Good memories ( and not so good ) of cycling to School.

[Nigeyy]

If there is one thing I remember from cycling to school, it was the wind. I lived in a fairly rural area and had a 2 1/2 mile ride in to my nearest Comprehensive on my Raleigh 5-speed Arena. The problem came about in that I had a section of road (the "top" road) that was slightly higher, though flat, that was completely unprotected from any wind. I can't count the number of times I cycled in against the wind heading into school -and sometimes it was really a strong wind - to be aghast to facing the same head wind on the way home. The fact the road was fairly flat just seemed to compound the misery and frustration..... I never had a p^%cture repair kit either, or a working pump. Somehow managed to get by.

Like many things, I'm not sure I'd even want my kids doing the same thing now -though those were the days before electronic devices and texting (sounding really old there!).

 

[Blue Hills]

That wee story brought a smile to my face
I'd have loved to bike to school but the school didn't allow bikes

Didn't allow bikes? Whyever not? I note the mrs, was it by chance a girls' school that considered it unladylike?

 

[Blue Hills]

No one had a lock but none were ever stolen. No one carried any form of puncture repair kit either. But then again I don't remember ever having a puncture.

Exactly my memory, one more example maybe that the 70s, despite their reputation, were actually rather charmed most of the time. Only puncture i remember was a total tyre explosion caused by one too many deliberate skids on an old second hand moulton. Not sure how i explained it to my dad.
May return to the thread later.

 

[youngoldbloke]

I remember being called up before the headmaster as I'd been seen riding my bike home from school without my school cap. (This was a Grammar School in the early 60s). My explanation that riding a racing bike wearing something that was liable to be easilyblown off, and the unsafe nature of trying to retrieve it from amongst the traffic, landed on deaf ears - letting down the school, blah, blah, a stain on the good reputation of the school etc etc, and contributed to my utter contempt for the headmaster, Mr Arthur Reginald Munday.

 

[Blue Hills]

Finally named and shamed after all these years. He'd never have said what he did if he knew the internet would come and get him.

 

[Mrs M]

Didn't allow bikes? Whyever not? I note the mrs, was it by chance a girls' school that considered it unladylike?

Just told not allowed
However, Timmy Chung was allowed to come to school in his Datsun Sunny

 

[Blue Hills]

[QUOTE="Mrs M, post: 4687087] However, Timmy Chung was allowed to come to school in his Datsun Sunny [/QUOTE]



This thread is turning into payback central. Since this forum is essentially open to searches I can imagine a few ageing folk self googling themselves and spluttering into their tea. Off to drink my special tea - the name of the guilty party in one of my memories might be dredged up.

 

[freiston]

I didn't get properly into cycling until sixth form. Wednesday afternoon was supposed to be for sports. A couple of keen cycling teachers gave us the option of bunking off for the afternoon instead, by way of taking us on a bike ride every week. So I guess it was sports of a sort but it didn't feel like it. We used to cycle a few miles, find a corner shop, the teachers used to buy us chocolate bars and fizzy drinks, then we'd head back. Earlswood Lakes was a favourite destination. The entrance to the sixth form college was at the top of a small hill, this became a keenly fought sprint at the end of every ride. But it still didn't feel like sports

I take it you weren't living in Edinburgh back then!

 

[Flick of the Elbow]

I take it you weren't living in Edinburgh back then!

Back then, home was Shirley

 

[screenman]

Wednesday afternoon was sports, mine consisted of an hour's ride then back for a run with the cross country lads, followed by a longer ride afterwards. As you can see I was keen on cycling. Just as keen now 46 years later.

 

[Stonechat]

I was at school in the 60's. Started cycling at about 14, about 4 miles. Used to race the buses, overtake them at the bus stops annry to get enough distance to keep ahead. They had conductors in those days so the stops were not so long.

One year we had a teacher who drove so slowly we could overtake her.

Somehow I avoided the cycle proficiency training

Bike was a 5 speed derailleur, maybe some of the early ones were a 3 speed sturmey archer

 

[screenman]

I was at school in the 60's. Started cycling at about 14, about 4 miles. Used to race the buses, overtake them at the bus stops annry to get enough distance to keep ahead. They had conductors in those days so the stops were not so long.

One year we had a teacher who drove so slowly we could overtake her.

Somehow I avoided the cycle proficiency training

Bike was a 5 speed derailleur, maybe some of the early ones were a 3 speed sturmey archer

I could have written those exact words, and I was only 5 miles from Staines.

 

[Globalti]

In the mid 70s we moved from rural Oxfordshire to Newcastle upon Tyne. My sister and I both joined Gosforth High School and on the very first day we did what we had always done in Oxfordshire - we cycled the 1.5 miles there. My sister was the only girl to turn up on a bike and she received so many looks and comments from her classmates that the next day she walked and never rode again. Newcastle was quite conservative in those days - I remember going in a pub with my family and my Mum asking for a half of lager - the barman told her he had no lager, saying: "We don't get many ladies in here!"

I was also one of the few cyclists as most pupils lived pretty close by. One day some idiot sat on my bike while it was in the bike rack and bent a nice kink in the wheel. On another occasion I was waiting at the school gates to cross the A1, which was a busy dual-carriageway when the local ice-cream van man, who always parked on the school drive, came up behind me and began pushing me out into the traffic with his bumper. I turned round to remonstrate (didn't swear) then crossed and thought no more of it. Dismounted and set off up the pavement walking the bike, the other hand holding my girlfriend's hand as we walked to her house. Suddenly the ice cream van screeched up, bounced up onto the pavement and a short swarthy bloke jumped up and ran back to me. "My mate, he say you tell me to F*** off!" I opened my mouth to deny it and BANG, a clenched fist hit me in the mouth. Two broken teeth and in shock but Gill and her pal got his reg and as soon as we got to her house her Mum called the Police. They went round and arrested him for assault, he couldn't deny it because he'd had to have seven stitches in the back of his hand. I had to have lengthy sessions of dentistry, which left me with a crown and a bridge. I got £250 from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board and the Italian who assaulted me and who had already been "done" for robbery with violence, got a fine. I spent all the money on beer.

 

[Jon George]

Ah, where to start?
The early seventies was my era - mostly cycling to and from secondary school with my best mate at the time. (Where are you now, John Palmer?) The route took us across one of the busier roads out of Ipswich, and most every day, we would have to cross a junction where my older brother had been knocked off his bike a few years earlier and sustained life-threatening head injuries. Always gave me pause for thought.
At around 14 or 15, my mate's birthday present was a racer with a whopper of a bell that looked as though it had been stolen from a fire alarm. I didn't think much of the bell, but I was envious of the bike.
And a favourite bit of juvenile pranstering in the cycle sheds was unlock the barrel locks prevalent at the time from two bikes and swap them over. Perhaps I should contact Simon Mayo and ask for forgiveness.
Cannot remember ever having a puncture when cycling to and from school. But then, I am getting older ...

 

[jonny jeez]

Never cycled to school but riding was just a way of life. I rode everywhere with my mates, all day long. Two abreast, swooshing around bends like the cops from CHIPS, jumping ditches like the boys from dukes of hazard, flying through the woods like luke in return of the Jedi.

Our bikes were an extension of ourselves, chosen and personalised to be who we were, or who we wanted to be.

Oddly, I never recall carrying water, a lock, a helmet, a puncture repair kit (never remember getting a single puncture as a kid)...or anything more than a pocket full of change for the sweet shop. Yet I reckon we must have ridden a good 20 miles a day.

I also don't remember riding up hills. I know I did, I had to, but I don't recall it being an issue.