Did you inherit....

[kipster]

...your love of cycling. I was chatting with my old man last week about cycling and how glad I'm doing it again after too many years stuck in a car. We talked about some of the old bikes I had, a Falcon that was my dads before he gave to me, a Holdsworth that I was knocked off of on a roundabout on my way to college one morning. He then started talking about all the cycling he used to do when he was many years younger, growing up in Hounslow.

Apparently he was the first under 18 in England to get under the hour for 25 miles, he's going to see if he can find the certificate. He puts my miles to shame, as he used to ride up to 40 miles to take part in races, ride back to London and then go out on a club ride, the one he remembers the most is to Brighton and back on a tandem.

He also took part in a trike marathon (to Brighton) in 1960 and we managed to find some photos on Pathe web site, http://www.britishpathe.com/video/stills/tricycle-marathon , he is the one in the blue and white cap.

Some of this must have rubbed off onto me, admittedly not an awful lot as I don't think I'll cover the miles he did.

Do you have memories of you mum or dads cycling exploits?

 

[LarryDuff]

I don't think I ever saw my mum or dad on a bicycle.

 

[gavroche]

My Dad was a boxer in the forties. He won 3 different fights on the same day, all by KO in the first round. He was the champion of his own county ( in France) but the war put an end to his career.

 

[biggs682]

dad use to ride with me at then local ctc club rides and still re tells many cylcing related stories

 

[Nigel-YZ1]

Both my Mum and Dad were keen cyclists before I was around. They met when they were both on rides to Roche Abbey.
My Mum always told me about the Dawes racer she had, with engraved bars, but gave up after a collision with a Transit van on Corporation Street in Rotherham. My Dad did little bits for years, even cycling to work for a while.

 

[Davidc]

Didn't inherit it but seem to have passed it on.

 

[LarryDuff]

My mum played Squash for Ireland and was a very good tennis player too. Dad was a low handicap golfer. My older brother seemed to get all their skill, he was very good at any sport he tried. I'm more of a trier.

 

[threebikesmcginty]

Never saw my dad on a bike but he could smoke 40 Embassy No6 a day [/boast]

 

[dellzeqq]

...your love of cycling.

absolutely. My parents had a tandem with a sidecar fashioned from a pram body. I've been cycling since the age of six months.

Having said that....my brother and sister-in-law own a bike shop, and their daughters don't ride bikes.

 

[snorri]

I didn't think you meant that sort of trike, but well done to your dad that's a wonderful memento of the event.
Both of my parents cycled, although by the time I arrived on the scene my father was war disabled and could only pedal with one leg. He placed his other foot on a fixed footstand where the pedal should have been and used the bike mainly for utility runs. As a result my mother had my child seat on her bike and as well as taking me to where children have to be taken, we did leisure trips in the surrounding area. My father gave up cycling but mother kept on the utility cycling, mostly to and from the local golf course, for quite a number of years.

 

[Hip Priest]

I never saw my parents ride bikes. My Dad was a successful distance runner for Lancashire in his youth, and was offered a professional contract at Widnes RLFC (which he turned down). I am rubbish at rugby, but I do seem to have inherited his natural stamina.

 

[slowmotion]

I can't remember any of my family riding bikes, but my big sister had a trike when she was five. One day she decided to put our pet mouse in the pocket of her dress and take it for a ride round the block. I clung on to the back with my feet on the rear axle, looking over my sister's shoulder. After a few hundred yards, the mouse decided to do a runner, jumped out of her pocket, and made off down the pavement. I ran after it and somehow managed to squash it with my clumsy feet when it stopped suddenly. I can still picture the tiny drops of blood dripping from its ear onto its white fur. We gave it a solemn funeral with a Gallaher's Rich Dark Honeydew pipe tobacco tin serving as a sturdy coffin.
I only discovered cycling nearly fifty years later.

 

[Hover Fly]

One of my earliest memories is of sitting on a seat on the top tube of my father's Gillott and being taken to a lake (probably Coniston Water) He used to tell me that he took me over Dunmail Raise and around Thirlmere like that but I can't remember the details. He also took me to see some of the last steam trains crossing the Leven Viaduct. He was a keen cyclist in his younger days, rode all the way from Barrow to Italy in 1946 (Vickers gave him-and any other worker who had a good plan not involving lying about-a paid month off, it meant they had less to keep occupied for in the aftermath of the war) and was a fairly good time triallist. Later about a week after I learned to ride a bike he took me around Coniston Water one March evening, gosh was ma annoyed when I crawled in at about 11 pm. Strangely although he TTed himself he wasn't keen on me doing it. He kept riding until in his 90s the last couple of years I would take him and his bike in a van to a quiet flattish road somewhere.

 

[smokeysmoo]

I don't think my Mum has ever even ridden a bike, and my old fella has had one leg a good inch shorter than the other since an accident in 1949, so that combined with no apparent desire for cycling anyway means I've never seen him ride either

Nowadays if you were in that position you could have adjustments made to compensate, but 64 years ago I'm guessing that wasn't so easy.

So how I came to spend my entire childhood and adolescence on two wheels is beyond me The legend in our family is that I could ride a bike almost as soon as I could walk.

 

[Brains]

My Mum and her younger brother and sister did a cycle tour of northern France in 1947, so they were the first tourists the French had seen for a decade, they had all sort of problems as food was still heavily rationed, and they did not have the correct coupons.
When arriving at camp sites (which amazingly had mostly not closed during the war) they were told there were no open fires. They had never seen one of the new fangled camping gaz cookers all the French had.
Eventually they had to resort to nicking potatoes and corn on the cob from the fields, hiding in a wood, lighting a fire to cook the food. They survived the rest of the tour on bread and tinned sardines, those being the only things they could buy without ration coupons