How long have you been cycling?

How many years have you been cycling?


  • Total voters
    77
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fossyant

Ride It Like You Stole It!
Location
South Manchester
I've ticked 30 years as I was doing a long paper round from 12, doing about 5 miles a day. Got the extra 10p for that...

Was out in all weathers at 6am.

Started with a club at 16 years old. So just fit in the 30 years at 42 years YOUNG !! Ahem.
 

colly

Re member eR
Location
Leeds
Running (for fitness and pleasure) and volleyball gave me up when I was around 40. My knees could no longer take the strain and even a short run would see me hobbling back home with one or other knee looking like a football.
I was at a loose end and really had no idea, or really any particular intention of taking up any other activity.
A friend called to see me one afternoon and he suggested I try cycling.
He said he had a serviceable old racer bike that I could borrow. (I gave him £30 for it eventually) I took it out one evening and again a couple of days later one morning. Got used to the feel of it and thought I was ''pushing it' by getting something like 3 miles from home.
I sort of got the bug but what really got me hooked was going out early one morning and finding myself climbing a hill (sort of hill) and after no more than a third of the way up I came to a gasping, leg trembling, wobbling standstill. That did it.
I thought I was reasonably fit but this was a real eye opener and I determined that I would get to the top without stopping no matter what.
There followed a manic couple of years scouring OS maps (days before t'internet) to seek out the longest/steepest climbs that were within cycling distance. If I couldn't get up them I would go back and keep on trying until I could.

Been riding on and off ever since. Sadly the bike my pal sold me got stolen.
 

Rickshaw Phil

Overconfidentii Vulgaris
Moderator
Ive ridden bikes since I was very small but apart from one or two trips never did any serious riding. Then I learned to drive and cycling went on the back burner for a few years until I realised during an afternoon of sailing how unfit I'd got. The decision to start cycling to work back in 2000 was the point when I really started taking cycling seriously.

Before then I thought a 5 mile trip was a long ride but the short trips to work and back reignited a childhood desire to properly go places under my own steam and I started exploring the area going steadily further each time. Now it hardly seems worth going out if I do less than 10 miles and my regular routes tend to be from 18 to 40 miles (or thereabouts).:smile:
 

cycleruk

Active Member
Location
Peterborough
2 year break 9 years ago and since i starting touing been racking up some miles ( one year i done more miles on my push bike then i did in a car:laugh::wacko:)
 

ASC1951

Guru
Location
Yorkshire
Proper cycling? I reckon it was 1965 when I went cycling in the French/Swiss Jura with a couple of school friends, on a bike my next door neighbour had given me. I still have the same Brooks Pro saddle, which he must have been using since 1950.
 
D

Deleted member 1258

Guest
Was taught to ride a bike in the mid 1950's when I was a small boy, taught by my Dad, early 1960's I was cycling to and from school, mid 1960's I was riding to and from work, in the 1970's I rode motorbikes, came back to cycling in 1979 to commute, and have commuted ever since, mid 1980's started club riding,and I'm still out on a Sunday morning if I have time, I've done charity rides, reliability trials and an Audax.
 
Since the mid-60s some time, to varying degrees. Only time I didn't cycle at all was the 3 years in Yemen (but the roads were "poor", and the "hills" were 8000 ft; Sanaa was so high that aircraft were not allowed to take off after about 8.00am - the air was getting warmer, and too thin!)
 
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