As kids living near Falkirk we , during the school hols or at the weekends used to ride, about 10 of us , on ralleig Arenas,griffters and my own,Stowaway.We left our village, Maddiston and went to Blackness for the day, through Linlithgow high street, fighting with Leyland leopard buses and AEC lorries. When we arrived we were looked upon as almost hells angels !Our parents had no idea where we were, mobile phones, were about 30 years away.Like I say raleigh stowaway,
( folding, 20" wheels) sturmy archer 3 speed, inevitably with the chain snapped and the safety pin method holding it in second.Very cheap panniers stuck to the rack,sandwiches and a bottle of scoosh !!!Magic. As I got older, it was sunday morning, my bros bike, a drop bar racer, possibly a Dawes of some discription, Maddiston, to torphicen, preceptory,the knock, beecraigs,linlithgow,queensferry,mars and an iron brew,cross bridge,phone home from north queensferry phone box ! Back over bridge,usuall route to lithgae and then along canal, over viaduct, at that time with no fence!!!! and back to home. Breakfast and wash the car for dad ! How things have changed . No base layers, no lycra,no LED lights, 5speed was a luxury,10 speed and you were a profesional !
Point is bikes were every where and every had one, not fancy full suspender jobbies but just bikes ! Bycle clips were socially acceptable !
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Leisure
where you used to cycle
(13 posts)-
Posted 13 years ago #
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Aye those were the days...
Main differences -
more traffic
inflated fear of 'stranger danger'
fewer parents with bikes and (increasingly) without the 'carefree' childhood memories
It's good that there are quite a few people on this forum with young children (who have cycling parents).
Unfortunately everyone on this forum is more or less unusual!...
Posted 13 years ago # -
I wasn't much of a cycly child - unfortunately for me they had recently invented the internet and the 33.6k modem so I didn't get out much... Sigh, mis-spent youth!
For a while we did used to take our crappy wannabe mountain bikes (mine = red Coventry Eagle, 14 speed, Pig-iron frame) down to Edinburgh Park which they hadn't really started building and was Edinburgh's biggest bicycle obstacle course. It was also handy for getting down to the back entrance of the airport to pretend you were in Wayne's World and lie on your back underneath the flightpath as the planes went over. Oh and it was quicker for getting to Marionville Models for Airfix kits than waiting for the odd weekend here and there when you could cadge a lift off of the old man. One Monday in the summer holidays we even cycled to the unheard of distance of the old Odeon cinema up Clerk St for a "films for a £1" day.
Posted 13 years ago # -
I did a spot of thesis work on Canna about 4 years back for a couple of months. The telephone line to the mainland was over a party line radio link and when I plugged my laptop in to the red phonebox (you could just unplug the handset as there was a regular BT phone socket in the box) I managed to connect to Hotmail at the giddy speeds of 9600 baud.
Posted 13 years ago # -
more or less unusual ? My son is 13 and recently , on a wee ride together,he told me some of the places he has been with his friends ! I didnt know wether to ground him for life or tell him more stories about my yoof ! I just listened !Grifters on frozen ressies is prob not in the safe play handbook ! Yes ON !When we were young our bikes were our passport to life, ( now theres a tagline ! )We could go to school or.....any where we wanted, road, scrambling,touring or whatever !
On a stowaway, or as it was known localy, the bent fork special ! After an accident with an engine hoist !
I even had a bracket made by my grandpa for attaching a primus stove to the,fold/crossbar ! We knew how to do great wheelies, rebuild a sturmy,change tyres without levers,adjust french gears and pass our proficiency tests with glowing colours, on the same bike that we went cyclo cross/round the houses /touring and every thing else on !
At 12 !
once we stole the cyl head bolts of an abandoned jag for our brake pivots !
