How did you learn to ride a bicycle?

[Wilma]

I will bet that everyone has a story about this one.

The bicycle that I learned to ride on didn't have a seat.  Neither did it have brakes.  No one ran along beside me helping to balance it until I could manage either.  No one needed to.

Where we lived at the time, the driveway sloped down to the road.  This road was the main road between two towns.  Do you see where this is going?

All I had to do was get the bike upright, straddle it, get one foot on a peddle and push off.  It was a boy's bike.  Gravity moved the bike, didn't need the peddles except to stand on and one of them didn't have a pad on it.

OK, so it was dangerous to coast down a hill onto a road.  Who said I made it to the road?  But if I did, I could just steer off the driveway and crash.  Besides I didn't do this alone.  My little brother and I took turns until we had both learned to stay upright.  This was the only bike I ever rode until my daughters were big enough to have bikes.

I am not sure, but I don't think my little brother ever owned any other bicycle either.  He might have fixed this one up some, but we didn't need bikes.  In a few years we had the "ole whoopee" to run around on and it went further and faster than bikes.

[genealogynut]

I really don't remember how I learned to ride a bicycle. I've slept a few moons since then.  But what I do remember was that we only had one bicycle and there were five of us kids.  We were supposed to take turns, but often we got to arguing, and did things just to antagonize the other sibling(s), etc. To make a long story short........   by the time my youngest brother outgrew the bicycle, it was more than ready for the junk yard!!!

[Janet Harrington]

I honestly do not remember.  I know that we had bicycles.  I know we had tricycles.  Probably my mother or one of my older sisters taught me how to ride.  Maybe Mother remembers.  I just know I can do it.  I can roller skate, too, even with a pair of skates that take a key.

[Wilma]

Ah, those were the days.  Roller skating on the sidewalks, with the key hanging around our necks, being careful not to hit the cracks too hard.  Didn't have to have a ride to the rink.  Just put the skates on, step out to the sidewalk and go.  Except in my case I had to walk half a block to get to the sidewalk.

[MarineMom]

I never did learn to ride a bike, my dad said he would buy us a bike after we could ride one but how do you learn to ride a bike without a bike to ride? Later I figured out that he probably could not afford one, also the house we moved into when I was 7 sat next to a busy highway so I imagine that factored into his decision not to buy a bike for us. I did have a pair of skates though. The best thing about the skates was that they grew with me so I did not have to pass them down to the next one after me (I was the eldest of 10 everything got passed down)

[CrumCowgirlMama]

Well...My bike was pink and white, I received it as a Christmas present one year and I was SO excited. I can't remember how old I was, it was when my parents were still married...so I had to of been in first grade. I remember it had training wheels on it. After a while I decided I could ride it without the training wheels, so I had my dad take them off. He told me that if I thought I could ride without them he would take them off. But, I should know that he was not, under any circumstances, going to put them back on! So, he took them off and I had my mom behind my holding me upright. She would hold on to me for a little bit and then let go. The first few seconds after she let go I'd be fine, and then BOOM, I'd hit the sidewalk. I would ride up and down the Paw Paw street sidewalk. I grew up in the house where Mr. Seaton lives now. I finally got the hang of it, and I rode that bike everywhere!

[Jo McDonald]

We lived out in the country - 8 miles north of Longton and I was in high school and my best friend at that time was Inez Patton -- she lived in town and had a bicycle...I would stay over night with her, not often, but once in a while.  I was used to getting up very early, as we milked cows and had a lot of chores to do, before we would go to school, and when at Inez's home, I would get up EARLY and go out and ride her bike around, most of the time hoping I would see the boy that I was crazy about--and often did, so that made my day start with a big smile on my face.  I was NEVER EVER any good at it, but I liked to think I was getting better with every ride.  I could ride any horse that I could get on - and was as good a bareback rider as with a saddle.  I envied my friends that lived in town - and when we had our 50th year class reunion - I was SHOCKED to find out they evnied me even more for our saddle mare Roxie and living in the country... and all they had were sidewalks and a bkie.
  I was a happy country girl though and have lots of fond memoriies of all the years spent growing up. A very loving family, a brother 2 years older and a sister 2 years younger and the best Mama and Daddy in the whole wide world.

[Teresa]

Mother... that was a wonderful story.. I love it when you tell about things like that.

I remember my first bike and learning to ride.

My daddy and mama raised my sister and me  on a financial shred of a shoestring and there wasn't much money for extras..( Although I never ever knew that, as I had all I needed)

But we were living in Pittsburg Kansas at this time and I was 8 yrs old. It was my birthday and my daddy was manager of the Union Gas plant. Well, he always wanted me to go with him to the main plant to  fill the big tank up sometimes.
Well, he ask if I would go with him and if Mama and Sherri ( who was 3 at the time) would go too.
So we all piled in the car and went to the plant.

Little did I know that he had got a hold of an old used bicycle and had totally fixed it up.. painted it pink.. put new tires on it ( or I think they were new) and the best part was, it had those tassle things coming out of the handlebars. It looked brand new to me and you can not even imagine the pride I felt.
I was crazy thrilled.! It was the best present in the whole world!
We took it home and I got on it..and he run behind me until he thought I could ride on my own and let go and I thought he was still there and he wasn't~~.. but I was riding!! I really was riding! 

You know I look back at that and everytime.. ..even right now.. I cry.
I didn't know then, but I know now how they must have scrimped and  saved and how hard he worked in his spare time fixing up that old bike for me. If all the children in the world had even half the love I had and still have from my mother and daddy.. the world  would be a perfect world.

[hhjacobs]

I learned to ride when I was about 10. I coasted down the driveway at my friends house in Severy(Gaylen Myers). I did it lots of times and finally learned. I bought my first bike after working all that summer tying bails behind a very dirty baler. The baler had 2 seats on the tie side and the Semiers boys and I took turns tying bails at a penny a bail. It took all my summers wages to get the bike.

[Jo McDonald]

Tersa you were not any more proud of that pink bike than your Daddy was.  He did work hard and made his little TeeDee Ann a beautiful bike from an old rusty one.  Sherri was not into "girl things" when she was little  -- she wanted a Dale Evans cowgirl outfit and a rifle.  So for her Christmas one year - I think she was four years old,  Santa brought her the things she wished for.  Christmas morning, she got all dressed up and took her rifle and out the back door she went.  We had an elderly couple, Mr. and Mrs. Wilton, that lived across the drive way to the east of us.  Sherri was aiming her rifle at the tree tops and at all the imaginary things that she thought she could shoot, when it was cocked and she pulled the trigger, it sounded like a REAL rifle shot.  Poor Mr and Mrs Wilton, were watching her from their window, and when she went around on the west side of our house, he ran over and pounded on the door and shouted, "Fred, your little girl has a gun and she is shooting at my house and I am afraid she will shoot out my windows" !  When Fred had explained her "toy" the dear man was so very relieved, and Sherri happily protected her home from all the bad guys, and the neighbors felt safe.