Cycling 'youngsters'

[Noodley]

When I were a lad...

Hopefully this does not rekindle the age debate, as we are all valued contributors to the forum irrespective of age, gender, sexual orientation, whatever, whatever, etc.

A few threads have got me thinking back to when I was a lad and how often I was on my bike. I suppose I am talking about aged 9/10 onwards. I was in no way 'a cyclist' but seem to recall going everywhere on my bike. Main roads, tracks, pavements, everywhere in fact. There was little thought given to dangers as far as I remember. I used to cycle to school and back, cycle 60 miles at least once at the weekend, scoot down to the shops, and later when I had a paper round use my bike to carry stupid amounts of 'papers using the full bag as a rear brake.

D'ya think us oldies stifle the youngsters nowadays with talk of danger? Should we just relax a bit more? After all, when we look back to the 60s and 70s we were supposed to be chilled out. How times and people change.

 

[vernon]

D'ya think us oldies stifle the youngsters nowadays with talk of danger? Should we just relax a bit more? After all, when we look back to the 60s and 70s we were supposed to be chilled out. How times and people change.

Some parents might stifle their kids enthusiasm for adventure but my wife and I allowed our kids to venture forth without restraint. I was all for my kids enjoying the same freedoms as I did. They responded in different ways. One son became a home loving recluse rarely venturing from his room and the other at thirteen proclaimed 'I live to be out' and often disappeared for from dawn 'til dusk.

Our daughter suffered from having close friends whose parents wrapped their daughters in cotton wool, ferried them everywhere by car and imposed ridiculously early curfews so innocent outdoor activities never happened for her . She didn't want to associate with the girls whose parents didn't know, or care about their daughters' exploits. Her social life has developed at a moderate pace over the past year and she's just been to her first gig when she saw 'The Fray'.

 

[tyred]

No. Maybe if I had children of my own, I would think different but I hate the modern day tendancy to wrap people up in cotton wool. I used to be out from dawn till dusk, hail rain or snow. I grew up in a hilly area and used to go charging down steep hills on an old R20 with no brakes. To stop, I would have pushed the front mudguard into the tyre with my foot until it was slow enough to put my toes on the ground. This was normal. This was pre-Celtic tiger Ireland and most people had little money. Children done what I did and built bikes up out of bits and pieces and brakes were an optional extra. I sometimes look at younsters today on their shiny argos "specials" and feel sorry for them as they won't have the oppurtunity to learn how to fix things theirselves in the way I did. When I was a bit older, I progressed to charging around the fields in an old Morris Minor and then later, a Ford Cortina. I suppose it all was dangerous but it was fun and I learned loads that today's children probably never will. I would like to think I would allow my own children if I ever have any, the same freedom as I enjoyed.

 

[Fnaar]

Agreeing with the above posters (we spent hours and hours on our bikes, or climbing trees, lighting bonfires, setting off bangers, bob-a-job for the cubs (till the cubs asked me to leave)... etc etc
But, I wonder, what will today's kids reminisce about? "Eeh, when I were a lad, we had to load our own iPods, from t'computer... not just think the songs on like today's lazy eejits... yeah, and we didn't have hoverpeds, and you had to chew your food, too...
Just wondering?

 

[dan_bo]

My Nan used to get me a chickens' foot from the butchers' so I could pull its' tendons and scare girlies and pick stuff up with it etc.


Can't see Asda's Butchers being down with that at all.

 

[Maz]

too many cars on the roads + speeding boy-racer types to let the young uns on the road...happy to let em ride up and down the pavement.

 

[rich p]

I was a laissez faire parent in many ways but I didn't like them riding in the heavy traffic there is these days when they were young. They both cycle everywhere in London now though so it didn't put them off.