If you can watch your kids from afar, they actually do the same as us but just with mobile phones, tears and glass eyes spring to mind !Posted 13 years ago # -
"our bikes were our passport to life, ( now theres a tagline ! )"
and a good one too
Posted 13 years ago # -
I seem to remember an endless succession of pieces of breakfast cereal box taped onto my bike's chainstay. This was science! Did you get a better engine sound by putting the card closer to the hub or the rim? Did it sound better if you doubled the layers up, or made it contact on a corner? Did the rim of a yoghurt pot made a better sound, and how could you prevent fatigue cracking? What was the optimum spoke count, between the patently unrealistic buzzing of a Grifter wheel and the pap-pap-pap-pap of a Raleigh Davidson Budgie?
Anywhere south of Princes St seemed to be my haunt, and probably still is. Fortunately we have broadband to surf our mightly online maps now, instead of Mosaic 1.0 in 16 colours and a 14.4kbps modem that failed to connect two-thirds of the time. How I marvelled at the blazing fast Teleport 56K modem that replaced it.
Posted 13 years ago # -
afraid i'm also of the generation to which 14.4kbps was a serious upgrade! and we used to cycle around without much concern. simpler times. sigh.
Posted 13 years ago # -
Well I'm not an Embra boy...
I can remember learning to ride down a side-lane in Hadrian Park near Newcastle, then we moved north and we used to go EVERYWHERE in the wee town of Ellon (north of Aberdeen) on bikes. Even over the golf course behind the house... Had a silver Strika, then a great silver BMX. Both were ridden the 5-6 miles out to Haddo House fairly regularly - out on country roads, then haring round the country park there.
The luxury arrived in the form of 12 gears and an Emmelle Cougar. Used to race round woods and just anywhere in the town really.
For the sake of completeness I only got online at home for the first time about 6 years ago. Broadband all the way...
Posted 13 years ago # -
We used to go up the Pentlands ever couple of weeks, we once did an epic along to North Berwick during the summer holidays i had to get back and do my papers :)
Once the oldest of my mates got a car we would go on day trips and long weekends all over Scotland (long before the trail centres got built) doing all day trail riding seeing parts of the country you don't really see at 16, Wanlockhead, Loch Long nearly died (mild exaggeration) after getting lost on the hills near Blair Athol was only April and there was still snow on the hills.
The worst (best) of it was we were riding very cheap halfords BSO's riding stuff i'd think twice about now on my grands worth of mountain bike.
Posted 13 years ago # -
When we were young our bikes were our passport to life
also one of the main contributors to rise in IQ through 20th century as emancipated workers made it out of their village and mixed the gene pool in villages a days ride away.
I started on Raleigh Chico (£25 out the Kays catalogue). Still rate it, like a racer but flat bars, fairly light and fast single speed, boy that was the last trendy bike I had). Bought Dawes 5 speed with my savings £72 nicked from stairwell in Hillhead St then £20 huge white raleigh ten speed with massive brooks saddle from Dan the canadian - I put the rear mech through the back wheel on Great `Western Road. The last of my sentimental bikes. They are all commuting machines now part from the Specialized Secteur. 30 mins back to Edinburgh from Tarbrax Junction last Sunday morning. Smokin'
on broadband front we did not have a phone and the telly was worked by 50pence pieces
Posted 13 years ago # -
Epic rides on a Sturmey three-speed "racer" from Crail to St. Andrews to buy books, counting off the mile-stones on the way. Along to Anstruther to Bands the blacksmith to get cotter pins replaced. Nine of us on bikes on the Crail aerodrome getting chased by a farmer in a tractor. Before that a sit up and beg to get to the bus stop for the school bus. And before that an old Mini Moulton knock-off with small wheels which got me to Crail for sweets. In those days the Chopper was the cool bike to have but I wanted a Mini Moulton because my friend had one.
Internet - wife came home with a 14.4 modem and said the company was rolling out Internet services and she was to head up the marketing. The company was United Artists (now Virgin Media) and the product was called Cableinet.
Posted 13 years ago #
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