Your cycling gap years

[mustang1]

Good thread.

Cycled from childhood to 1994 when I left uni. A job got me driving a car.

I kept the last bike I bought (in 1992). One day, circa 2004, I fancied going for a ride. It was toomwindy and I didn't do well at all.

In Spring 2006, I was working in the yard and the bike was propped up against a wall. I glanced at it with a view of getting rid of it but instead dropped my yard work and went for "one last ride". Only, it turned out to be my first "born again" ride. Never looked back since.

 

[I like Skol]

Cycled since I was a toddler, right through school and college and cycling was partly to blame for me dropping out of Uni. Even when I started working/driving for a living I still cycled on and off with various informal groups until my mid twenties. Bought a kick ass GT MTB with one of my early pay packets and still have it as my front line off-road tool over 20yrs later. I remember vividly cycling around my customers offices dropping off delivery notes and invoices during the fuel protests (can't remember what years they were?). When my family started to grow I bolted on a Hamax Kiss child seat so I could take my young sons to tot's groups and stuff without having to resort to the tin box sat on the drive. The real return to cycling (although you could argue that I never really went away) was when I became an employee and had a place of work to commute to. Have done 3-4k pa for the last few years but trying to cut it down this year.

Kids are now keen bike riders, cycling to school and stuff independently so I guess the cycle continues (see what I just did there? ).

 

[robjh]

I had a bike as a kid and probably used it most at around the age of 10 or 11, but from about 12 I just stopped. I don't remember why but I was moving on to teenage things and a bike just wasn't part of my life (we had loads of buses round my way).
I started again aged 19 at university, as I envied the freedom that it gave to nip round where and when you wanted, and immediately took to it. That was 33 years ago and I've never really stopped cycling since. I've cycled less at times when I couldn't easily commute by bike, but whenever I could, I have. I'm now riding more than ever before, especially since joining a club a few years back which gives me a reason to go out most Sundays for a decent ride in addition to the commutes.

 

[andyfraser]

I cycled from very young to leaving sixth form. I had a couple of bikes then a Raleigh Grifter then a Raleigh Winner. I went everywhere on that Winner. I cycled to school and sixth form and went on long rides in the Oxfordshire countryside with mates.

Then I got into motorbikes and stopped cycling for a few years. After my motorbike got nicked I bought a Raleigh MTB and cycled to work on that. I bought a MTB so I could take a short cut cross country. I never did replace the motorbike.

A several changes of jobs had me on buses and trains for 15 years. When I did finally get a local job I initially walked then started cycling but it was on and off. In 2013 I moved a little further away and walking was no longer really an option and I've been cycling to work ever since. I was around this time I started cycling for fun again.

 

[Nigel-YZ1]

I cycled until I started driving at 20. I'd dabble a bit after that but nothing serious.

In 2001 I was on antidepressants and knew they weren't a permanent answer. So off the LBS.
I discovered the Trans Pennine Trail and apart from injury knocking me out for a couple of years haven't stopped since.

 

[Saluki]

I rode everywhere as a child and then cycled through young adulthood. I would commute to work by bike but not ride much for fun, then discovered triathlons. I rode my tri-bike until about 2003 when the ex-husband-numpty-braindead-f***wit stole it and sold it. I then didn't ride until about 2009 when current Hubster & I were given a pair of Apollo XC26 MTBs, weighing about 40lbs each. That started us off cycling again fairly regularly, good roadies Autumn 2011 and riding ever since.

 

[Simontm]

I cycled from very young to leaving sixth form. I had a couple of bikes then a Raleigh Grifter then a Raleigh Winner. I went everywhere on that Winner. I cycled to school and sixth form and went on long rides in the Oxfordshire countryside with mates.

Then I got into motorbikes and stopped cycling for a few years. After my motorbike got nicked I bought a Raleigh MTB and cycled to work on that. I bought a MTB so I could take a short cut cross country. I never did replace the motorbike.

A several changes of jobs had me on buses and trains for 15 years. When I did finally get a local job I initially walked then started cycling but it was on and off. In 2013 I moved a little further away and walking was no longer really an option and I've been cycling to work ever since. I was around this time I started cycling for fun again.

A grifter eh?...

 

[shouldbeinbed]

The Grifter, just like a BMX only made out of scaffolding poles and concrete.

I've ridden since childhood. Rarely *seriously* I dabbled in my teens but have always ridden to get out of the house and to get about.

Longest time without riding was 18 odd months when I first moved down to Manchester to Polytechnic, lived in a bit of a dodgy area without decent storage and within walking (& drunken staggering) distance of everywhere I needed to be so I left my bike at home where my parents got rid of it in a shed clearing mania.

Bought myself an Asda BSO when I moved out of town but worked centrally and have gone through a few nice bikes since then.

 

[Brandane]

A familiar story after reading other posts.... Stabilisers off age 4 or 5; then riding around the 'hood for years. First "proper" bike age 14 and doing rides of 20/30 miles, occasionally more.

Then found drink and women! Always owned a bike, but used very rarely as motorbikes and cars took over in my early 20's. A spell of living at the top of a long steep climb didn't help much...

In my late 40's noticed I was no longer the naturally thin guy I had always been, and decided to buy a decent bike. People laughed as I spent £700 + on my Tricross, as they thought it would become a dust gatherer. I was so determined to prove them wrong, and covered over 3k miles in the first year. N+1 fever struck (4 times!) and the mileage grew to between 3 and 4.5k miles per year.

