I cycled as a child when I had a pony in a field to look after and no other way of getting there, but that stopped when I outgrew the pony and had to study for exams.
The next one was pitiful - my grandmother loaned her shopper to me when I went to university and had to travel several miles from one campus to another. My first day took me up Shooters Hill in London, where the bike came very close to being dumped in a hedge and abandoned. It spent the rest of the term doing nothing more than taking my friends and I to the local takeaway then went home never to return.
Fifteen years later I got a job a couple of miles from home and decided that I wanted to commute. The other half bought me a BSO for £50 from Maccess. Commuting on knobbly tyres lasted two weeks in which time I had three punctures, all from the same half-rusted tacks. Never did find where they had been dumped. Walking home in the dark in pouring rain each time, and having to stop for a breather halfway up a hill the rest of the time, that was my lot as far as commuting went. The bike, however, did very well for a few years of puttering round at the weekends with a child seat on the back for son #1 until it got stolen out the garage.
Another ten years passed bikeless until my Old Bag MOT test showed high triglyerides. Commuting was the only way I could think of to crowbar some exercise into my day at the same time as looking after 1 year son #2. This time the other half got me an elderly Raleigh Vixen mountain bike off
ebay. With memories of winter punctures at the front of my mind I went googling for solutions and discovered the wonders of hybrid tyres and kevlar. Different story this time: 10 months in and shopping for my first decent bike with cyclescheme.