Having a bike gave you so much freedom

[presta]

I have been amazed at the sheer number of people who are stunned at the idea of riding a bike from A to B. Sometimes it's the distance that scares them off, but far more commonly it's a large, creeping, indefinable fear.

Walking the South West Coast Path I fetched up at a B&B in Torquay one afternoon, and the woman running it had no conception that anyone would walk anywhere, let alone from Dartmouth. She had no idea there was a coast path, and thought I must have walked along the road.

There's nostalgic talk upthread of spending weekends roaming the countryside on whatever bike was had.
How many parents would allow that now? From my anecdotal experience, not many at all.

Also, in my experience, it's very much a cultural thing, and very closely related to the English speaking developed world.
Bikes now are far less of a necessity, far more of a faff to choose and maintain and for recreation, mainly. In the parts where a bike is more workhorse than toy the former attitude still prevails.

Bikes were what gave poor people their only independence in the 1920s & 30s, nowadays people expect cars for that. My father was 16 when he got his first bike, and it would have been a big deal in a family that couldn't afford bed linen, even if it did have a piece of gas pipe for handlebars.

My father would never have got to see the Lakes and the Dales if it weren't for bikes and hostels. He got me and a mate from Scouts to go to a couple of local hostels on the bikes but I never got bitten by the bug at that time, so he never lived to see me visit 150 odd of them by bike.

I didn't know Triang made bikes, of all people...

My first wheels were a Triang kiddie trike similar to this

 

[fossyant]

I had to buy a new seat for my Chopper as the welds on the rear seat posts snapped. It was a good fun bike, but crap handling, and not as cool as my mates Grifter. Didn't stop me going where he went.

 

[Drago]

Transonic buffetting while attempting the land speed record on a Raleigh Chopper caused me to lose control and break a leg.

 

[Oldhippy]

My front tyre exploded on my Chopper after blowing it up with the garage air pump. My mate was on the back, in A&E I sat with a tea towel wrapped around my bleeding arm while he had his ankle X-rayed. We built a go kart from an old pram and wood shortly after. 😁

 

[a.twiddler]

Perhaps in transport as in other spheres of life, all things are interlinked. My mother came from a poor family in South Wales and due to living through the Great Depression of the 1930s never had a bike or access to one as none of her family members had one either. The knock on effect was that she never developed any road confidence. My father, who came from the same mining village, had access to his mother's bike which he and his little brother rode. There was ten years between them, so it was fortunate that it was an open frame ladies' bike. His mother made good use of it too, riding the hilly roads to local markets.
Even though my father learnt to drive in 1960 he could never persuade my mother to follow his example, and he also spent hours trying to get her to learn to ride a bike but she never mastered it. Meanwhile, we kids couldn't imagine a world without a bike of our own and couldn't understand how others could manage without one. Even as kids, a bike was seen as a functional necessity rather than as a luxury item. How times had changed, and continue to change.

 

[Chap sur le velo]

Bikes were what gave poor people their only independence in the 1920s & 30s, nowadays people expect cars for that. My father was 16 when he got his first bike, and it would have been a big deal in a family that couldn't afford bed linen, even if it did have a piece of gas pipe for handlebars.

I suspect it was for much longer than this. My Father in law, now sadly passed away, was the Manager of the West Ham Stadium when they had the speedway in the 50s/early 60s, they would attract crowds of 50000+ with little public transport nearby. He told me houses for miles around used to charge 1/2d to park your bike in their gardens.

He and his wife cycled miles on a tandem, it all stopped when cars became more commonplace.

 

[wafter]

I wonder how many of these peer out of the car window and hate cyclists:


View: https://twitter.com/YesterdaysBrit1/status/1649687042228473856


I recall when I was a kid spending hours on my bike…..how many simple pleasures have been lost since time has progressed?

I was never off my bike….it was my independence

Summers cycling awesome. Outside shops you would see cycles on the pavements

me and my friends lived on our bikes…...and we loved them

Having a bike gave you so much freedom to go off exploring

we used to go ‘out for the day’ on our bikes

I still feel very much like that now tbh. As a kid I was only ever allowed to ride within the confines of the village, and I recall one particularly humiliating occasion in my early-mid teens where I'd tried to escape to the next village to see a friend and was retrieved by my mother in the car... the ingrained shame of which I think is one of the things that still underpins my drive to escape and the feeling of freedom the bike brings.

In addition even though as adults most people have access to cars, I think the freedom a bike can bring over and above automated transport are lost on most - the quietness and nature found on non-car-accessible routes, self-sufficiency, lack of cost, ability to negotiate traffic..

Pity we're a nation of mindless, consumptive, subservient, narcissistic thickos; isn't it?

 

[ricknmorty28]

the best thing i ever did was get a bike you can see so many parts of the UK when you cycle it really did give me a new sense of freedom, i love it

 

[Vantage]

I've lots of memories of getting out on my bike and riding around with my buddies, pulling wheelies and skids, jumping over ramps my dad made for us. All right in the middle of the street. Fewer asses in cars them days.
Yesterday as I was about to set off out for a ride with the dog and switching on the ebike display, GPS unit and front and rear cams I said to the Mrs, I miss the old days when I just got on the bike and rode away without all this crap.
Still enjoy a ride though. It never gets old.