How long have you been cycling?

[fossyant]

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]

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.

 

[Hip Priest]

It must be about a year now.

Happy birthday to me...etc

 

[Rickshaw Phil]

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).

 

[cycleruk]

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)

 

[dandare]

I'm 65 now and joined my first club in 1961 so 51 years.

 

[slowmotion]

June 4th 2009. What took me so long?

Actually, what still takes me so long...

 

[gaz]

7 or 8 years... Been commuting for 4. Previously I was MTB through and through.

 

[ASC1951]

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.

 

[Hover Fly]

Firssst rode a bike in 1968, first ride I can remember was to the local railway line to watch one of the last steam trains.

 

[deanE]

I have cycled out of necessity many years ago but bought first road bike last July, at 64.

 

[Deleted member 1258]

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.

 

[HLaB]

Bikes didn't really seem like an option to me until I moved to Dublin but I didn't by a bike until I moved out of a house share into an apartment, even then it was a year or two before it became an everyday fixture, I'd guess around 2003.

 

[growingvegetables]

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!)

 

[col]

Since i was 2, can even remember where i used to live and cycle then.