I have this core memory about bikes. I was five or six years old, standing in front of our house on Brookside Drive in East Greenwich, RI. My brother, who was eight years older, stood talking to some kids his age. One of them, whose name was Jamie, was on a blue ten speed. Their conversation ended, and then Jamie turned, pulled a wheelie, and rode it the entire length of our street, back to his house.
My small brain exploded. That a trick so simple and beautiful could exist said something about the world that I was very prepared to hear.
Ten speeds were too big for kids my age, but BMX bikes were just proliferating. It was the mid ’70s. Evel Kinevil was on the TV. BMX was on Wide World of Sports. For the first time in my very short life, I could see a path to glory.
I’m not riding a BMX bike anymore (but I don’t rule it out), and I’ve got a series of memories like this, the first time I saw a mountain bike, the first time I clipped into a pair of road pedals (and the first time I fell over after not clipping out), the first time I realized a bike could take me anywhere, but the spark for it all was seeing this one shaggy-haired teenager ride a wheelie down a suburban side street in Rhode Island. I don’t even know that kid’s last name.
And yet, here we are.
This week’s TCI Friday wonder what your first bike memory is. What was the spark that lit the fire?