@iwrats yes, thank you, maps weren't behaving for sharing streetview.
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Events, rides etc.
The first place I ever cycled
(79 posts)-
Posted 7 years ago #
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Maybe here (Bearsden, P1)? Or maybe it was at my Gran's place here. My childhood memories are a bit disjointed and sometimes not easily approached...
First definite memory of a specific place & time on a bike is of going over-the-handlebars here: a downhill stretch of the old road parallel to Redford Road (just down from the Dreghorn Barracks) on a bike with solid rubber tyres (possibly called "Bluebird"?). I think got back up and rode down the same hill again.
Later memories are mostly of having a stupid brown bike with pretty decals called "Amber" because my parents wouldn't buy me a "boy's bike". My wee brother got a blue & yellow BMX. I was so. so. jealous!
Posted 7 years ago # -
Not a farm and not outside Edinburgh!
I'm sure I must have ridden further back along the road but this is the spot I remember. The house we lived in had neither a driveway nor a tall privacy hedge when we lived there. The flats opposite the church in the background were a car garage when we lived there (at least latterly).
Posted 7 years ago # -
Draw the following Venn diagram
CCE posters, people who grew up on farms, people who cycle regularly?
I grew up across the road from a farm, does that count? In the 70s, Bonaly Farm had yet to be swallowed up by housing and was a giant, sharp-edged playground for kids from the housing estate taking shape next door. It was barely functioning at the time but was fun to explore the barns and byres - and climb over all the huts that had been erected in the pre-portakabin era for the workies building the estate. It's now gone but some of the more substantial stone. buildings are now flats.
First cycling trips were taken on the streets of the estate, which were quite enough then to permit a regular game of football to take place on the road where the shop now is.
Posted 7 years ago # -
@AKen - would you care to reveal what years you were at Bonaly Primary (assuming you were)? Perhaps we overlapped?
Posted 7 years ago # -
It was known as 'the turning place', an area of tarmac at the top of our street used as a multi purpose space by the local kids. It had a row of spaced kerb stoned along one side which were used for slalom practice, or for bumping over. Once sufficiently experienced on the bike, you graduated to racing 'round the block'.
Posted 7 years ago # -
I don't remember clearly, but it must have been on the roads around here. I do remember I fall off into a rose bush. Or was that one of my sisters? Although I have written road I think we had to cycle on the pavements (this was the 1980s).
We were never allowed to cycle on the main A696, even though it is allegedly 30mph there. When I went back with a bike as an adult it took a while before I stopped feeling guilty about cycling there!
Posted 7 years ago # -
I learned on the off road paths around here.
A few early memories of cycling are:
Stabilizers coming off, and dad pushing me along the path next to the house on the right, and of me losing most of the skin on my left arm to the harling.
Another occasion soon after learning, we were zooming down the path just behind the grey wall to the right, and having not mastered braking yet, and my toes not being efficient enough at stopping I hit the wall, went over the handlebars, and smacked my head off the wall. No such thing as helmets in those days, I remember that dull thud like it was yesterday. There were many tears
We used to put a ramp at the bottom of the street at the kerb (before it was lowered, or the bolard wasthere), and used to race down the wee hill and jump off the ramp over people, my record was five. On one occasion I was going too fast, and somehow became detached from the bike, and landed on the road on my chin, resulting in an afternoon in Bangour hospital. Still have the scar on my chin now.
We also used to race down the wee hill, straight out onto the road, and along to the end of the street, round the LDC (Livingston Development Corporation) office and back down. There were rarely any cars on that street, and I don't ever remember being told to be careful by any of the parents. Guess parenting was more relaxed in the 70s/80s (I often got brought home by the police at 3 after being found miles away on my tractor, loved the path network even then ;) )
Almondell country park was also a frequent destination when we got a bit older, and had strikas and choppers that you could ride 5 or more miles on.
Posted 7 years ago # -
@AKen - would you care to reveal what years you were at Bonaly Primary (assuming you were)? Perhaps we overlapped?
I didn't go to school locally, but my wee sister and brother started in 77 and 78.
Posted 7 years ago # -
A few years up from me. I probably looked on them with awe as Big Kids!
Posted 7 years ago # -
Oh - just remembered the time stunts on the telly (potentially The Fall Guy?) had us taking turns on our bikes (and I think, less successfully, on rollerboots...) at jumping rows* of kids lying parallel to the short edge of an improvised plywood ramp. No-one was seriously injured (that I recall). Everyone had to have a shot at being part of the "jump" which probably help keep the jumps attempted within the realms of possibility.
*three to five? More probably three or less or there would have been landings on bodies.
Posted 7 years ago # -
Does tricycling also count?
If so here - http://www.tinyurl.com/yb2blj87. My first adventures on a bicycle would also be same/similar location!
Photographic evidence, https://twitter.com/jules878/status/882625959521910786, plus my 1969 Cycling Proficiency Certificate earned perhaps 3-4 years after this photo!
Posted 7 years ago # -
I have a tricycle for a child, it has a brake worked by rods. They go up the way rather than in the way. Sadly the block has worn out so the brake does not work.
I think I could probably still cycle it, such is the design. Also back axle Is worn at exactly where the wee brother or sister would have stood.
Posted 7 years ago # -
Well if we're going back to self-propelled transport with more than two wheels I debuted in the living room of the Bank Farm, Forth in about 1963.
Posted 7 years ago # -
Great breeks
Posted 7 years ago # -
@gembo re trikes - I'm the oldest of four kids. We're pretty closely spaced in age. So, when we had a back garden with a long strip of tarmac, and two trikes you could steer while standing on the back bar, it seemed logical to use spare bits of skipping rope to harness the younger two to them as horses in order that brother #1 and me could play Roman chariot racing. We thought this was an excellent game. Apparently it isn't so fondly remembered by brother #2 and wee sister.
Posted 7 years ago # -
@unhurt dems da breaks
Posted 7 years ago # -
A few years up from me. I probably looked on them with awe as Big Kids!
You were maybe too young to have used the home-made BMX track off Bonaly Road then? The fields across the road from the school were cleared for housing but then development stopped for some time - with the builders helpfully leaving piles of earth lying about that were made into jumps and abandoned bricks used to mark out the edges of the track.
It's now Bonaly Wester.
Posted 7 years ago #
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