bi-
kesection=8786&range=87&model=6661
or
http://tinyurl.com/nawg
Still not a fantastic bike. It is way better than my last bike, or any bike I have ever owned except
for the hot pink bike that was my first. Having a good bike I want to have a better bike.
For now, I guess the answer is either 22 or 13 years old. 22 years old because it is my best bike to
date. 13 because that is the age of wonder and everything is wonderful when you are that age.
-M
The chain is pretty low on this trike because of a 20" rear wheel
