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

[NorthernDave]

I never actually cycled to school. Shameful I know, but there we are.

My primary school was literally 2 minutes walk from home, so it just didn't happen.
Middle school actually wouldn't allow you to cycle to school. The official reason was there was nowhere to lock the bikes, which would seem fair enough except when the bus drivers went on strike for a week (this was the 80s) the rule was miraculously suspended. However, by this point I was already cycling to my mates who lived a short walk from school and leaving the bike there during the day so I carried on doing that.
Then at high school there was actually provision for bikes - loads of wheel bender stands, all under a corrugated tin roof, but hardly anyone used them such were the tales of any bike being left there being nicked. Plus I only lived a 5 minute walk away, so it was hardly worth risking my Claude Butler racer.
If you're thinking that my high school couldn't have possibly been that bad, while I was there it was used as a location during the filming of the Beiderbecke Affair (and sequels) renamed as San Quentin High - all they did was change the sign.

 

[subaqua]

Cycled to school to avoid being bullied on way home and at lunchtime. Could ride home in 5 mins so best way to avoid being bullied.

Not many bikes in bike sheds. Had a big lock as it would have been nicked and a pump as tyres regularly let down.

 

[EltonFrog]

I'm reminded of another school-truant-adventure.

My school in East Acton used to issue 'pass outs' if you needed to leave the premises for dentists, doctors or such. This being the '70s the form was typed on type writer, the who, what, why and when, then the details were hand written by a member of staff. Then you showed it to a teacher or prefect when you left. Well, I had one of these and I forged a few on my mothers type writer, it took me blumen ages of pain staking trial and error to do them.

Not long before I took my very first trip to my aunts in Welling, as mentioned up thread, I used one of these pass outs to bunk off school at lunch time and reccce the ride to see how far I could get.

So, off I go on my trusty Kingpin, down to Gunnersbury, over Kew Bridge then Thames Road/Harrington Road to the Great Chertsey Road / Clifford Avenue. I realise that I've made mistake looking at the old AtoZ I had and I turn right towards the Lower Richmond Road.

I get to the traffic lights and stop to turn left at the South Circular jct. I look across the road at the oncoming traffic. shoot! shoot! shoot! There in a blue Austin A35 van...my nemesis...My mothers boyfriend.

I'm up on the pavement turn left and pedal my bollix off towards the Upper Richmond Road, panicked I turn left into the Kingsway down the wrong way of a one way street, I know he's seen me because he tries to follow, but he can't catch me, I cycle to a footpath over a railway bridge and I waited for a while before setting off home, crapping myself in anticipation of the bollocking I'm going to get when I'm home.

My mother only saw this bloke three times a week, we had no phone in those days so I was dreading, nay, cacking myself about the next visit...for some reason though it was never mentioned, I have no idea why.

43 years later I was cycling around that junction on RLS 100 on closed roads and that memory came flooding back and it brought a huge grin to my face.

Austin A35.

Oh Christ , another memory jogged about that van and my bike.

 

[johnnyb47]

I remember when our local petrol station had a car tyre inflator fitted up on the forecourt. The kids would regularly go there to pump there tyres up. After a few months we were banned from using it after a number of tyres exploding off the rim from being over inflated. If memory serves my right ,this problem was happening up and down the country and was highlighted in the press.

 

[Blue Hills]

I'm reminded of another school-truant-adventure.

My school in East Acton used to issue 'pass outs' if you needed to leave the premises for dentists, doctors or such. This being the '70s the form was typed on type writer, the who, what, why and when, then the details were hand written by a member of staff. Then you showed it to a teacher or prefect when you left. Well, I had one of these and I forged a few on my mothers type writer, it took me blunen ages of pain staking trial and error to do them.

Not long before I took my very first trip to my aunts in Welling, as mentioned up thread, I used one of these pass outs to bunk off school at lunch time and reccce the ride to see how far I could get.

So, off I go on my trusty Kingpin, down to Gunnersbury, over Kew Bridge then Thames Road/Harrington Road to the Great Chertsey Road / Clifford Avenue. I realise that I've made mistake looking at the old AtoZ I had and I turn right towards the Lower Richmond Road.

