After reading all those biking articles by Ed Pavelka from roadbikerider.com, it got me thinking about when I was a kid, way back when, lol. Back then we had single speed bikes, big old heavy things. But that was how we got around. Then one weekend we were at my Grandpas, he was the local Barber in town and he had what was called an English Racer, now to me, at that age, it was awesome, it was brown and had 2 baskets hanging over the rear fender and it had 3 speeds and a light that was run by a little generator spinning on the rear tire. Wow 3 speeds, that was like unheard of around my town. So I was talking to gramps about it and he said, ya know I never ride that old bike, would you like to take it home, well I just beamed and said would I ever, Thank You Grandpa.

Man was I just a beaming, riding that bike, 3 speeds, had that little shifter on the handle bar, man could I fly. The 2 baskets came in dang handy one day when I was down at the river fishing. I caught this big old carp, ya I know, a crap, we use to go to the bread factory and get loaves of bread they threw away and would roll a piece up into a ball, put it on a hook and bingo a big old carp would attack it, they were fun to catch. Anyways, I caught this huge one, in fact I had to jump into the water and wrestled it to shore. Now I was pretty dang proud of that big old carp, it was the biggest one I had ever caught. So I laid it over those Baskets on the bike, it was hanging out a lot on both side, but I got it home. I went into the house all excited to have Mom come out and see it, she walked out onto the steps and looked at it and said, that is one Big Carp, now go bury it in the garden, lol. So I dug a hole and laid that big old carp to rest.

Another time I had a crush on a girl we went camping with, so me and my best friend Rick and I rode our bikes 30 miles one way so I could say Hi! That took us all day, but it was worth it, she was a cutie. I can relate to that article about Bad Dogs, cause we ran into a few on the way to her house. Here we are in the middle of the country riding up hill and here comes this dog, ears back, hair standing up, he ran along side us snapping at our feet. Luckily it was at the top of a big hill and we were able to out run him. He was there on the way back to, but we put the tennies to the peddles and scooted past him, those 3 speeds came in handy that time, lol.

Memories, in the end that is all we have to take with us. I sure did have fun with that old bike, I graduated from that, to a motorcycle, that is a whole different subject, lol. I had ten speeds later in life and even owned a bike shop and repaired those old 3 speed gear boxes, they were fun. Don't get me wrong these new bikes are unreal, 20 speeds, light weight frames, just awesome bikes, but when ya get older you reflect back on the moments and things you had and the fun times you had with them.

Checkout those Biking Articles Articles Start Page see if they bring forth a few Biking Memories for you too!