I never did return to being the thin guy I once was, but who knows what shape I might have been in if I hadn't invested in that bike!

 

[summerdays]

Started on a big tricycle, and then a couple of bikes, through to a secondhand one as a teen with rod brakes. I just rode occasionally for fun, didn't go that far but I enjoyed it. Left the bike behind when I went to uni and then mostly walked everywhere, but occasionally borrowed a bike for a ride. After uni, settled down with a family and couldn't justify a bike or the time to ride. But we did buy the kids bikes and teach then to ride in the park, as that's what parents do isn't it!

If we were on holiday near somewhere you could do bike hire we would for the day, and always enjoy the ride if not the effect on my backside the day after.

Then the eldest grew big enough for a 26 inch wheeled bike, and she choose this awful monstrosity from Toys r us! But I could ride it when she was at school. It soon fell apart but I was hooked, new bikes for me and hubby, and I've been riding for about 10 years now. I still need a bit of motivation to get on the bike, commuting does that, or a sunny day, but I always like the feeling of peddling once I'm on the bike.

 

[Steady]

Like many I started as a child, fond memories of running the garden path on a bmx bike, and then onwards, my Dad taking me places that felt like hundreds of miles away but in reality were much closer than I realised, they've now fortunately built proper cycle paths around the areas we use to cycle I suppose it saves squeezing through a gas pipe bridge across the river Derwent, but I think that was a highlight in itself!

I continued to cycle a bit with my friends at around age 12, 13 because it was just quicker and easier to get places, but I found most teenage girls that were my friends didn't know how to cycle, and those who did just weren't into cycling at all, so that eventually stopped. In my late teens I became fat and over weight, and the only time I used a bike was down to the video/DVD shop and back, and that probably stopped back in 2001, and it wasn't until 2010 when I took up cycling again and have cycled every year since then, progressively doing more mileage each year than the last year.

Looking back now I do wish I'd kept cycling as a part of my life.

 

[andyfraser]

The Grifter, just like a BMX only made out of scaffolding poles and concrete.

Maybe, but it was fun to ride!

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

I only learned to ride when I was 8 in 1989/90, so after having seen my friends and so on cycling about for years, I didn't take it for granted! We used to live next to my local cycletrack to Glasgow, so if I wasn't just out playing, going to the shops or similar, I/we would go along the path to places like Bowling and Clydebank and also out to Balloch in the other direction. Eventually it got that every summer holiday was filled with loads of mileage and I cycled to and from Glasgow for most of the summer when I was 15, just gaining fitness and improving my times. Also we would occasionally do daft things like cycle along the Canal from Bowling all the way to Grangemouth or even Edinburgh, quite a fair distance (40 or 50 miles one way..... On heavy knobbly tyred mountain bikes that weighed the same as a small family hatchback and I did over 100 miles on one of these runs..... Average speed c.10MPH! ).

Then, I had Leukaemia at 16 and things were never quite the same after that.

Of course, I still cycled, doing my usual thing of pootling about, going to the shops and so on, but also now, I did Charity rides too!
I cycled through College, but, after about 2005/6.... I don't know, it sort of started to fall away (although it never fully went away and I did buy a BSO at one point), even though I never learned to drive. I have suffered from fatigue for years, so can sleep for Scotland, but had always intended to get back into cycling again and had even looked at bikes.

Fast forward to 2010 when I was in the New Forest and had to hire a bike at Brockenhurst for a week. I had SO much fun!! So much fun in fact that I bought my first road bike in June of that year and cycled everywhere on it as well as joining this forum!! (I did something like 1500 miles in 3 months).
Then, in September, a week after doing the 2010 Pedal For Scotland run, 51 miles of it, a run in which I didn't feel very well, I came down with Severe Ulcerative Colitis and had to have major surgery after becoming very ill indeed and losing any form I had. After that I cycled, mainly reasonably short but intense distances, but I then had to have more surgery in 2013, and since then.... Well, since 2010 really, the fatigue has REALLY come back!!

I have noticed that I have actually started to gain weight here (something I have always had difficulty with due to my thyroid), so I have started to get the bikes sorted out here after talking about it for ages and I will be back to cycling seriously again soon!!

So, basically:
1982 - 1989/90
2005/6 - 2010

Then on and off during:
2010 - 2015

 

[jazzkat]

Usual story for me. I rode my bike everywhere as a kid on my Raleigh Arena 5 speed, but I wasn't a 'cyclist' I was just a kid on a bike.
Then as soon as I turned 16 (in 1985) it was mopeds and then motorbikes all the way. Then in 1999 I went on a school trip (as a teacher) to the Alps and did some mountain biking and I was hooked. As soon as I got back I bought a mountain bike and spent the next six years getting fit, falling off and getting muddy.
A change of jobs took me to the lakes and I started to ride on the road. Not long after the move up I bought a proper road bike and the rest is history - I'm now completely cycling obsessed.

 

[mjr]

Maybe, but it was fun to ride!

My first ride on a grifter, my first bike with gears, I shifted into high and put it in a big rose bush because I wasn't ready for the acceleration.

My first ride on a derailleur bike, I spent too long looking at the downtube shifters and put it in a field. There's a theme here...

Anyway, I never completely stopped riding but I think that's fairly rare. I only started riding further again once cycleways bypassed some of the "barrier" busy A roads.