I get to the traffic lights and stop to turn left at the South Circular jct. I look across the road at the oncoming traffic. shoot! shoot! shoot! There in a blue Austin A35 van...my nemesis...My mothers boyfriend.

I'm up on the pavement turn left and pedal my bollix off towards the Upper Richmond Road, panicked I turn left into the Kingsway down the wrong way of a one way street, I know he's seen me because he tries to follow, but he can't catch me, I cycle to a footpath over a railway bridge and I waited for a while before setting off home, crapping myself in anticipation of the bollocking I'm going to get when I'm home.

My mother only saw this bloke three times a week, we had no phone in those days so I was dreading, nay, cacking myself about the next visit...for some reason though it was never mentioned, I have no idea why.

43 years later I was cycling around that junction on RLS 100 on closed roads and that memory came flooding back and it brought a huge grin to my face.

View attachment 338696
Austin A35.

Oh Christ , another memory jogged about that van and my bike.

Nice story CarlP - and only goes to show/confirm that the world/London can be a very small place. You never know who's watching

 

[Accy cyclist]

I had one of these when i cycled the mere 2 miles to school and back in the 1970's.

 

[screenman]

I had a Claude Butler Lugless when I was 14 and a fixie at that, it was unfortunately nicked.

 

[Oldbloke]

I used to ride various "bitsa" semi-wrecks to school in the 60s after my paper round/s. The local plod made regular visits to our bike sheds to check the roadworthiness of the contents.

Mine, along with large numbers of others, were regularly put to one side with various notes pointing out their "shortcomings" and in the more serious cases, told "not fit for further use"

 

[burndust]

with the exception of the cycling proficiency stuff at primary school, i don't remember anyone cycling to school primary or high, both had bike sheds but there was never anything in them, well except folk smoking at high school, they then knocked the bike shed down at high school for an extra car park, the whole high school is now gone and the new one about 10ft away, i kid you not

 

[Will Spin]

I rode my bike to school for 5 years during the 60s. We had to have passed our cycling proficiency before we were allowed ride to school, which was on the other side of town, about 2 miles away. On the way back I was always torn between racing with the lads or cycling slowly along chatting to a girl I was friendly with. Many of the kids cycled to school and we used to cycle miles around the countryside at weekends, once I got horribly lost in fog. It never rained and my bike never had a puncture. I had a Hercules with Sturmey Archer 3 speed.

 

[Blue Hills]

Which period are we talking about GGJ?

I stress that my comment wasn't snobby at all - I just thought most kids had bikes of some sort wayback - mine were a series of second hand things - all sturmey archer of course.

 

[Milzy]

Some little cretin roundhouse kicked me off my GT outpost into the path of an oncoming car. The car had time to swerve around. Maybe because it was on the way home and kids were all over the place and the driver wasn't speeding. If he wasn't mates with the school billy biff I'd have smashed his head in.

 

[martint235]

I lived above a 33% cobbled street so I wasn't allowed to have a bike until I could buy it myself. I did have a play on mates' bikes but couldn't ride to school on one.

 

[Globalti]

Another memory has just surfaced.... my Mum bought me a brand new pair of trousers for school and of course under pressure she got me some flares. They had to be tucked into socks or bicycle clips to avoid them ending up oily and mangled by the chainring like my cords. Of course I fell off my bike and made penny-sized holes in both knees. I went to my mate Andy's house where his mum, seeing my distress, made me take them off and did some amazing repairs, what I guess is called darning where you replace the warp and weft. My mum didn't notice the repairs for a couple of weeks and when she did, she appeared, white faced with anger at my bedroom door, holding them out and asking "What's THIS?" I think she was mollified by the fact that I had had them repaired but still, a new pair of trousers was not something to be taken lightly as we hadn't entered the "throwaway" age where people seem to buy clothes for fun and only wear them once.

 

[Dogtrousers]

@Globalti Memories... Every time I got a new pair of school trousers I would fall over and make holes in them, which would mean moderate-level trouble at home (tutting and dirty looks, no shouting). My mum was a dab hand at those darning-type "invisible" repairs.